So what did I learn? For starters that I need to learn a lot more Portuguese. But that aside, I did learn how to order an unsweet tea.
Quero um chá sem açúcar
I want an unsweet tea
Well, Literally that means "I want tea without sugar", if we want to get all technical about it. But I think the figurative translation I gave sounds better.
I asked the waitress what her name was using como se chama?, and she explained to me that while that is indeed the correct way to ask someone their name, it was very formal and recommend I go with Como eu seu nome instead. Too bad I didn't ask her how to say waitress. Oh well, there's always next time.
Besides my chá (tea), I ordered a black bean wrap and I asked her how to translate that to Portuguese. To be honest, I really didn't expect there to be a good translation, but she suggested that the closest translation might be a sandwich natural, which she described as various types of open-faced sandwiches in Brazil. I Googled "sandwich natural" looking for fotos (pictures), and the results I got were spot on with her descriptions.
While this foto matched the description of a wrap, my Google search also revealed a variety of pictures of traditional sandwiches, hamburgers, etc as well. Apparently there is more than one type of sandwich natural. I guess I'll have to go to Brazil to solve this mystery. Or maybe I'll start with a local Brazilian Restaurant.
Anyway, I ended up needing a to go box, and to ask for that you can say:
Posso ter uma caixa pra levar?
Can I have a to go box?
I didn't actually know that, so that was something else I learned.
I asked her numerous questions, but the last thing I asked her was to teach me something really cool, and she came up with the expression fala ae.
Fala ae
What's up?
Apparently there's more than one spelling. As I was trying to learn a little more about expression I came across fala aí as well. And that made me think about the expression e aí I learned some time ago.
When I first came across this expression, e aí, I was told it means "what's up?", or something very close to that. It's an informal greeting. Later I came across this video from Street Smart Brazil that gave me some more insight, so hopefully you'll find it helpful as well.
I mentioned I asked my waitress numerous questions. Well, she was kind enough to write down nearly everything we talked about. Here are my notes for your viewing pleasuring.
That's it for today. I hope you enjoyed this post and learned something new.
Até logo!
