What does “curtir” mean in Brazilian Portuguese?
Ciúmes da foto e a história da bike
A2 Portuguese listening practice · Brazilian Portuguese · Picked for people who know a little
In Brazil, curtir is the everyday verb for liking a post: meu marido curtiu essa foto means “my husband liked this photo.” But its base sense is “to enjoy” — curtir a praia, curtir um som, curtir a vida. So when Brazilians tap that little heart, they’re literally saying they “enjoyed” it, which makes a useful old word feel right at home in its modern online life.
Ask você curte futebol? and you mean “do you like / are you into soccer?” — broader and warmer than English “like.” The word reaches even further back: from Latin conterō (“to grind”), curtir first meant to tan leather or cure food, then figuratively “to endure” something hard, before settling into today’s “enjoy / party / like.” In the clip a wife is convinced her husband only curtiu a stranger’s photo por causa da bike — for the bicycle — the perfect everyday context to meet the verb in its social-media sense.
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How common in written Portuguese
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Harder words in this video
These words are harder than A2. Here is what they mean.
Source: wordfreq 3.1.1 (general) · SUBTLEX-PT-BR 2012 (spoken). These numbers are close, not perfect.