Studies and training

The fourth entry is a faculdade, and the trouble it makes is not that the word looks strange but that it looks familiar. In English a faculty is one division of a university — the Faculty of Arts, the Faculty of Law — and it names an administrative unit, something a student belongs to on paper rather than a place he walks to. Portuguese has that sense as well, but it has stretched the word much further: in Portugal a faculdade is the ordinary shorthand for university itself. Andar na faculdade is to be at university, entrar na faculdade is to get in, acabar a faculdade is to graduate, and A faculdade fica do outro lado da cidade is about a building somebody crosses town for. A British student would say « uni » in all four, and would never put « faculty » in any of them. The stretch has one limit worth knowing: a faculdade never names the people who teach, who are os docentes. And the two languages meet again on the mind, since « in full possession of his faculties » is as faculdades mentais.