Vocabulary: Going Places by Fernanda L. Ferreira, Ph.D.
In order to use most of these new verbs, you should learn the names of many places in Portuguese. In this section we will find out the places where you can do things such as comprar (to buy), jogar (to play), and estudar (to study). Let's now match verbs and places!
TRACK 53
Common Places
Portuguese
English
o açougue
the butcher shop
a banca de revista
the newsstand
o banco
the bank
o cabelereiro
the hairdresser
a farmácia/a drogaria
the drugstore
a feira
the street market
o lava a seco
the dry cleaners
a livraria
the bookstore
a loja
the store
a padaria
the bakery
o restaurante
the restaurant
a papelaria
the stationary store
o salão de beleza
the beauty salon
a sapataria
the shoe store
o shopping
the mall
o supermercado
the supermarket
As you can see, many words are cognates; for example, banco (bank), farmácia (pharmacy), and restaurante (restaurant). There are some words that come from the English language such as shopping, which means “mall,” and the word cyber café. The açougue is not a common place anymore because most supermercados sell fresh meat and poultry in more hygienic conditions. But you can still find some açougues in many cities and towns. There are many bancas de revistas (newsstands) all over big cities in Brazil where you can by the latest magazines and newspapers. They also sell phone cards, which are needed in order to use the public phones. In drugstores, usually only pharmaceutical products are sold, except for the occasional soap or lotion. There are many padarias (bakeries) around, sometimes two on the same street, and there you can buy fresh bread every day. These padarias double as pastelarias (pastry shops), where you can also buy all kinds of baked goods. Most men still go to the barbeiro (barber) instead of the cabelereiro (hairdresser) to get a haircut. And most establishments advertise themselves as unisex, meaning they can take care of both sexes, just to make sure that the male clientele also patronize them.
Nowadays, supermarkets in Brazil sell fresh fruits and vegetables. But you can still find Saturday or mid-week feiras (street markets) in most cities, where you can buy anything from edibles to arts and crafts. Finally, the word loja applies to any store, so you can say loja de sapatos for a shoe store or loja de roupa for a clothing store. The following is a list of places and some of the products that are usually associated with these places:
Notice that many foods or products can be bought in a variety of places. Now try to determine where you can buy these products in the following exercise. Write down a couple of places where you can buy these products. Check your answers in Appendix C.
