Birthday Vocabulary and the Brazilian Birthday Song - with Video

I love celebrating birthdays! I think of a birthday as that very special day that brought us to this world and put the people we love in our lives.

Now you will be able to chat about birthdays and to send and receive wishes of happy birthday in Portuguese!

Birthday vocabulary

The first thing that gets students confused is the word for birthday in Portuguese:

• aniversário

It sounds like "anniversary", but it is not always so. If someone asks when your aniversário is, they are asking about your birthday.

You can greet your birthday friends in two ways:

• Feliz aniversário = happy birthday
• Parabéns = Congratulations --- Yeah, we congratulate people for their special day. I love this :)

Now you might be wondering what to say when you want to ask about an anniversary. In this case, we would need to specify what the event is. For example:

• aniversário de casamento = wedding anniversary

Asking someone's age

The question about someone's age is totally different in English and in Portuguese:

• Quantos anos você tem? = How old are you?

Literally, our question is "How many years do you have?"

Here is how you answer:

• Eu tenho 25 anos = I am 25 years old

Literally, that translates to "I have 25 years".

Useful Phrases

Here are a few useful phrases for you:

• Quando é seu aniversário? = When is your birthday?
• Meu aniversário é em setembro = My birthday is in September
• Meu aniversário é no dia 18 de setembro = My birthday is on September 18th
• Eu faço aniversário em setembro = I have my birthday in September
• Mariana vai fazer 14 anos = Mariana will be 14 years old
• Seu aniversário está perto = Your birthday is close
• Seu aniversário está chegando = Your birthday is coming up
• Você gosta de comemorar seu aniversário? = Do you like to celebrate your birthday?
• Você vai fazer festa? = Are you going to throw a party?
• Qual  é seu signo? = What is your star sign?

Brazilian birthday song

Brazilians sing Happy Birthday with a lot of energy. It is clearly a festive and joyful event. We sing loud, clap our hands, yell, whistle... that's rigth, we now how to make noise :)

Here is our Happy Birthday song:

At the end of the song, there are variations to add joy and excitement to the celebration. For example, let’s say that it is Mariana’s birthday. At the end of the birthday song, the group will sing:

É pique, é pique
É pique, é pique, é pique
É hora, é hora
É hora, é hora, é hora
Rá Tim Bum
Mariana, Mariana, Mariana

Let’s see if I can explain what this means:

• Pique = enthusiasm, peak momentum
• É hora = it is time
• Rá Tim Bum = a play with the sound of drums playing :)

Great, now let's celebrate!

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Balloons photo by Pink Sherbet, Flickr, Creative Commons license

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