Brazilian (?) Finger Snap

Over our nice Sunday lunch of leftovers (gasp!  So NOT Brazilian...), we started talking about the Brazilian Finger Snap:



None of us can do it.  What does it mean?  My husband said he thinks it's just for emphasis.  But I think it's more to indicate that someone had to hurry (used when someone is telling a story, and they get to the party where the said person had to move fast or work hard), or indicating something was hard, someone had to work hard, etcetera.  I don't know if I would say this is a uniquely "Brazilian" trait, because I had a friend from Argentina who would do this ALL THE TIME.  But I thought I'd share this because it is a quirky little cultural thing that I encounter every day.  And maybe some day I'll learn how to do it...

Portuguese homework: O Barquinho

Hi there!  My wonderful Portuguese teacher has given me some homework that I'm enjoying so much, I thought I'd share it with you.  Mostly what she does in class is makes me correct all my bad pronunciation.  And there's a lot.  And she is a stickler.  She doesn't let me get away with it.  Here are some of the words I have a REALLY hard time with

trabalho (that nasty LH combo is really tricky for us gringos)
engatinhar (to crawl, NH is another challenge)
pão (bread, the nasal "ão" kind of sounds like ouuuwwww....kind of)
anything ending in M

and that's just a few.  But here's the homework that I'm liking.  Enjoy some nice music for your Friday afternoon:

My first podcast

Hi there!  Well with my celebrity status as a blogger, I get requests.  I usually have to fight off the crowds, and wear my sunglasses in public...

But seriously, I was asked to do a podcast with Kinsey at Brazilianisms (check out more on the website.  There's a lot of interesting stuff).  He just posted it.  Enjoy!

http://tvindy.typepad.com/brazilianisms/2012/09/episode-73-an-interview-with-shelley.html