What does “dar risada” mean in Portuguese?

Portuguese has a verb for laughing, rir, but in Brazil you’ll very often hear dar risada, “to give a laugh.” A gente deu muita risada means “we laughed a lot.” A risada is a laugh, and it can also mean the way someone laughs: minha risada é estranha, “my laugh is weird.” For a big, loud burst of laughter, there’s dar uma gargalhada.

Portuguese builds lots of everyday actions with dar + a noun: dar uma olhada (take a look), dar um pulo (pop over), dar risada. The speaker says o povo tem até medo de dar risada comigo (“people are even scared to laugh with me”) because she laughs with um tapão. The -ão ending turns tapa (a slap) into a big whack.