Don’t get me wrong. I didn’t buy a new car, nor did I started to learn Portuguese.
I found this term in my Google Webmaster report, the term “meu carro novo” is represents 30% of all search queries to my little blog. What’s that? I am curious enough to find out.
Curiosity
When I see Yifan growing up, I would predict that curiosity is one of the most important characters he should have when he is very young. That is the key driving factor for people to learn. I am happy that I am still curious in many things, including the mysterious three word: Meu Carro Novo
It Means: My New Car
My guess was:
Meu = My
Carro = Car
Novo = New
Pretty good guess. With the help of Google Translation Tool, and several try, I found it this sentence comes from Portuguese, and means: “My New Car”.
Novo gave me a lot of inspiration
I suddenly understand why there is a commercial center called Novo on Tianyaoqiao Road, and in Chinese, it is called 永新城, or “For Ever-New City”. If this is the case, Novo should mean new, in Portuguese, and in Latin, and many other Latin based language (but not in English).
It also reminds me of another word: De Novo. I had a hard time to remember whether it should be spelled as “Donevo, Denevo, or Do Nove…”. Now it is clear, that De means nothing, and Novo means New, so De Novo means anew, afresh, and start from empty again, but in a different way. De Novo was a code name for an project within eBay.
Well, at least, I learnt some new words in Portuguese. To get started to learn some language is easy, the key is to get started, as I talked in this article: Dislike Doing, or Start Doing
I searched the phrase, and I got the answer at http://home.wangjianshuo.com/pt/20040307_just_few_steps_away_from_my_new_car.htm . Seems it’s an automated translation from your English article. :P
dude,
I’m portuguese and have been reading your blog for about a year now so it was ever so funny to see your new post.
Anyway, I’d like to clear that the translation of “de novo” is not “anew” or “afresh” but simply “again” as in:
“Tas a fazer isso de novo?” = “Are you doing that again?”
tchau
Paulo
small detail: “meu carro novo” sounds brazilian-portuguese. portuguese people would say “o meu carro novo”.
De in Portuguese means the same as De in Chinese. So, you are right. It doesn’t mean anything meaningful.
http://zhongwen.com/d/170/x186.htm
Interesting….I am the founder of this website. If you have more questions about it let me know.
Best,
Robson
Hi Jianshuo,
The frist time I see you is on the talk show “culture matters” of ICS, frankly speaking, I admire you, I’m not a IT person, but I want to have good english skill and create a trading company, do some business.