It’s Romance Awareness Month, and this week we’re sharing some tips for how to be romantic in other cultures. Visit here for more tips from other cultures.
Romance is the Portuguese word for romance, from Latin romanço, used to designate the languages spoken by people dominated by the Roman Empire. In Portuguese, though, the word has two meanings: the most common use for romance is to describe a work of fiction, a novel—um romance policial, a detective novel; the second is related to romântico, romantic.
In Brazil, as in most countries, romantic means dar flores, giving flowers, mandar chocolates, sending chocolate, deixar bilhetes, leaving notes, passear de mãos dadas, taking walks holding hands, dançar, dancing, beijar ao luar, kissing in the moonlight.
A traditional romantic relationship in Brazil, when successful, progresses from paquera, flirting, to namoro, dating, to noivado, engagement, and finally casamento, wedding.
Carlos Drummond de Andrade (1902-1987), a well-known poet in Brazil, expressed the capricious and sometimes fleeting emotions of romance when he wrote “…o amor é grande e cabe no breve espaço de beijar” that can be literally translated as love is vast and fits into the brief space of a kiss.