fiapo de mango

It’s called a “mango string dog”, and if you’ve ever cut a mango you’ll know exactly what kind of dog qualifies.

The dog looks as follows:

And there are a couple of things I love.

I love a term that makes you think for a second, but when you see an example you know exactly what it means.

I LOVE the pictures of these dog.

I love that it plays into Brazil’s known history of creating mythology around a type of dog (see “vira-lata caramelo”, or “licks cans caramel”)

There is nothing more exciting to me than finding a voice note in my inbox.

It’s like a little secret, that will be unveiled for my ears only as I press the play button.

What I love about voice notes is that you hear audio, and there’s a sense of drama to it, like i’m being told a story.

You can listen to it, and you can listen to it again.

There are certain voice notes from my life that I have saved, that I know through and through.

voice notes for language learners

What I like about sending one is that it gives you space to think about what you’re going to say.

And this matters a lot when you’re learning a language, because it lets you attempt something imperfectly for the first time, without any pressure.

This is why I created this thing to have short conversations on Whatsapp, especially through voice notes.

voice note example (my note + response)

When you’re actually speaking to someone, it’s fast, and native speakers don’t always have the patience for you needing a bit more time to process or respond.

But when you receive a note, you can listen to it a second, and a third time.

You can speak slowly, you can speak for a longer time without interruption (something that in interactions with other people can be more difficult).

Want to try it out

I am currently still in the middle of developing, but if you’d like to try out Street Cat for yourself you can do so, for free, on Whatsapp.

It’s an app I am really developing for my own use, but want to share with others as well, and I will be sharing some of my process, thoughts and features on this Substack, so if you aren’t subscribed already but you are interested to hear more, I am sure there will be a button somewhere around here.

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and don’t hesitate to let me hear your thoughts!

This is a conversation space for subscribers, like a group chat or global hangout. I’ll post questions about language and culture, and you can share your local perspective.

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I recently got an email from the NS (the Dutch railway company) inviting me to ‘aftersummer’ with them.

‘Nazomeren’ is the verb version of ‘nazomer’ (na - after, zomer - summer), and while there is no shortage of examples1 of people using it on Twitter, I was surprised to find out it is not listed in any official dictionary.

It means to enjoy warm, summer-like weather in the fall, often by doing activities one would do in the summer, like being outside and taking it easy.

Living in a country with deeply unreliable but mostly bad weather, Dutch people have turned enjoying sunny days into a bit of a religion, especially during seasons when we don’t expect to have any sun.

You can aftersummer in the Netherlands, but you can also do it abroad, by taking a short vacation to a warmer destination.

Like many words in the Dutch language, ‘nazomeren’ often goes paired with ‘lekker’ (tasty), and adjective that deserves its own lengthy explanation, but in short is used to describe things that have some sort of sensory pleasure, not just taste.

So here is my question: