Speaka de lingo?

[andywild]

So, in preparation for my upcoming Camino ..(have I mentioned that I plan to walk the portugese.. from Porto September 18th?).. I've decided to learn portugese.. admittedly I may have left it a bit late.. I tried making a list of all the important phrases that I may need but so far I can only think of one ..

quantas milhas para o rei mais próximo de hambúrguer?

Apart from "how many miles to the nearest burger king?" Can anyone think of any other phrases that may come in handy?

As always I thank you for your invaluable input
Love and hugs
Andy.

 

[Dorpie]

Wish I could help. All I can say is that the scant Spanish I picked up just meant that I alienated the Portuguese as I tried to "spanish" their words. Best stick to looking like an idiot in your mother tongue in my experience, simplifies things significantly.

 

[Robo]

You might need to explain to them what a mile is

 

[andywild]

You might need to explain to them what a mile is

Excellent!! My second phrase is now

uma milha equivale a 1,6 quilômetros

I think this portugese language is in the bag!

 

[nycwalking]

Well, I see you are heading for a truly bom caminho.

 

[Kanga]

Mine would be "Who has the best pastel de nata in town"?

 

[JCLima]

quantas milhas para o rei mais próximo de hambúrguer?

You just asked how many miles to the king closest to burguer LOL So, dont use that phrase.

 

[andywild]

You just asked how many miles to the king closest to burguer LOL So, dont use that phrase.

Curse you Google translate !!

 

[Jan_D]

Love this site, run by Carla, who is from Alentejo (i.e. it's not Brazilian Portuguese, which seems to be the case wit most free online material!): https://portuguesewithcarla.com/100-common-expressions/

Carla (and her husband Marlon) also have a weekly podcast, if you want to listen to a more extensive conversation between native speakers to pick up on the rhythm and intonation - think it's over 50 episodes now, so lots of material to work with or just listen to in the background. Their website's a little difficult to navigate so I'll post the link for the podcast here: https://portuguesewithcarla.com/podcast2/ (podcast 1 is mainly introduction so sending you straight to podcast 2. They'll get more complicated as you go on...)

 

[John Sikora]

Obrigado - thank you
Por favor - please
Fala ingles? - Do you speak English
Desculpe - Excuse me
Desculpe, nao falo Portuguese. - sorry, I don’t speak Portuguese.

I’m walking it right know and actually have a lot of success with iTranslate Pro on my IPhone. Had a long conversation with a desk clerk who spoke no English but had a similar app. It was funny. Both of us typing and then showing the phone to the other. Worked quite well however.

 

[Mike Savage]

The phrase I probably use the most is "um meia de leite por favor"

Bom caminho!

 

[BlackDog]

Mine would be "Who has the best pastel de nata in town"?

Or even Pasteis de Nata as I am sure you want them to have more than one

 

[Camino Chrissy]

I spent two weeks in Portugal touring by car last year. Quite a few of the locals do speak English. The only word I learned, but used many times each day, was "obrigado"...which means "thankyou".

 

[Jeff Crawley]

The Portuguese can be very formal in their speech. I think this might help you:

Com licença, eu sou apenas um estrangeiro ignorante vagando pelo seu lindo país. Você poderia, por favor, dirigir-me ao estabelecimento mais próximo, onde eles servem comida gordurosa?

The Spanish equivalent would be something like:

Disculpe, no soy más que un extranjero ignorante vagando por su hermoso país. ¿Podría dirigirme al establecimiento más cercano donde sirven comida grasosa?

It's a tad verbose so you might want to write it down. Better still install Google Translate on your phone along with the off-line Portuguese and Spanish dictionaries

 

[gheggie]

'Do you speak English?' might be useful?

 

[gheggie]

LOL

 

[MichelleElynHogan]

So, in preparation for my upcoming Camino ..(have I mentioned that I plan to walk the portugese.. from Porto September 18th?).. I've decided to learn portugese.. admittedly I may have left it a bit late.. I tried making a list of all the important phrases that I may need but so far I can only think of one ..

quantas milhas para o rei mais próximo de hambúrguer?

Apart from "how many miles to the nearest burger king?" Can anyone think of any other phrases that may come in handy?

As always I thank you for your invaluable input
Love and hugs
Andy.

Hi Andy,

First off, I believe going through a short collection of youtube videos, for learning Spanish, will give you a good list of phrases that are necessary on the Caminho. Now, having said that, Portuguese and Spanish are very similar languages. So, if you spend your time on learning Spanish, I doubt that it will be wasted. Here is a link to the first one;

What I did, was copy all the phrases from Youtube into a small notebook so I had them with me. Beyond that, I did study Spanish for a few months on DuoLingo (Smartphone app), and found it very helpful, especially building confidence in using a new language.

Believe me, even making an attempt at conversing in the native language, apologizing for not being fluent, will get you a very long way. They will then understand the respect that you are trying to give them, and that is the secret. That is true communication.

Buon Caminho

Obrigado!!!

 

[dfunghi]

Desculpe, nao falo Portuguese. - sorry, I don’t speak Portuguese.

You get enormous milage out of that instead of starting with

Fala ingles? - Do you speak English

People really respond well to an apology for not speaking the native tongue as the first words they hear.

 

[Jeff Crawley]

You might need to explain to them what a mile is

Unless you're talking to a sailor

 

[Deleted member 67185]

So, in preparation for my upcoming Camino ..(have I mentioned that I plan to walk the portugese.. from Porto September 18th?).. I've decided to learn portugese.. admittedly I may have left it a bit late.. I tried making a list of all the important phrases that I may need but so far I can only think of one ..

quantas milhas para o rei mais próximo de hambúrguer?

Apart from "how many miles to the nearest burger king?" Can anyone think of any other phrases that may come in handy?

As always I thank you for your invaluable input
Love and hugs
Andy.

Forget Burger King... how do you say, "Where is the nearest 5 Guys hamburger joint?"

 

[lt56ny]

I walked the Camino Portugues last Sept/Oct. I would say I am a lower intermediate Spanish speaker. There are more people in Portugal that speak English than in Spain. Have a translator of course. But I will tell you the people in Portugal are UNBELIEVABLY wonderful. They are caring, generous and kind. I walked with a friend of mine who can’t even say more than a few words of Spanish. Often we walked separately. He said he never had a problem. Even when no one spoke English he was always well cared for. Once I was so in another world I walked about 5k in the wrong direction. I had also walked down a very long and very steep hill.
It was starting to rain. I was looking at my Brierly trying to figure out where I was. A taxi driver stopped and before I knew it he flagged down 2 more cars. They figured it would be about am10k drive to get me back on the Camino by driving.
I said I could walk. The taxi driver told me in Spanish he would not go to work if I didn’t get in the car and let him drive me. He also then said in very poor English that I’d i tried to give him money it would dishonor him. What else could I do???? The Portuguese are THE BEST!!!!

 

[Jackie Robinson]

So, in preparation for my upcoming Camino ..(have I mentioned that I plan to walk the portugese.. from Porto September 18th?).. I've decided to learn portugese.. admittedly I may have left it a bit late.. I tried making a list of all the important phrases that I may need but so far I can only think of one ..

quantas milhas para o rei mais próximo de hambúrguer?

Apart from "how many miles to the nearest burger king?" Can anyone think of any other phrases that may come in handy?

As always I thank you for your invaluable input
Love and hugs
Andy.

I tried learning some phrases prior to setting off on my Camino but somewhat shamefully ended up getting through it with just "Do you speak SEnglish" and/or "I'm sorry, I don't speak Spanish"

 

[Ed Aster]

I did the Portuguese in May and had no problems language wise, my Spanish is OK and helped. The Portuguese people are wonderful and very helpful. I have also done the Frances and must say I found the time spent in Portugal more to my liking

 

[hel&scott]

Never saw a Burger King in all our travels in Portugal, never had any problems with language despite my Portuguse being limited to please and thank you.

Have learnt not to let loose my appalling Spamish on the Portuguse, or the French for that matter. Scott was a master in international mime, I have found a little effort in local lingo always appreciated but most people speak English better then I speak their native tongue.

 

[jungleboy]

A few things:

The Portuguese word for thank you is cognate with the English 'obligated', as in, 'I am obligated (to you)', and because adjectives agree in gender in Portuguese, men say obrigado and women say obrigada (with the stress on the second last syllable, as usual in multi-syllable words in Portuguese unless otherwise indicated with accents).

To say please in Portugal, se faz favor is more common than por favor.

In Portugal, você (cited above) is not used in the singular, unlike in Brazil. Instead, tu is the informal and o senhor / a senhora is the formal. You can also use the person's name in the third person to be semi-formal.

Portuguese people are friendly but in general they don't like it when you speak Spanish to them. Not only are they separate languages, but there is a whole other language (Galician Spanish) 'between' them. As far as comprehension goes, Portuguese speakers understand Spanish speakers better than Spanish speakers understand Portuguese speakers (true in both Europe and South America).

See this comment from the Practice Portuguese podcast on Facebook to get an idea of how the Portuguese feel about having Spanish spoken to them:



Boa sorte!

 

[WalkingJane]

Love this site, run by Carla, who is from Alentejo (i.e. it's not Brazilian Portuguese, which seems to be the case wit most free online material!): https://portuguesewithcarla.com/100-common-expressions/

Carla (and her husband Marlon) also have a weekly podcast, if you want to listen to a more extensive conversation between native speakers to pick up on the rhythm and intonation - think it's over 50 episodes now, so lots of material to work with or just listen to in the background. Their website's a little difficult to navigate so I'll post the link for the podcast here: https://portuguesewithcarla.com/podcast2/ (podcast 1 is mainly introduction so sending you straight to podcast 2. They'll get more complicated as you go on...)

This is really helpful, Carla. The pronunciation is so tricky for English speakers, and as you mention, Brazilian Portuguese is sometimes quite different. The Portuguese are amazingly kind whenever estrangeiros attempt to speak their language, so I encourage pilgrims to listen to your podcast and then try.

 

[valevenga]

I walked the Camino Portugues last Sept/Oct. I would say I am a lower intermediate Spanish speaker. There are more people in Portugal that speak English than in Spain. Have a translator of course. But I will tell you the people in Portugal are UNBELIEVABLY wonderful. They are caring, generous and kind. I walked with a friend of mine who can’t even say more than a few words of Spanish. Often we walked separately. He said he never had a problem. Even when no one spoke English he was always well cared for. Once I was so in another world I walked about 5k in the wrong direction. I had also walked down a very long and very steep hill.
It was starting to rain. I was looking at my Brierly trying to figure out where I was. A taxi driver stopped and before I knew it he flagged down 2 more cars. They figured it would be about am10k drive to get me back on the Camino by driving.
I said I could walk. The taxi driver told me in Spanish he would not go to work if I didn’t get in the car and let him drive me. He also then said in very poor English that I’d i tried to give him money it would dishonor him. What else could I do???? The Portuguese are THE BEST!!!!

After walking the Norte, I headed to Portugal ....both Porto and Lisbon....I found that most Portuguese people speak English very well..and yes, I agree, more speak English in Portugal than in Spain....however, I’m all for encouraging travelers to learn the native language....

 

[lt56ny]

I am still working on English!!!!! Learning some words and expressions sure couldn’t hurt.