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FORMER PRESIDENT LUIZ Inacio Lula da Silva, the front-runner heading into Brazil’s presidential election in October, has married in a ceremony that had a political touch.
The 76-year-old leftist politician, who was president in 2003-2010 and leads incumbent far-right President Jair Bolsonaro in all opinion polls, wed sociologist Rosangela Silva, 55, before 150 guests who sang his old and new campaign songs more than once.
It was the third marriage for Lula, as he is known to Brazilians.
His two previous wives – Maria de Lourdes da Silva and Marisa Leticia – died.
Lula started his relationship with his new wife, nicknamed Janja, in 2017, when he was in jail following corruption convictions that were later overturned by Brazil’s Supreme Court.
“I decided to get married again because I believe Brazil can be fixed,” Lula said during the Roman Catholic ceremony, according to a statement.
“A man who is 76 years old and is in love like I am, willing to get married, can only want good things for this country.”
Lula’s bio on social media channels was quickly updated to add that he is now “Janja’s husband”.
The wedding’s location in Sao Paulo was kept secret until yesterday afternoon due to fears of protests by Bolsonaro supporters, as have other events attended by Lula.
Guests included politicians, old friends of the couple and artists, including Grammy award winner Gilberto Gil.
As they left, they received souvenirs with an embroidered inscription reading O Amor Venceu (Love Has Won).
Lula has sought to characterise the presidential race as a fight between love and hatred, linking the latter in his speeches to Mr Bolsonaro’s campaign.
Most of the commenters on here could start with English …
And most of the journalists too…..
Surely Irish is the most difficult language to learn? 12 years of it in school and most Irish people can manage ‘an bhfuil cead agam dul amach?’
The system/teachers/parents are the problem, not the language.
It can only be described as an abject failure Colin, and the insistence of the Dept of Ed and Teachers to continue with curriculum in its present form speaks volumes for the lack of professionalism and apathy they have.
Sorry, I should have put a sarcasm warning on my post.
I’ve been studying it 15 years and I’m still not great. Studying it from Junior Infants to my first year in college. I’ll keep going though l, desperately want to be fluent.
Do you restrict your efforts to the prescribed curriculum?
Where’s German?
To the left of Polish.
Ein grossen bier bitter!
*ein großes Bier bitte!
Dutch or africaans are well up there amongst the easiest.
I begun studying French there a few weeks ago. Amazed at how many English words came from French.
Michel Tomas is the man! Such an easy way to soak it up before learning how to write it down. The same way everyone learns when they are kids.
Ye I’m using his cds for spanish at the moment. They’re brilliant. You really feel you’re actually getting somewhere with them. My girlfriend used his italian cds for a few wks before going on holidays last yr and was able to communicate no problem. Although she’s able to pick up languages very easily. As for irish I had two brilliant teachers in my life who made it their duty to make sure we actually learned irish and not jist covered the curriculum. In 5th and 6th in primary and 5th and 6th year I had amazing irish teachers and with three trips to irish college I was almost fluent leaving school…..lost tons of it now though!
Michel Tomas is the man”
Dead right – his courses are brilliant . He once described English as French – badly pronounced .
Also that once u know how to use verbs – the rest is just vocabulary – but that was not the way it was in schools .
Maybe things have changed ??
The Problem with teaching Irish is the emphasis on grammar- instead of getting to know what is useful everyday .
Here Barry there’s a great app called Duolingo if you never heard of it, check it out its good for the basics.
Cheers Phil. I’ll check that out.
And memrise app
Chinese word for small horse? Ty ni po ni..
Best way is to immerse yourself in a language, came to Spain 8 years ago with no idea of Spanish to an area where no one speaks English and find sometimes I forget how to speak English bit awkward when I go home on holidays and speak to my family in Spanish
Everyone goes on about Peig and how miserable her poetry was. I did my leaving in 99′ and can’t even remember that Peig stuff thankfully,perhaps it wasn’t covered in my particular school, otherwise I daydreamed my way through it like I did for most of my schooldays :)
Peig was taken of the curriculum around ’92/’93.
And it was a book not poetry. You’re lucky you weren’t subjected to the mind torture of Peig and her woe is me and my 25 children who died choking on a potato while shteeling a bundy because it’s certainly something you would never forget for all the wrong reasons.
I did Peig for my leaving in ’08!
When I was in school Spanish was for the wasters, French for the cool cats and German for the serious people who wanted to do business studies or commerce or some such rubbish. My how wrong we all were. Shoulda took Spanish as it’s probably the most useful one for the holiers.
Would love an objective measure of how difficult Geailge is to learn.
Floods in China. …pee too long
I used pimsleur for dutch, its purely audio and very effective, but also very boring.
I used pimsleur for Cantonese and learned exactly enough to keep the subordinates questioning how much I really understood.
I do want to learn a language as it so happens. Its been four years since I did my leaving and I had a reasonable standard of French then so I figure it makes most sense to try and refresh that. Anyone have any suggestions about books, websites or other resources to help?
Check out Benny Lewis website, an Irish guy fluent in 8 languages. Fluentin3months.com He’s great, a breath of fresh air.
Travellers should be listed….
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=497379217027238&set=vb.495096143922212&type=2&theater
Ya junkies basyard ya
Im in Dubai and trying have tried learning Arabic. Its a pity I haven’t taken to it compared to other languages.. but the Arabic script is so difficult to read. I’ve picked up a few common phrases though..
Clearly Dutch should be on the list too?!
I think learning a language helps if you listen to music in the language you are trying to learn, that’s why I find Turkish so easy compared to other languages
There is surprisingly no mention of Esperanto here. Esperanto is a planned language which belongs to no one country or group of states. Using it brings speakers of different mother tongues together without having to resort to English or a strong regional language.
I find the French verb book “501 verbs” really good for verb conjugation which is key in french. Its only a couple of euro to purchase second hand on Amazon and it also comes in German and Spanish
have your say