How and Why To Remember the Portuguese words for carrot and onion

Why would I need the words for carrots and onions in a froeign language? You'd be suprised how often words such as carrot and onion appear. Carrot is in carrot cake. Onion might be in the optional onion rings with a burger. 

Problem
Why do I need Portuguese? It is spoken in Portugal, Barazil and assorted islands between Europe an the American continent. I need Portuguese because I am planning a walking holiday trip to the island of Madeira, famous for Madeira wine.

Do I need Portuguese Words For Food?

Portuguese should be relatively easy for anybody who speaks English, French, Spanish or Italian or even if you learned Latin at school. Why do you need to learn? Can't you just use Google translate? That's assuming your phone hasn't died! Translating word by word is time-consuming, especially when a waiter or shop assistant asks you what you want.

I feel more confident in a country when I can understand the signs in remote places and in city centres. Out in the middle of nowhere you might want to understand the direction board, or warning signs.

What about a food stop? Hurray, maybe you see a remote cafe. But need to check the ingredients in the soup. Or maybe read the ingredients of a small tin in a supermarket. Check your bill.

I could not remember the words for carrot and onion. Then I remembered the word cebola - which is onion, but I remembered the letter c at the start and thought it was carrot. Let's look at the words more carefully to anchor them in our brains.

English - Portuguese

carrot - cenoura (see, now,  - a carrot has the letter r, cenoura has the leter r, carrot shaped like a pen, see - en, letter r and a in carrot, the Portugese word ends RA)

onion - cebola (an onion is shaped like a ball or bowl, move like an oval OLA - OvAL)

carrot - cenoura

onion - cebola

carrot - cenoura

onion - cebola

Portuguese - English

cebola - onion

cenoura - carrot

Useful Websites

See my previous post on visiting Madeira and sites to see.

https://www.officeholidays.com/countries/portugal/index.php

Author

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. See my other posts on Madeira, Madeira wine and learning Portuguese. Please share your favourite posts.