Hello guys,

since you are trying to learn Brazilian Portuguese, I propose you a little challenge: you'll write a composition in this thread, and I'll tell you how fluent you are in Portuguese. I'll wait for the first 10 compositions and then stop, checking each one. Here's your challenge:

Write about the person you love the admire the most in your life, and why (limit: 250 words.)



Edited by Megabyte - 03 April 2012 at 17:07

Originally posted by 3casas Thanks, but I'll pass- if I wanted someone to criticise my abilities I have 3 nasty cunhadas who are always very happy to tell me all about my faults......

I'm not evil. I just want to see how well you fare.

Originally posted by sven I'll pass too. The last thing I wrote in Portuguese was a 28 page legal appeal. I'll just let 3 judges decide on whether I'm fluent enough.

Legalese doesn't count as Portuguese, you know.

Originally posted by sven Mine does. I don't write juridiques. Just contemporary Portuguese.

Yeah, I'm dead sure writing to a judge "Me dá a liberdade de falar sobre o meu cliente, senhor juiz" won't make him frown at all. Judges love contemporary Portuguese, don't they?

Edited by Megabyte - 03 April 2012 at 19:41

Originally posted by sven Besides the fact that they like to be called excelencia, and the fact that in a written piece the phrase doesn't make much sense, in a session of the juizados especiais I don't see much wrong with it. I remember writing to a judge: Hoje em dia, o carioca, além de ter que fazer um zig-zag na rua para fugir do campo minado criado pelos bueiros bomba, agora tem que se preocupar com postes de luz prestes a cair. Not much juridiques in there.

True. It was a bad example. That spoken sentence wouldn't make sense being written. But that's contemporary spoken Portuguese, and it just shows how far the written language is compared to the spoken language.

Anyway, your Portuguese is very nice! Just a few things I'd like to point out.

1. "O carioca" is an essential element in your sentence, so you can't separate it from the beginning of the sentence using commas.

2. The Brazilian Portuguese counterpart of zigzag is not zig-zag. It's "zigue-zague" (closer to the way we speak it.)

3. "Bueiros-bomba" is hyphenized. It's a compound adjective.

The most problematic part of your sentence is item no. 1. Let's see how it gets, reworded.

O carioca, hoje em dia, além de ter que fazer um zigue-zague na rua para fugir dos bueiros-bomba, agora tem que se preocupar com postes de luz prestes a cair.

Now the sentence structure is correct, but it still looks a bit awkward. Here is a better rewording of your sentence.

Não só o carioca tem que fazer um zigue-zague na rua para fugir dos bueiros-bomba hoje em dia, como também tem que se preocupar com os postes de luz prestes a cair.

Edited by Megabyte - 03 April 2012 at 21:03