Carl and I have just returned from four wonderful days in São Paulo. I really love Sampa!
Saturday evening as I was going to bed I heard some yelling coming from the street. This woman was having a huge argument with someone. Maybe her boyfriend? His name was Gustavo.
As I was drifting into sleep, I said aloud about the scene:
- Que bate-boca horrível.
So I thought it would be useful for you to learn this expression: bater boca. Your Portuguese will sound very natural when you use it at the right time.
I will show you how to use the expression as a verb and as a noun.
Verb: Bater boca
= to have a heated argument, to argue noisily
Bater is a regular verb. To use the expression, simply conjugate the verb bater in the tense that you need.
Examples:
- Tiago e Camila têm uma relação difícil. Eles batem boca com frequência.
= Tiago and Camila have a difficult relationship. They frequently have heated arguments.
- Prefiro lidar com os problemas com calma. Não gosto de bater boca.
= I prefer to deal with problems calmly. I don’t like to argue.
- Ontem meu chefe e um colega bateram boca o dia todo.
= Yesterday my boss and a colleague argued all day long.
Noun: O bate-boca
= a heated argument, a brawl, a noisy argument
Examples:
- Tiago e Camila tiveram o maior bate-boca ontem.
= Tiago and Camila had the biggest argument yesterday.
- Tiago e Camila têm muitos bate-bocas. (notice the plural)
= Tiago and Camila have many heated arguments.
- Parem com esse bate-boca! Vocês não vão resolver nada assim.
= Stop this brawl! You won’t solve anything like this.
I hope you don’t get into bate-bocas. But if you do, at least you will know how to talk about it in Portuguese 😉
Leave a Reply