My birthday was earlier this month. (Check out these other posts, if you want to know how you would sing happy birthday in Portuguese)... So we will cover a couple expressions for different ages in Portuguese, starting with balzaquiana, em minha homenagem (=as an homage to me):
balzaquiana = woman in her 30s.
Example:
Agora, eu sou uma balzaquiana.
This is due to Balzac's "A woman of Thirty". There is no similar term for men, so you can say the following (applicable to men and women):
Ele tem uns vinte/trinta/quarenta e poucos anos.
He is in his early 20s/30s/40s.
(literaly something like: He has some 30 and few years)
Ela tem uns vinte/trinta/quarenta e tantos anos.
She is in her late 20s/30s/40s.
(literaly something like: She has some 20/30/40 and so much years).
Exercises:
- If you are of applicable age, make a sentence describing your age, using the expressions above.
- Think of a couple of people you know and use the expressions above to describe thier approximate age.
As well as balzaquianas, we also have women in the idade da loba:
a idade da loba - literally "the age of the female wolf" - the age of women in their 40s
This is again due to a book by Regina Lemos (the translation of the title would be "Forty: the age of the wolf" - but all using the feminine gender. Here is some more on that). Again this is for women only.
For both genders, we can use the following expressions for people in their 40s and 50s (very informal):
quarentão/quarentona
in his 40s/ in her 40s
cinquentão/cinquentona
in his 50s/ in her 50s
Finally we have:
coroa - a slang meaning old person (sometimes pejorative) - literally "crown"
and
enxuto/enxuta - a slang meaning someone well preserved for their (old) age.
Example:
Ele é um já é um cinquentão, mas está um coroa enxuto.
He is already in his 50s, but he is a well preserved old man.
Exercises:
- Think of someone you know or celebreties ranging from early 20s and 50s. Make sentences describing their ages.
- Answer if you can: Na sua opinião, quais pessoas famosas são coroas enxutos?
