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Brazilian Portuguese: Idiomatic Portuguese to Express Flexibility

posted on October 30, 2013

 

In Brazil, each day can be an adventure and it’s important to remain flexible in order to best approach or react to what might come your way. In Brazilian Portuguese, there’s a phrase for referring to such ease of movement, or wiggle-room, as it were, and it’s called “jogo de cintura”.

Someone who possesses this can face the unexpected rather easily, they can find their way through otherwise difficult situations and adapt to unforeseen circumstances. Jogo, in this case, means game or play and cintura is waist, and thus you can think of it as a way of manuevering through something, of not being rigid.

The phrase is usually used with the verb ter, so you might hear:

  • “Tem que ter jogo de cintura para enfrentar uma situação assim.”

              = You have to be flexible to face a situation like that.

You can also use it figuratively, such as:

  • “No segundo mandato, o jogo de cintura político foi fundamental.”

               = In the second term, political flexibility was fundamental.

After having spent 3 years in Brazil, I’m not sure if I attained “jogo de cintura” because my gut feeling is that it’s connected to the moment in which you find yourself rather than having flexibility in the planning stage of something, for example. If it meant the latter, I’d have it in excess. In accordance with its meaning, it’s more connected to successful quick thinking and rolling with the punches.

Brazilian singer Elba Ramalho has a song named Jogo de Cintura. In this song she says that in life you often need to have jogo de cintura in order to be happy and have love.

 

What about you? Do you have jogo de cintura? Do you agree with Elba Ramalho?

——————

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About Adam Lee

Adam is a writer and a researcher who has studied Brazilian culture for over a decade and created several Brazil-themed blogs going back to 2008. Having taught himself Portuguese, he put it to practical use by spending three years doing Brazil on a budget (and living in favelas), from Rio de Janeiro to the Amazon.

He now resides in Lisbon, Portugal, developing a startup and dreaming about having a beachside B&B in the Northeast of Brazil.

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