Jen wrote to me looking for help with a childhood rhyme.  Here’s her email: I stumbled onto your site while looking for an answer to an age-old family question. When I was a little girl, my grandma and grandpa, both of whom were Portuguese, used to recite a rhyme to me in Portuguese while...

This Christmas song was sent to us from the Portuguese archipelago of the Azores.  It’s sung throughout the Portuguese speaking world. The carol starts with a child leaving his shoe on the windowsill outside. In Portugal, children do this for the Epiphany (the day that celebrates the Three Kings’ visit to Jesus). Children leave straw and...

Sarah wrote asking for help with a childhood song that her father used to sing to her.  Here’s what she wrote… My father died [recently]…  While rolling through memories of him & my childhood a song kept repeating. We were an Air Force family & had been stationed at Lajes Field AFB [in the Portuguese archipelago of...

We were asked about two Portuguese kids songs.  Please let us know if you can help with either song in the comments below.  The Portuguese part may be phonetically written.  1.  Tan galinhas, tan galinhas My brother and I are trying to find the lyrics/music to a song our grandmother used to sing when we were...

Amber wrote: Hello, I was wondering if you knew any titles of children’s books that are written in Portuguese? I teach a class of two year olds and one of my students has a birthday coming up soon and I want to get her some books. She’s from Brazil and speaks Portuguese. Of...

Monique Palomares works with me on the French and Spanish versions of Mama Lisa’s World. She sent me some proverbs about March from different European countries in response to a post I did about Italian Proverbs about March. Here’s what Monique wrote… Here are some proverbs in Occitan, Catalan, French, Spanish, Portuguese and...

Cyndi wrote asking about a rhyme from her grandmother… Lisa, My grandmother always said the same nursery rhyme. She has recently passed away and I would love to know what it means. Words (I am not sure of the spelling), this was not an English rhyme. It is believed to have been Portuguese, but I am not...

In many parts of the world, the foods eaten on New Years Eve and New Years Day have important symbolic meanings. These symbols seem to fall into several major categories. The first class symbolizes financial prosperity. This type of food is round like coins. Often, the dish will be round beans, like lentils,...

Teresa wrote: I would love to buy a cd with all those Portuguese nursery rhymes. I have been trying to search on the net and I just can not find anything. Any ideas on how to get the cd with songs featured in your home page. Thanks Teresa I found a couple of Portuguese Children’s cd’s on CD Baby....

I received this note yesterday: Hi, I was wondering if anyone could suggest a nursery rhyme, song or quite from a classic children’s book that is in Portuguese. I am doing my sister-in-law’s baby shower invite and would love to put something like this on there, in her language. Thank you If anyone can help out, please comment below. Thanks! Lisa

While I have this link at hand, I’d like to recommend www.freedict.com. It’s a site devoted to free online language dictionaries. You can translate between English and the following languages: Afrikaans Danish Dutch Finnish French Hungarian Indonesian Italian Japanese Latin Norwegian Portuguese Russian Spanish Swahili Swedish I find that it can usually succeed at translating the words I need. Feel free to recommend other language dictionaries that you like in the...

If you’re trying to learn a new language, I’d recommend checking out LanguageGuide.org. Users visit different theme related pages (i.e. about insects, the family, the farm). Each page has images related to the theme. You place your cursor over the images and hear their names pronounced and see them spelled out in...

A significant part of the Mama Lisa sites is a large collection of songs and nursery rhymes from around the world. We currently have about 750 songs from around 90 countries and cultures. When you consider how many languages there are in those cultures – that’s a lot of information! In order to make...

Here’s a lullaby in Portuguese (possibly from Brazil), with an English translation… Nana, nenê, na casa do vovo, vovô não tem cochão, o nenê dorme no chão Sleep, baby At grandpa’s house Grandpa doesn’t have a mattress The baby sleeps on the ground. If anyone knows the tune and can send me a recording, midi or sheet music, please email me. I also...

In an earlier entry, I wrote about the history of Labor Day. In case you were wondering, here are some of the countries where demonstrations were held or where Labor Day was in some way honored around the world today (in some cases against the wishes of the government)… Russia Belarus Japan Germany Italy Philippines Cambodia Indonesia Malaysia South Korea Malta Mexico France Nepal Portugal Sri Lanka Nigeria Turkey Iran Great Britain Feel free to comment below...

Kathy wrote me… Dear Mamalisa, I was delighted to find your website and will be using it in the future. I am researching translations for the word “grandma” in various languages. I am most interested in the familiar, sweet terms children might call this individual. I am aware that in some cultures this would...