Author: pracaramba

hi everyone, my name is Seb and welcome back to Pra Caramba, a podcast I created to help you improve your Brazilian accent, one episode at the time.

You could fluently speak any second language and still sound far from native. Why is that? Obviously, everyone has a different accent, even from native speaker to native speaker but what makes an accent recognizable? I would say there’s an informal collection of characteristics that constitutes what I like to call the musicality of any language variant and Brazilian portuguese is not exempt from this, far from it. 

the method I’ve created for myself and now sharing with you has one goal and one goal only: improve your accent. To do this, i say a sentence for the first time, give you some time to repeat out loud, then i repeat it, leave you time to repeat it and then move to the next sentence. The most important part is to focus on imitating the sounds, as exaggerated as you can. this works best if you repeat the exercise twice in a row, at least once a day.

What you’ll see over time is that a muscle memory will develop in your mouth, leaving you with increasingly more brain power to focus on what you want to say as pronunciation, rhythm and intonation will all have just become a second nature. when doing the exercise, don’t hesitate to hit pause and say it the sentences word by word until it starts to sound right.

focus on perfecting, not on trying to be perfect.

here are the sentences:

1. A praia hoje está linda.
2. Hoje eu quero só relaxar e ouvir um pouco de música.
3. Volta no centro e depois tomar um sorvete.
4. Meu primo chegou de viagem.
5. Quando anoitece, a gente sente a brisa suave vindo do mar.
6. A festa no sábado vai ser incrível.
7. Com muita música e gente animada.
8. A festa no sábado vai ser incrível, com muita música e gente animada.
9. A gente se encontra depois do trabalho pra tomar um chopinho.
10. No domingo, a gente vai passear no Jardim Botânico e tirar umas fotos.
11. Meu amigo vai me ensinar a tocar um samba no violão.
12. Quando chove, eu adoro ficar em casa, lendo um livro e ouvindo o barulho da chuva.

That’s it for today. I recommend sticking to at least one episode per week, repeating it twice a day, back to back.. Let me know in the comments if there’s a sentence from a movie that you find cool and would like to see included in the next lesson!. Thanks, and see you for the next episode!

— Seb

hi everyone, my name is Seb and welcome to Pra Caramba’s first episode.

the reason for being of this podcast is to help you improve your Brazilian sotaque (that is to say your accent) and your pronunciation, one episode at the time.

before we start, this method that’ll be used in the podcast is one I’ve developed myself to improve on my accent and the way it works is simple: you simply have to practices repeating the same sentences out loud everyday for at least a week, trying to imitate the rhythm and the music of the word as much as possible.

the goal here isn’t to teach you phrases or words, per se, but rather to help you get over the hurdles of pronounciation and accentuation by internalizing the rhythm and the sounds and will naturally improve your accent.

you should know that there are various sotaques across Brazil, and obviously, this will be my own. in my opinion, there’s no right accent, it’s more helpful to have a one that is more pinpointed to a place, so that the people you are talking to are focused on understanding you, rather than on piecing together the patchwork of different pronunciations within the same sentence. language is a tool meant to facilitate understanding. 

here are the sentences:

1. E aí, beleza?
2. Tô de boa.
3. Partiu praia amanhã?
4. Pão de queijo e café.
5. Isso não faz sentido.
6. Melhor chegar cedo.
7. Olha aquilo, que estranho.
8. Já falei com ele hoje.
9. Quero um suco de limão.
10. Filho, venha aqui.
11. Tem muita gente na rua.
12. Deixa disso, cara.
13. Tá chovendo pra caramba.
14. Vou pegar um ônibus.

that’s it for today. as i mentioned, this will work best if you immediately repeat the exercise for a second time and if you do it once a day. in about a week’s time, i’ll launch another episode so you can keep practicing new sentences. let me know in the comments what you think about the episode, thanks and see you next week!

— Seb