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I’m thrilled to publish another video from the series Learn Brazilian Portuguese with Songs. These lessons are a collaboration between Susanna Zaraysky, author of the book Language is Music, and Luciana Lage, fromStreet Smart Brazil, co-author of the book 51 Portuguese Idioms - Speak Like a Brazilian. In these lessons we use Brazilian songs to teach you Portuguese and we contrast Spanish and Portuguese to discuss pronunciation and grammar. Make sure you check out Video 1 and Video 2  as well. READ MORE>

Street Smart Brazil will give away two tickets to see the opening of Tropa de Elite 2 - Elite Squad: The Enemy Within in San Francisco on February 10th at the Four Star Theatre. The movie is Brazil's official entry for this year's Academy Awards. You will see it uncut and undubbed for the first time in the big screen here in the US. These tickets are a gift from Variance Films and Flatiron Films. READ MORE>

(source: onordeste.com)

Much like the prohibition of slave gatherings in earlier times, the Bahian upper class in the early 1900’s didn’t like the idea that free blacks and those of mixed race could gather for any reason. In the face of a dominant European culture, the descendants of slaves were strengthening their own culture in their own way, and Afro-Brazilian religion was no exception. READ MORE>

This is the second video in our series Learn Brazilian Portuguese with Songs. These lessons are a collaboration between Susanna Zaraysky, author of the book Language is Music, and Luciana Lage, from Street Smart Brazil, co-author of the book 51 Portuguese Idioms - Speak Like a Brazilian. We are going to use Brazilian songs to teach you Portuguese. Additionally, we are going to contrast Spanish and Portuguese to discuss pronunciation and grammar. READ MORE>

I am thrilled to post the first video of the new series Learn Brazilian Portuguese with Songs in collaboration with Susanna Zaraysky, author of the book Language is Music.

Below the video is the transcript of our interview. Enjoy! READ MORE>

Our lesson today is about pronunciation. I get a lot of questions from students asking about the sound of the letters D. This video will show you the pronunciation of the D syllable by syllable. READ MORE>

(musicabrasileira.org)

With so many styles of music in Brazil, from sertanejo to mangue bit, bossa nova to funk, how is anyone supposed to know everything? It's not even a title I claim for myself though my musical quest did start 10 years ago. The first song I remember hearing from Brazil was either Zeca Baleiro's Essas Emoções or Max de Castro’s Onda Diferente. After that, I went commercial and listened to anything I could find playing on Brazilian radio stations. It was my way of feeling closer to Brazil despite being half a world away. It wasn’t long after that I started finding my own taste and that’s what I want to offer you now, some singers and songs you may not have heard of yet. READ MORE>

(Bumbódromo, Wikipedia)

Except for 3 days out of the year, Parintins is another quiet city in the middle of the Amazon forest. Ok...so maybe it isn't any ol' city since it is located on the Tupinambarana island, the second largest group of fluvial islands in the world (it used to be one giant island but four natural channels of water now run through it). The island is also known for the Sateré Mawé tribe who  are famous for their initiation rites ritual in which a soon-to-be warrior places his hand into a glove of angry 'bullet' ants...repeatedly. READ MORE>

This old Brazilian song called Amigo é pra essas coisas was popping in my mind for no apparent reason. The lyrics are a dialogue between old friends who meet at a bar. One of them is feeling pretty down because his girlfriend broke up with him. You know how they say that there is a reason for something to insist on popping in your mind? Last week, while singing it in the shower, it occurred to me that Portuguese learners would benefit a lot from the song. It is a casual dialogue between friends and although it was written a few decades ago, most of its language is still current and useful. READ MORE>

(source)

Before there was the oh-so-famous samba, there was the jongo, which is an African "belly-bumping" (umbigada) dance that can be traced back to a Bantu people of modern-day Angola. The belly-bump, in Kimbundu (a Bantu language), is known as the "semba", which is where the word "samba" comes from. READ MORE>