Episódio 33: Mixtape (Mixtape)

Duolingo English for Portuguese Speakers Podcast

Quando era pequena, a única coisa que Britta Jorgensen escutava no carro com seu pai era “A Fita”, ou “The Tape”.

The Tape had all of my dad’s favorite songs.

They were old songs — from a long time before I was born.

When one side of The Tape finished playing, we took it out, turned it over, and played the other side.

We listened to The Tape and sang during so many car rides.

“A Fita" era uma fita cassete com o que na época se chamava mixtape.

Uma mixtape é uma coleção de músicas, geralmente de artistas variados, gravadas numa fita cassete ou num CD.

É a versão antiga do que hoje chamamos de playlist.

O pai de Britta tinha gravado aquela mixtape n’A Fita, e de um jeito bem personalizado.

I knew every word of every song on The Tape.

We called it “The Tape” because it was the only tape in the car.

It was The Tape.

Mas quando tinha uns 12 ou 13 anos, Britta decidiu que não queria mais escutar as mesmas músicas que seus pais ouviam.

Ela comprou seu próprio tocador de CD, ou discman, que veio com seu primeiro par de fones de ouvido, ou headphones.

After I got my discman, I could put on my headphones and listen to my own music all the time.

I remember going on a two-day road trip with my family.

I listened to my new Destiny’s Child album again and again, and looked out the window, thinking about my own teenage problems.

It didn’t seem important at the time, but my dad and I never listened to The Tape together again.

I didn’t know that one day, The Tape was going to become really important to me again.

Welcome to “Histórias em Inglês com Duolingo”.

Eu sou Helena Fruet.

Nesse podcast você vai poder praticar inglês no seu ritmo, ouvindo histórias reais e emocionantes.

Os protagonistas falam um inglês simples e fácil de entender — perfeito pra quem tá aprendendo.

Nesse episódio, você vai ouvir duas histórias de mixtapes que aproximaram pessoas de suas famílias e origens.

Antes de começar a história, uma observação sobre o sotaque da nossa primeira narradora.

Britta é da Austrália, e por isso você vai notar que ela não pronuncia o “R” no final das palavras, como em water:

Water.

Você também vai perceber que o som do “ai” em palavras como life é um pouco diferente:

Life.

Britta cresceu no litoral de Sidney, na Austrália, nos anos 90.

Ela passava muito tempo na praia com a família.

Almost every weekend, during the 1990s and early 2000s, my dad drove me and my sister to the beach.

In summer, we played in the sand and swam in the water.

In winter, we explored the cliffs by the ocean.

Then, on the way home, we bought ice cream and ate it in the back seat of the car.

O pai de Britta também tinha crescido nessas praias.

Nos anos 70, ele surfava com a mãe dela, e por isso muitas das músicas preferidas dele eram dessa época, de bandas como ABBA ou The Animals.

The Tape had a lot of songs from the 70s and 80s.

I think that was a really happy time in my dad’s life.

It was when he was young, in love, and enjoying his life surfing at the beach.

I asked him about every song on The Tape.

Like, for example, why he picked a specific song, or what the lyrics of a song meant.

N’A Fita, uma das músicas preferidas de Britta era The Logical Song, da banda Supertramp.

O pai dela adorava essa música.

A letra fala como cada um deve pensar por si mesmo.

O pai de Britta detestava que dissessem pra ele como pensar.

Ele até largou a escola com 14 anos porque não aguentava aquele ambiente.

I loved “The Logical Song” because it used a lot of big words.

I loved learning new words and what they meant.

I wasn’t like my dad — I loved school! My dad was always so proud of everything I achieved in school.

We spent a lot of time talking about the world and how to think independently.

Britta sempre perguntava pro pai sobre a música preferida dele, House of the Rising Sun, da banda The Animals.

A letra fala de um homem que se arrepende de ter tomado o caminho errado na vida.

My dad wasn’t like the person in the song.

He was grateful for his path in life.

He was 42 when I was born, so he was older than a lot of dads.

Before my sister and I were born, he didn’t know if he would have the opportunity to be a dad, so he enjoyed spending time with us when we were young.

I think he learned a lot during the years when he wasn’t a parent, and he wanted to share that knowledge with us.

Quando a irmã mais velha de Britta entrou na adolescência, ela começou a passar os fins de semana com os amigos.

E aí, Britta e seu pai passaram a ir pra praia sozinhos.

Eles colocavam A Fita pra tocar, e pra jantar eles compravam uma comida bem comum na Austrália: peixe com batata frita, ou fish and chips.

When it was just me and my dad in the car, I got to sit in the front seat and control The Tape.

I didn’t play the songs I didn’t like.

And when the songs I loved came on, I sang as loud as I could.

I felt lucky to spend that time in the car with my dad.

We played games, and I asked him questions.

I usually had sand on my feet and water from the sea in my hair.

When we bought fish and chips to bring home for dinner, I always ate some of the chips before we got home.

Quando virou adolescente, Britta começou a ouvir mais artistas da sua geração, como Beyoncé e Rihanna.

Mas toda vez que escutava uma das músicas d’A Fita numa festa, no mercado ou no rádio, ela lembrava da infância.

If I was with my sister when I heard one of the songs, we always looked at each other and we knew that we were both thinking: “The Tape!”

Como Britta ouvia suas próprias músicas, o pai dela parou de colocar A Fita pra tocar no carro.

E logo depois ele comprou um carro novo que tinha um tocador de CD, e não mais de fita cassete.

Os anos passaram e Britta nunca pensou em perguntar pro pai o que tinha acontecido com A Fita.

Não parecia importante na época.

Mas no começo de 2021, quando Britta tinha 30 anos, o pai dela morreu depois de ficar bastante tempo doente.

I was devastated.

I didn’t get to spend much time with him during the months before he died because I wasn’t allowed to cross the state border during Australia’s strict COVID-19 lockdown.

When I was finally allowed to travel, I went to visit him.

But he died just a few minutes before I got there.

Nos dias depois da morte do pai, Britta passou horas vendo álbuns antigos de família.

I wanted to remember him, but all of the photos I had were old.

I looked annoyed in most of them, and they didn’t bring back any memories of my dad.

In the recent photos of our family, my dad didn’t look well.

His illness made it difficult for him to smile.

Then I remembered The Tape.

Como era de se imaginar, A Fita já tinha desaparecido fazia tempo.

Mas Britta sabia todas as músicas de cor.

E então, ela fez uma playlist no celular.

One night, a few days after my dad died, I put on my headphones and went out for a walk in the dark.

While I walked, I listened to all of the songs on The Tape.

The music brought back those memories of singing in the car.

I remembered the beach, the car, the fish and chips, the sand on my feet, and my dad.

When he made The Tape decades earlier, he didn’t know that it was going to mean so much to me one day.

But it means so much.

Pra Britta, ouvir as músicas d’A Fita foi uma forma de se reconectar com o pai.

Já pra Sheeba Joseph, uma mixtape fez com que ela se aproximasse do seu legado familiar.

A família de Sheeba emigrou da Índia pra cidade de Nova York quando ela ainda era bebê.

All my memories of growing up were from the United States, and I only traveled to India once as a child.

I didn’t have the same connection to India as my parents or my older brother.

Os pais de Sheeba tentavam fazer ela se interessar pela cultura indiana pra que ela não se sentisse uma estrangeira, ou outsider, na sua própria comunidade.

Mas não era fácil.

My parents’ native South Indian language is called Malayalam.

They always tried to speak the language with me, but I didn’t know it well.

So, I always felt super nervous speaking it in front of other people.

It wasn’t fun to feel like an outsider, and I never really connected with that part of my identity.

Sheeba só tinha ido uma vez pra Índia, quando era pequena, mas o pai dela ia bastante.

E sempre que ele voltava de viagem, trazia presentes pra todo mundo da família.

My dad brought back items that you couldn’t easily find at stores in the U.S.

Clothing like saris, or Indian food and snacks that my parents wanted us to try.

I was always excited when my dad came home because he had a lot of stories about places he went and people he met.

Sheeba tem uma memória bem específica de uma dessas viagens.

Era fim dos anos 90 e ela tinha uns 13 ou 14 anos.

O pai dela tinha ficado na Índia por duas semanas e voltou pra casa em Nova York numa sexta-feira de outono.

My dad planned to come home early on a Friday night, but his plane was delayed, so he got home late.

He was really tired when he finally got home, so instead of unpacking his suitcase that night, he decided to unpack it the next morning.

I couldn’t wait to see what my dad brought home for us.

I think I actually woke up early the next day because I was so excited!

No dia seguinte, depois do café da manhã, a família foi pro quarto dos pais e se reuniu ao redor da mala.

O irmão foi o primeiro a ganhar o presente.

I can’t remember what my brother got that year.

But I can remember when I got my gift.

I was so confused and disappointed.

I usually liked my dad’s presents, but in this case, he brought home a cassette tape…

No fim dos anos 90, as fitas cassete já tavam ficando meio fora de moda.

Mas pra Sheeba, o presente era ainda pior… porque era uma fita de música indiana, um estilo pelo qual ela nunca tinha se interessado!

I wasn’t very interested in Indian music at the time.

I liked listening to music styles from the U.S., like R&B and pop.

When I was growing up, the only time I heard Indian music was when my parents listened to it.

They liked songs from old Bollywood movies and religious music.

Their music didn’t seem interesting to me, so I didn’t really want to listen to it.

Sheeba ficou decepcionada, mas decidiu ouvir a fita pelo menos uma vez.

We were all curious about what we were going to hear.

When the music finally played, I was completely surprised! It wasn’t the old music my mom and dad listened to — it was a mixtape from an Indian hip hop DJ.

Em inglês, as mixtapes não são só fitas com músicas de artistas variados.

Elas também têm raízes no hip hop.

Nesse estilo musical, uma mixtape é uma coleção de músicas remixadas por um jovem produtor, ou DJ, pra mostrar seu talento.

I didn’t know who the Indian DJ was, so I wasn’t sure what to expect.

But after the second or third song, I was in love with the mixtape! They were hip hop songs, and the lyrics were in English and Hindi.

I couldn’t believe that Indian music sounded so cool!

A decepção inicial de Sheeba desapareceu completamente.

Ela tinha adorado a fita e começou a ouvir o tempo todo.

Tanto que deixou a família louca!

I loved that tape, and I played it all the time! After a while, the tape literally started to break.

Naquela época, a fita que passava por dentro da bobina de uma fita cassete podia ficar desgastada e até quebrar se fosse tocada muitas vezes.

My mom wanted me to get rid of the tape.

But I felt a connection to India when I listened to it, and I didn’t want to lose that.

So instead, I tried to fix it.

Honestly, I didn’t really know how to fix the tape, but I knew that I needed to try.

My dad was really proud that his gift was so important to me.

No fim das contas, o pai de Sheeba sabia sim do que a filha gostava.

My dad’s gift was more than just a tape full of songs.

He helped me fall in love with my culture.

I began watching a lot of Bollywood movies, but I also became interested in cultures and languages that were not my own.

I started listening to music in Spanish — even though I couldn’t understand the lyrics.

I also started watching a Japanese TV show — with no subtitles!

A fita ajudou Sheeba a ser mais curiosa e a entender algo novo sobre sua identidade e sua experiência como imigrante.

The tape helped me accept that there are two sides to my identity — I’m Indian and American.

And both sides can live in harmony.

That’s why my identity is beautiful and unique.

Sheeba Joseph é uma produtora de podcasts que mora na cidade de Nova York.

Nossa primeira narradora, Britta Jorgensen, é jornalista e pesquisadora de podcasts.

Ela mora em Sidney, na Austrália.

Eu sou Helena Fruet.

Thank you for listening!