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Pó pô pó? – Asking for coffee in Minas Gerais, Brazil

Pó pô pó? – Asking for coffee in Minas Gerais, Brazil

posted on July 19, 2013

You’re in Minas Gerais and you hear:

– Pó pô pó? 
– Pó pô!

What it really means in Portuguese:

– Posso pôr o pó? (or Pode pôr pó?)
– Pode pôr!

Translation:

– Can I put in ground coffee? 
– You can put it in!

Said to be a typical mineiro (from Minas Gerais) way of phrasing things, in reference to making coffee when you ask someone how many spoonfuls of ground coffee (pó-de-café) they prefer. In Portuguese, it takes advantage of the lesser-known verb apocopar, meaning to “cut a phenome or syllable at the end of a word”, which is something a mineirin knows how to do with skill!

In linguistics, there’s a really interesting subfield called Pragmatics which deals with meaning of words and phrases, specifically within their given context. In the coffee example, asking if you can put in coffee grounds really means to say, “how much do you want?” If you understood that, you’re said to have “pragmatic competence”. Congrats!

 

Related Article:

Why Mineiros Never Miss The Train

5 Slangs I Learned in Porto Alegre

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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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