Brazilian Carnival - Frevo Hello guys! [emoji][emoji] The Brazilian Carnival season officially started today and I'd love sharing with y'all some videos about our parties ;). I want to do it for a main reason: a lot of foreigners don't know exactly how is the Brazilian Carnival. I've been talking to some foreign friends and most of them just have an only point of view about our Carnival, with beautiful, drunk people half-naked, beer, samba and some things like these. Well, that's true, but that's not all. Brazil is big and has a beautiful, rich, diverse culture. So, at this season, it's possible to find out a lot of parties, that reveal traditions and customs of different folks. For example, have you ever heard about "Carnaval de Olinda"? Olinda is a city of Pernambuco State (which is located in the northeast region of my country, also, in my opinion, the region with the most wonderful accent in Brazil) where happens a beautiful party with a typical dance, wich is called "Frevo". I can't describe how wonderful this dance is, but you can see for yourself by the video below. As I was saying, all in all the Frevo is a dance with a lot of colours, and basically people dance with a colorful umbrella and do hard movements, as splits and big jumps. Sadly I've never seen someone dancing "Frevo" in person =( and I would love to learn it, seeing that I'm a dancer and I love all the types of dance. I'm so proud the traditional dances of my country, so hope to see it as soon as possible when I visit Pernambuco. Here is a video with a brief Frevo's history! [emoji] https://youtu.be/JggqCvVlhPQ

English learning tips for my classmates For my classmates[emoji]: Probably y'all know some of them, but I'd like to share this tip anyway: I created an Inst4gram account focused to follow accounts that help me with English. I did that because nowadays it's common we get lost with to much content. So, twice a day, I open this account and focus in my studies. It's a laid-back way to learn English. Here are all accounts I chose to follow up. Each one of them helps me in different ways, for example: Mairo Vergara everyday shares AMAZING pronunciation tips (Why does any thing sound easier when he's talking about? Haha [emoji]). Whereas the account "Inglesnativo" shares tips with valuable idiomatic expressions. Anyway, these are just two examples, but I recommend to check it out all of them. ;) None of them worries a lot with grammar rules, the principal focus is to help us to assimilate the language in a natural way. That's awesome for me because many things that they say I can realize when I talk to native speaker. Btw, since I started to follow them, I got a new point of view about language exchange: it's easier for me to learn by myself and practice with someone in an informal way. Don't wait for a language partner to teach you everything or to correct you all the time, that would be boring. Maybe they could be a way to realize, practice and take in everything that you're learning in another ways, either at your English class or anything else. ] Hope that would be helpful for someone! ;)

Uso do SEU/SUA/ MEU/MINHA Portuguese Tips

Other typical mistake that I usually realize non-natives making:

SUA/ SEU/ MINHA/MEU

First, I know and I may agree with some people when I hear something like this: "Whyyyyyy most of the Portuguese words have a genre?".  I never know to explain why, but that's true! In my language it's common each word to belong to a "male" or "female" category and as long as you know which category each one of them belongs you should to use other specifics words to matchup with that.
For example:

Este é o seu guarda-chuva.  (This is your umbrella).

Esta é a sua saia. (This is your skirt)

In the first example "seu" means "your" but we write in this way because "guarda-chuva" is a "male word" and in the second one we use "sua" because "saia" is a "female word".

Well, before you agree with me how weird this could be, just catch up this rule: we use "seu/meu" to refer male words and "sua/minha" to refer "female words". There are another words like these, but maybe I'll talk about that someday.

More examples:

Quantos anos seu namorado tem? (How old is your boyfriend?)

Como vai sua mãe? (How is your mom going?)

Hoje é aniversário do meu pai! (Today is my father's birthday).


If you're an English speaker probably you have asked yourself "How to find out the gender of the words as far as that doesn't exist in English". Well my tip is: just learn like most of people learn, naturally. Just keep reading, listening to and chatting with natives and realizing as much as you can the ways which we use these words and you'll be able to use those in the correct way soon. =)

Here are some daily setences:

Meu/seu carro
Meu/seu namorado
Meu/seu pai/filho/irmão/avô (or any male relative)
Meu/seu cachorro
Meu/seu gato
Meu/seu trabalho
Meu/seu amigo
Meu/seu escritório
Meu/seu amor

Minha/sua casa
Minha/sua família
Minha/sua faculdade/universidade
Minha/sua mãe/irmã/avó (or any female relative)
Minha/sua namorada
Minha/sua amiga

That's all. I hope that will be useful. ;*

Main difference between "Ser" and "Estar" in Portuguese

I've been helping some people I've met in all the language exchange apps that I use and I decided to share some tips for common Portuguese mistakes that I always realize when I talk to non-natives and I need to correct. I'll try to do it as well as I can and thereby practice my English, so here's the first of them:<o:p></o:p>

SER/ESTAR:

So many people have the same doubt and it’s ok since in other languages the verb “To be” is used in both cases. But in portuguese “SER” and “ESTÁ” have differents meanings. I’ll give some examples for it to be more understanable. <o:p></o:p>

I’m so happy today (Eu ESTOU tão feliz hoje!)
How are you feeling today? (Como você ESTÁ se sentindo hoje?)
Where is she right now? (Onde ela ESTÁ agora?)
You can notice that in all the examples above “estar” expressing a transitional thing or situation. Of course I can “be happy” forever and ever, so in this case “Eu SOU uma pessoa feliz” <o:p></o:p>

More examples: <o:p></o:p>

Who are you? (Quem É você?)
I’m a Brazilian Girl (Eu SOU uma garota brasileira)
I’m a black woman (Eu SOU uma mulher negra)
Laura is vegetarian. (Ela É vegetariana) <o:p></o:p>

In these cases you can realize that “SER/É” are used to express a condition or, let’s just say, a “permanent, longlasting” thing. Of course it’s not an extreme rule. For example: Laura É vegetariana, but that doesn’t mean she’ll always be a vegetarian, of course, but we use “É” in this case. <o:p></o:p>

Other examples with both uses: <o:p></o:p>

Laura is happy for the varied, vegan menu because she’s vegetarian and finally she has many choices. <o:p></o:p>

Laura ESTÁ feliz pelo variado cardápio vegano, porque ela É vegetariana e finalmente ela tem muitas escolhas para fazer. <o:p></o:p>

I’m sleepy now. Actually I’m always sleepy because I’m a lazy girl. <o:p></o:p>

Eu ESTOU sonolenta agora. Na verdade, eu ESTOU sempre com sono porque eu SOU uma garota preguiçosa.

That’s all. I hope that would be helpfull for someone. [emoji] <o:p></o:p>

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