TEDxO'Porto - Sandra Fisher-Martins - The right to understand

[opiumm]

Parabêns Sandra pela eloquência!

[helliop]

I think companies make their contracts difficult to read and full of jargon to HIDE all the flaws in their products. Take those mortgages in the US, if people could have understood the stipulations in the contract clearly, they may have been more hesitant to sign and that would lead to less customers for the banks.

[denisepianista]

Fico a pensar se a língua portuguesa é mais difícil mesmo ou se os brasileiros e portugueses são menos inteligentes que os suecos...rsrsrs

Fora das brincadeiras, penso que a preletora tem toda a razão!Precisamos mesmo simplificar nossa língua. Experimentem ver um texto em inglês e contem as páginas. Vejam o mesmo texto em português e vejam quantas páginas a mais...está tudo dito...

[ytmetroid]

Sou brasileiro e tive um pouco de dificuldade pra entender o seu portugues.. ironico não? uahsuahsuahsuahsa, mas as legendas em ingles ajudaram "a lot".. pois bem, achei magnifico o video, gostei muito e estou engajado na ideia.. muito muito obrigado =)

[rogeriopicado]

Sandra, meus parabéns. Essa tua proposta ... tão simples ... e tão abrangente ... todos temos avós ou um amigo ... Mr. Domingos ... é tão fácil incluirmos bilhões ao mundo do saber que liberta e insere ... com simples gestos ... que te aplaudir é muito pouco. Vou divulgar você todos os dias a partir de hoje ... e convidar a todos os meus amigos para fazerem o mesmo. Torço para que a IBM te encontre e te inclua na proposta SMARTER CITIES.

[symbolt]

Great talk! I think this may be a common issue in Europe. I'm Polish, and recently I needed to figure out something new about taxes. Although I am a "languge professional" (translator, reviewer, sometimes writer), it was difficult for me to understand some texts, and when I decoded the language, I often could see problems in content (abstract arguments looping). I realized the tax info was written in jargon for experts, even on sites meant for the public. This needs to change.

[explod2A03]

Excellent talk! As a citizen of the United States, I am deeply concerned about consumer protection. I think it's only a matter of time before the concept enters the political spotlight, and this video offers clear, pragmatic solutions to a very real problem. I think the United States is proof that simply expecting the public to be educated and able to navigate tricky documents isn't enough, because we have a much higher literacy rate than Portugal and we still had the subprime lending crisis.

[miguelnglopes]

É preciso que os autores dos documentos QUEIRAM ser realmente entendidos.... Será que é sempre esse o caso??? Não haverá quem ganhe com o obscurecimento do sentido dos documentos?

[ryusm92]

As a son of an immigrant who had to deal with complex mountains of paperworks on behalf of my parents since when I was 12, I am so touched and moved by this speech. I always thought that I am the one with problems where my English was "not good enough" or "not native yet" to understand those complicated words and sentences, but now I understand that it was actually THEIR responsibility to have everything clear. Great talk! Truly appreciated.

[imnotafreesample]

@ryusm92 Same for me. I'm an immigrant too, so great part of the paperwork for me and my parents is done by me. Once I spent 1 hour trying to make sense of a 3 pages form that I had to fill in.

[johis69]

I didn't realize we had a country in Europe where a huge part of the population can't even read properly. According to Wikipedia 93,3% can read but not very well it seems. Apart from that, I agree that the language used in those docs is waaay too complicated.

[ArtofMonday]

Loved her accent and message. Delivered vital information in a very charming and truthful manner. Amazing woman, let's listen to her words but really take action in them.

[GrandPoivron]

So... apart from the accent, am i the only one to feel like somebody just woke me up from a stone-heavy sleep of unawareness?

Or to phrase that a little more simply : SHE SO RIGHT !

[Soruyao]

I thought her accent was cute.

[RickSaiz]

Brazilian Portuguese sounds much more smooth.

Check this Brazilian TEDx for example: watch?v=UchzUJZsuA4

Same language, some different words, very different accents.

[zassounotsukushi]

It's hard to not agree with everything she says.

[Valca000]

looks like a great talk, but I am annoyed of the accent half way through

[Schmoek]

@Valca000 Then turn the volume down and just read the subtitles?

[eatcarpet]

Portuguese sounds a bit like Russian.

[joshtwork]

@eatcarpet Yeah, Portuguese can sound like a lot of different languages. One time I heard some Portuguese people talking, and I could've sworn it was 4 or 5 different languages before realizing that it was, in fact, Portuguese.