GAMBIARRA… well, in Brazil everybody knows what a gambiarra is, I’m not sure if you will be able to understand, so I’m gonna try to explain it with easy words, okay?
Think about a problem that needs a solution, however, you don’t have the proper tools or the proper way of solving it, then, you have to find a way to fix the situation, problem or thing with what you have available for you.
In a nutshell, it’s a thing you create to solve a problem when you don’t have the appropriate thing you really need.
There are two ways of saying this Brazilian word in the English language and I learned these two words with my teacher Denilso de Lima!
Jerry-rig or Jury-rig
Something quite interesting about these words is that they are used as verbs, in Portuguese we would say something like “Fazer uma gambiarra”, “se virar nos 30” and so on…
🇺🇸 We needed to jerry-rig to put the cell phone during the live on Instagram. 🤳🏻
🇧🇷 Nós precisamos fazer uma gambiarra pra colocar o celular durante a live no Instagram.
This is a real life example, yesterday we had a very nice conversation class live on Instagram with the students of our English club VPFI Forever, and we didn’t have the specific equipment we needed, then, we jerry-rigged to solve this situation!
You can also see people using this gambiarra idea using the term quick fix, it’s something extremly provisory. Check it out in the example:
🇺🇸 All the stores are closed now, we need a quick fix for today. 😉
🇧🇷 Todas as lojas estão fechadas agora, nós precisamos de uma gambiarra pra hoje.
Well, I really hope you’re not looking for something to have a quick fix in your English learning process, remember that to learn it for real, you just have to study every single day, from Sunday to Sunday I’m gonna be here with you no matter what helping you achieve your goal!
Now I’m gonna ask questions as a challenge for you, okay?
🧠 CHALLENGES 🧠
1️⃣ Do you know a person who jerry-rigs a lot? 🤯
2️⃣ Can you remember a situation where you had to use a quick fix? 🤬
3️⃣ Is there any other Brazilian expression like gambiarra that you would like to learn? 😨
