Carnaval, or Carnival, officially starts on Saturday, February 6, and ends na quarta-feira de cinzas, on Ash Wednesday, February 10. That’s officially since some cities, like Salvador in Bahia, have ten-day celebrations.
In many places, Carnaval started out as a competition between neighborhoods to select which had the best desfiles, parades, fantasias, costumes and sambistas, samba dancers.
Many decades later and some cities, Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo to mention just two, have sambódromos, sambadromes, special venues where the Escolas de Samba, Samba Schools or Samba Leagues, parade to a crowd of thousands of spectators who purchase their tickets months in advance.
This year the performances promise to be especially rewarding since Brazil will be the host of the Jogos Olímpicos de 2016, Summer Olympic Games.
Here are some useful expressions for the folião or foliona, reveler (masculine, feminine).
| campeão / campeã | champion |
| passarela | passageway where people parade |
| carro alegórico | float |
| samba enredo | samba theme song |
| bateria | drum section |
| Quanto custa a garrafa de água? | How much is the bottle of water? |
| Onde é o banheiro? | Where’s the restroom? |
| Onde fica a arquibancada? | Where are the bleachers? |
| Onde ficam os camarotes? | Where are the suites? |
| Quanto custa a corrida até o sambódromo? | How much is the (taxi) fare to the sambadrome? |
| Ainda tem ingresso para o desfile de escola de samba? | Are there still tickets for the samba school parades? |
| Quanto tempo duram os desfiles? | How long do the parades last? |
| Quando sai o resultado? | When do the results come out? |
Photo credit: Carnaval 2014 - Rio de Janeiro by ndecam via Flickr licensed under Creative Commons License 2.0.