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Brazilian Portuguese Vocabulary: Mess

Brazilian Portuguese Vocabulary: Mess

posted on December 23, 2013

There’s an article making the rounds about how “messy kids learn quicker” and I noticed it in a Brazilian newspaper online with the title “Crianças bagunceiras aprendem mais rápido”. The word bagunceiro means “given to messes, disorderly” and it comes from bagunça, or mess.

Here are two examples:

  • Maria é muito bagunceira. O quarto dela tem roupas e livros por todo canto.

              = Maria is very messy. Her bedroom has clothes and books everywhere.

  • Paulinho é bagunceiro demais. Os brinquedos dele estão espalhados pela casa toda.

              = Paulinho is too messy. His toys are spread all over the house.

 

If you want to talk about a thing and not a person, then you’d use bagunçado/a, instead of bagunceiro/a.

Let’s see a couple of examples:

  • Eu li que pessoas que têm mesa bagunçada são mais criativas.

             = I read that people with messy tables are more creative.

  • Que quarto bagunçado!

             = What a messy bedroom!

 

A second way to say mess in Brazilian Portuguese is with zona, and if something is really messy you can add total on the end (with either word). Be careful with zona because it also means an area of prostitution.

  • Seu quarto é uma bagunça/zona total!

                = Your room is a complete mess!

 

Last but not least, you can use confusão to state disorder, chaos, or something messy.

  • A minha vida é uma confusão!

              = My life is a mess!

 

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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.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Luciana Lage

    January 7, 2014 at 9:23 pm

    Obrigada pelo comentário!

    Reply
  2. lacyedney

    January 7, 2014 at 6:27 pm

    Great article! I love that you give examples of how to use the vocabulary. As vezes eu sou muito bagunceira!

    Reply

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