Preguiçosa

In the same vein of some of my direct translations (see once again I have Doubts), this is one that I have recently been amused with: preguiçosa (preguiçoso)= LAZY.

Despite these words being exact translations and technically the correct word in each language, I still mantain that this in Portuguese is NOT the same as it is in English.

Portuguese: My colleagues use this word ALL THE TIME. After lunch, tired and full from eating, they say eu me sinto preguiçoso... In English they say to me, I feel lazy.

English: At this, I always feel surprised. Lazy? This word is reserved for insults, refering to non-contributing members of society or a very ironic or self-deprecating comment about oneself. To blatantly tell your colleagues after lunch, I FEEL LAZY? It's just not done. That's like career suicide. As I said in my recent post, não é possível!

This word in Portuguese, clearly does not pack the same cultural punch. After discussing this at length with many Brazilians it became clear to me that this word is quite innocuous in Portuguese. It merely means that tired, slightly slow or less motivated feeling one has on a saturday morning or after lunch on a weekday. Not a complete separation from the rest of our productive society, implying that one has embraced sloth and obesity as a way of life and that some extreme weight loss reality TV show should be targeting you as fodder for its next season.

Helpful, since instead of packing for my trip to NYC, I am drinking wine and writing my blog. And so, not only shall I embrace the impossible, I shall perhaps embrace my inner feeling of preguiçosa! De novo!