Asking is easy, understanding is not
Alfama and Ribeira were laid out long before anyone thought about traffic, or maps, or you. Steep steps that turn out to be a private courtyard, alleys that stop dead, street names that change every forty metres. Phone signal goes down in the narrow parts, which is exactly where you need it.
So you ask someone. The question is the easy half. What comes back is a fast, friendly stream of instructions, and this is the part worth preparing for.
Open properly
Do not lead with the question. Greeting first, then the apology for interrupting, then what you want.
Bom dia, desculpe, pode ajudar-me?
It takes two extra seconds and it visibly changes the answer you get. People slow down for someone who started politely.
The four words that carry the answer
These get compressed hard in speech, so the spelling is not much help. The third column is what you will actually hear.
| Instruction |
Portuguese (PT-PT) |
Phonetic Reality |
| To the right |
À direita |
ah-d'ray-tah |
| To the left |
À esquerda |
ah-esh-ker-dah |
| Straight ahead |
Sempre em frente |
sem-pr'en-frent |
| Backwards |
Para trás |
p'ra-trash |
Sempre em frente is the one you will hear most, and it is slightly stronger than "go straight". It means keep going straight until straight is no longer an option.
Nobody uses street names
Directions here run on landmarks. Portuguese streets are short and change name often enough that naming them would be less useful than pointing.
- Igreja, church. The reference point for almost every neighbourhood, and there is always one.
- Largo and praça, both squares. A largo is smaller and usually an odd shape, often just where several streets happened to meet.
- Semáforos, traffic lights, used for counting distance.
- Rotunda, roundabout. Portugal has an extraordinary number of these and you will need the word within a day of driving.
Ao pé de
Textbooks teach perto de for "near", and it is correct. What people say is ao pé de, literally "at the foot of".
Fica ao pé da igreja.
On the prepositions more generally: em is for being inside or on something, estou no café, na rua. A is for being at or heading towards, vou à praia.
The verbs, which arrive as commands
Directions come in the formal imperative, so the forms will not look like the ones you drilled.
- Vire, turn. Vire na primeira rua à direita.
- Siga, carry on. Siga sempre em frente.
- Atravesse, cross. For squares, bridges, big avenues.
- Suba and desça, go up and go down. In Lisbon and Porto these come up constantly, and suba as escadinhas is a sentence you should be ready for, because the steps in question are usually longer than they sound.
Close it off
Do not simply leave once you have what you need. The exchange has an ending and skipping it reads as abrupt.
Muito obrigado pela sua ajuda. Bom dia!
Thanks, then the time-of-day greeting again on the way out. And if you did not follow a word of the directions, thank them anyway and ask the next person. Everybody does this, including the Portuguese.