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Last week, I introduced my personal project of reducing the entire Portuguese daily-life interactions into five basic expressions. I also introduced the first of these expressions, pois, and explained its wide and encompassing use. I finished by saying that "most of Portuguese social life, around 50% of all the essentials, is just understanding and using pois. The rest is all optional."
In this lecture I would like to introduce another very important Portuguese phenomenon.
2. "Depende."
While sometimes used in a slightly longer form ("Isso depende."), this sentence, directly and easily translatable to "It depends." or "Depends." has one uniquely Portuguese aspect:
It has a period at the end.
You ask a simple, straightforward question to a Portuguese person. Let's think. Something like: "Would you like to go to the movies?" or "Wanna go to this bar?" or "What are your holiday plans?" or "How much would a university graduate earn in Lisbon?". Then you get an answer:
"It depends."
And this bizarre non-answer is socially acceptable.
Depends on what? If it depends on X or Y, how does it depend on them?
The Portuguese person cannot be bothered with such technicalities. It depends. Period.
Now, if you actually wanted an answer, the Portuguese person will not let you get it so quickly. I had a real-life example which at first was a bit annoying but it slowly turned outright hilarious.
Me getting a ride from a friend: How long do you think we take to get there?
Friend: It depends.
Me: ??
Friend: ...
Me: Depends on what?
Friend: Pois olha, if there is traffic, we may take quite a while. If the roads are empty, we would be pretty quick. With this rain, there may also be an accident.
Me: ????
Friend: ...
Me: Yeah okay, but that's all obvious. I actually need to know this to plan the rest of my day.
Friend: Pois.
Me: ????!!!!
Friend: ...
Me: I mean, if there is traffic, will be take, like, seven hours?
Friend: NO! Que disparate! We would never take that long.
Me: So, how long at most? Five hours?
Friend: Pá, if there is an accident the whole can take four hours.
Me: Great. Now, if the roads are all empty, how long to we take? One hour?
Friend: NO! There's no way we can get there in an hour.
Me: OK, so... two hours? (trying not to laugh out loud)
Friend: Once I did this trip at night, with no cars, it took me like two-and-a-half hours, maybe a bit more.
Me: Wonderful. Thanks, let me text my friends.
True story.
What's the moral here?
As you may remember, Pois acts as a void answer that may mean affirmation, rejection, neither or both. (See previous lecture.) It allows you to avoid giving any opinion in a socially acceptable way.
Depende. (always with a dot throughout these lecture notes), on the other hand, allows you to avoid giving factual information in a socially acceptable way.
And I am serious: Portuguese people actually take "Depende." as a full answer and move on to a different subject without hesitation. It really is socially acceptable.
So if you want to get information, you really have to be persistent and patient. But if you don't want to get information or you simply don't want to think about the question, you can just randomly shoot "Isso depende." and you are juuuuust fine.
When I noticed the power of "Depende.", I was astonished. Initially, I used to think "They just don't care! And they are okay with each other not caring!"; but then I realized something else:
Application of reduction
You may have heard that Portuguese people are always very calm and peaceful. They even made an armed revolution without using the arms! It is true that Portuguese culture is probably one of the most peaceful and chilled cultures in the world.
But how does it work? How come the Portuguese are always so calm? (Just next door, Spanish are so not famous for calmness.)
The equation "Pois + Depende." is your answer.
The entire culture allows you to not give a shit about neither opinions nor facts! You can dodge literally anything that can give you the slightest discomfort. Voila! The calmness is a linear combination of Pois and Depende. .
Thereby, we solved one of the long-lasting mysteries of the Portuguese culture by the rigorous application of only two expressions.
In my next lecture, I will address some of the remaining aspects of the Portuguese daily-life, although I should warn you: very little cultural content is left that is not covered by these two expressions.
I just discovered your blog and I've really enjoyed reading your posts on portuguese culture! As a portuguese person, I completely understand your surprise at 'pois' and 'depende', but I think your conclusion to the latter is a bit excessive (perhaps done for the sake of humour):
ReplyDelete"The entire culture allows you to not give a shit about neither opinions nor facts!"
It's important to note that both these terms are used in informal conversation, and that 'depende' is used to denote uncertainty in a relaxed way. In an informal conversation, there normally Is a follow-up to 'depende', so decisions can be made and information can be discussed (like where to eat out, or when you'll arrive), but yes, in some cases, the topic doesn't truly matter ("will you eat this specific food at the restaurant?") so it is dropped. Sometimes, a reason must be given to bother with the topic ("yeah but I need to let my friends know when I'll arrive"), but even in those cases, it's important to understand the underlying uncertainty (mais ou menos quanto tempo é que demora a chegar?).
I agree with your characterization of 'pois', it truly is a multi-functional answer you can give when you don't have anything to add, when you didn't fully understand, and, with a different tone, it can even be used as a non-committed disapproval or recognition of a nonsensical situation (like the social security number example you gave).
I guess that maybe I am overreacting with this comment but as it describes my culture, I am uncomfortable with the characterization that facts or opinions don't matter - in fact, it's quite easy to find portuguese people that are eager to share both if you give them the chance! These two words are context-specific tools that allow a relaxed distancing and recognition of uncertainty, but they're not meant as conversation enders.
Pois, depende!
All the best! Looking forward to your next posts!