Luciana Lage's blog

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>

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>

What would you answer in the following situation? You are in Brazil and you meet your friend to go out for dinner:

YOU: Oi, tudo bem?
YOUR FRIEND: Nossa! Tô um bagaço. Bati perna o dia todo resolvendo coisas.
YOU: O quê?
YOUR FRIEND: Vamos? Estou verde de fome! E hoje vamos colocar o papo em dia :)
YOU: Ummmm... OK.

Colloquial expressions are a big part of life. In Brazil, they challenge even advanced students who often feel frustrated when they are among their Brazilian friends and participate in dialogues that are always full of idiomatic expressions. READ MORE>

I am excited! Our flashcard app is now available on Amazon App Store. This will make it super easy for Amazon customers to download our FREE app.

For those of you who are new here, we created this app to help you speak Portuguese with confidence both socially and professionally. This first set of cards is free and contains 200 complete sentences for you to practice verb conjugation, build vocabulary, and improve your command of general grammar. The video below will show you how it works. READ MORE>

I notice an interesting difference between the way we express opinions using the verb gostar in Portuguese and to like in English. Let’s see an example: When I watch a cool video posted by a friend on Facebook, I might write this comment:

• “Gostei”

or

• “Adorei”

Notice that I say this in the past tense. In English, I’d use the present tense: READ MORE>

É isso aí, vamos conversar! Conversation group class starts November 10.

This is another great partnership between Street Smart Brazil and Abadá Capoeira Arts Center.  READ MORE>

With the growth of social media in our lives I have decided to focus on the Street Smart Brazil Facebook community and close down our forum here on the site. The current forum content will still be available for search. As for new questions and discussions, I encourage you to use our Facebook community where you will find colloquial vocabulary, music, events, and news about Brazil. I will be happy to answer your questions there and will be thrilled to hear about your experience with Portuguese and Brazil.  READ MORE>