Meaning of assim que der, lágrimas de crocodilo and other stuff

Meaning of assim que der, lágrimas de crocodilo and other stuff

Hello and welcome to our Portuguese Basic Tips 65 (in English) called Meaning of assim que der, lágrimas de crocodilo and other stuff

On today’s episode, we are going to keep talking about informal expressions in Portuguese that Brazilian people use all the time, such as “assim que der”, “lágrimas de crocodilo” and so forth.

Let’s get started!

Listen to our previous episode called Meaning of a preço de banana and other expressions in Portuguese

Assim que der

First, let’s try to understand the expression “assim”, when it comes accompanied by the particle “que”, in Portuguese: assim que.

We are not talking about an informal expression so far. Assim que is a formal term that means “as soon as”. So, we often use expressions such as “assim que possível” (as soon as possible), “assim que eu vi” (as soon as I’ve seen  it) and so forth.

It turns out that we, Brazilians, often use the verb “dar” (to give), in an informal way, meaning “to be able to”, “to be possible to do something”.

How’s that?  For instance: não vai dar para ir te ver hoje! (I can’t see you today! It will be impossible for me meeting you today)

See? So, when I say “assim der der”, I informally mean “as soon as I can”, “as soon as possible”.

Lágrimas de crocodilo

Another informal expression we use all the time is “lágrimas de crocodilo”, which literally means “crocodile tears”. To be honest, I know the expression exists in English too, but I don’t know if people use it so often, as we do in Brazil.  We use “lágrimas de crocodilo” when we want to mean that someone is crying “fake tears”. Someone is lying to you as he is crying; this is not a genuine feeling.

For instance:

• Não acredite nela. Esse choro é falso: são lágrimas de crocodilo.
• Don’t believe her! She is not really crying.

PT

No, I’m not speaking of the famous group of politicians we have here in Brazil. “PT” is short for the term “perda total”. If you have a car insurance company, you may know that they have their own vocabulary. PT is used when someone is involved in a serious car crash and there is no way to repair it – there’s nothing left to do with the car. So they say: o carro deu perda total, meaning you need a new vehicle or your money back.

As time passed, people start using this slang in other situations, for example:

• Ontem eu dei PT naquela festa. (I got drunk yesterday at the party)
• Ontem dei PT, quando cheguei do trabalho (Yesterday, after work, I was exhausted )

  171

Um sete um. See, I’m not saying “cento e setenta e um”. The way people use this slang is “um sete um”.  It refers to an article from Brazilian penal code to sentence people that fraud documents.

However, this is popularly applied when you want to call someone “a liar” or if you think this person isn’t reliable enough.

For instance:

• Ela caiu no golpe “daquele 171”. (She was victim of a scheme from that liar!)
• Fulano é um 171! (That guy is a liar. Don’t trust him).

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Click on the link to visit a Brazilian slang dictionary

That’s enough for today!

I hope you like it.

Marcos Sales

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