Semana Santa: Expressing awe at weight of religious floats

💬 With numbers, "more than" is mais de, not mais que: mais de cem pessoas "more than a hundred people".

💬 Que + a describing word or a thing makes an exclamation: Que bonito! "How beautiful!", Que força!

🇵🇹 Pois é is a very Portuguese nod of agreement, heard constantly in casual chat. It's warm and works with anyone.

💬 Words ending in -em change to -ens when there's more than one: homem becomes homens. Both endings are nasal, with no clear n sound at the end.

💬 a + an action word (a carregar) is how Portugal says "-ing". Brazil says carregando instead. You'll hear estou a comer "I'm eating" everywhere.

💬 ficar + a describing word means "to get" or "to become": ficar cansado, ficar contente "to get happy".

💬 The -am ending sounds nasal, almost like -ão: roughly (TRO-kow), with a nasal ow. The same goes for ficam and carregam.

💬 em + quando stays separate, but note that vez here means "time", as in "one time", not clock time. You'll also see it in às vezes "sometimes" and outra vez "again".

🇵🇹 The bearers are often members of a local brotherhood, called a irmandade, and carrying the float is considered an honour, often passed down in families.

💬 obrigado matches the speaker, not the listener. Men say obrigado and women say obrigada.

💬 The ending -ção is nasal, roughly (soung). It often matches English "-tion": explicação, procissão has the same sound.

💬 pela is por + a merged, and it's what "for" becomes after "thank you". A woman says obrigada, with an a at the end, because the word agrees with the speaker.

💬 aproveitar means "to make the most of", so it's a little stronger than "enjoy". Aproveite is the polite form you'd say to a stranger. With a friend it's aproveita.

💬 The ending ão is a nasal sound, roughly like "ow" said through the nose: (proo-see-SOWN). The first vowel is so weak it almost disappears.

🇵🇹 This is a friendly send-off a local might give a visitor after explaining things. Replying Obrigado, igualmente "thanks, likewise" fits nicely.