Monthly Archives: July 2007

Portuguese Radio and Television Online

Posted on July 27, 2007 | 5 Comments
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Yesterday I wrote about how to improve your listening comprehension when learning a language. I promised you a list of Portugeuese radio and tv stations on the internet to help you with your studies so here goes. These are all European Portuguese stations.

TELEVISION
First stop is RTP which is a major site for television and radio in Portugual. For television go to TV and choose Television Online. You’ll get a list of about 12 pages of programmes they have available to watch online. Once you are on this page, clicking on the green tv/radio online button at the top will offer you a menu of ‘RTP mobile’, ‘Programas em Direito’ and ‘RTP International’. RTP International won’t run without something called ‘Octoshape plugin’ and I’ve yet to make this work! It’s a shame but there’s plenty to keep me entertained regardless. The list of viewable programmes online will certainly keep you going for a long time!
I nearly always come to this site to watch the Portuguese news. Watching the news is one of the best places to start because much like English news, the newsreaders tend to pronounce their words very clearly and therefore it’s much easier to understand than perhaps a movie or general drama would be. Radio is also available on the site as well as podcasts.

TV Ciencia
Probably one of the best links as far as streaming news quality as the picture is crystal clear. From what I can gather the station is quite politically orientated. Maybe I have just been unlucky when I’ve watched that it always seems to be about politics! That said the site does say ‘sceince’, ‘technology’ and ‘culture’ so I think there is much more to it.

If you want to explore further there is a list of Portuguese television stations accessible online from WWITV and Beeline TV

RADIO

TSF
A major station in Portugal. I listen to this one a lot as it’s similar to radio four in the UK and has a lot of interviews and general talk shows. Just click on the play button on the right hand side of the page and listen live. Alternatively you can go to archived programs ‘Arquivo Programas’ and listen again. This is useful if you want to test your listening skills as I described yesterday. You can also click on the links on the left hand side of the page to listen to current news items that have been aired.

Antenna 3
One of my favourites for Portuguese pop, rock and indie. Basically an excellent independant station that’s pretty popular from what I’ve seen. They play music from the UK and US as well as current chart hits in Portugual and European hits. A good way of getting to know what’s hip in the Portuguese music scene. Click on Emmisão online and it’ll play through your windows media player.

Surf Music
A huge list of Portuguese radio stations

Multilingual Books
Another list of radio stations

Plenty to get you started, I hope you find these useful x

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Posted in Learning Portuguese

Learning a language – Improving Listening Comprehension

Posted on July 26, 2007 | 4 Comments
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If you are learning Portuguese there are a number areas you need to study, one of which is listening comprehension. I’ve found that whilst I’m quick to learn vocabulary and understand written Portuguese I find it harder to understand spoken Portuguese. I think whatever language a person learns, this is perhaps one of the most challenging aspects. We’ve all had that experience of listening to a foreign tongue and finding ourselves in the midst of what just seems like a torrent of unintelligable sounds. If anyone watches Lost, there is a great scene where the Korean character Jin is listening to everyone else (who speaks English) having an argument and the viewer is treated to an idea of what it’s like to not understand English. The language is utterly unintelligable.

This was pretty much the same for me when I started to listen to Portuguese radio. There wasn’t a single word I understood, in fact I couldn’t work out where one word finished and another began! It seemed as though everything was said at a hundred miles an hour and I would never never be able to understand it.

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Posted in Learning Portuguese

A Lisbon Story – Movie Review

Posted on July 25, 2007 | 9 Comments
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I first encountered Wim Wenders when I saw ‘Wings of Desire’ at the cinema some years ago. This film was later remade and entitled ‘City of Angels’ which you might remember. Whilst I enjoyed the latter, it didn’t come close to the poetic imagery of Wenders original which I found utterly beautiful.

A few months ago I was searching for movies in Portuguese and stumbled upon ‘A Lisbon Story’. As soon as I saw that it was written and directed by Wenders I knew I was in for a treat: my favourite city through the eyes of one of my favourite directors!

Getting a copy of the dvd however proved harder than anticipated. It wasn’t available on Amazon UK and I couldn’t seem to find it anywhere else. Undaunted however I plumped for buying a Polish edition from a seller on Ebay, ignoring the fact that there were no English subtitles. It turned out to be a good decision.

Our hero Phillip Winter (played by Rüdiger Vogler) is a German sound man who is called urgently to Lisbon on a postcard from his friend and movie maker Friedrich Monroe. English Friedrich is having great problems finishing the film he is making about Lisbon and needs Winter there with him.

I quickly discovered that a lack of English subtitles wasn’t going to be a problem. Whilst there is a reasonable amount of dialogue in German from Phillip, a great deal of the film concentrates on sound and visual impact. This echoes the obsessions of the two main characters. Simply watching Winter’s hilarious journey to Portugal at the beginning was enough to make me realise that much of the story was going to be told through means other than speech. Vogler is an incredibly expressive actor capable of strong drama and comedy at the flick of a switch.

When Winter finally arrives in Portugal he finds Friedrichs home empty. He does however discover the reels of film his friend has been shooting and decides to start recording the sound for the images he has found. Soon after, he encounters the beautiful Teresa from Madredeus. It turns out they are staying in the same building and he begins to fall in love with her when he hears her singing ‘Ainda’

This was the point that had me in tears as the song is so haunting and encapsulates Portuguese ‘saudade’. I think anyone would fall in love with her after hearing that song!

So ensues an gentle exploration of Lisbon through sound and vision, the intrigue of the mysterious boy who seems to be following Winter, a quiet love story and comic sketches that will have you laughing out loud. All leading to a surreal and thought provoking denoument that questions the very nature of film and proposes the idea of ‘the unseen image’.

I honestly cannot fault this film. Perfectly acted, beautiful cast, glorious images of Lisbon, thought provoking, wonderful music, delightfully funny. I’ve already watched it three times and could easily watch it again.

Last but not least the soundtrack was released by Madredeus under the title ‘Ainda’ which I also highly recommend.

If you love Lisbon, if you love great movies, then this one is for you. Both the soundtrack and movie are available to purchase from the store here at In Love With Lisbon. One hour and forty minutes of bliss.

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Posted in Movies