Quatro cidades: texto em inglês com there is e there are (áudio + tradução ao toque)

💡 Toque em qualquer palavra para ver a tradução em português. Aperte o play para ouvir a narração — o texto acende palavra por palavra conforme o áudio avança.

Paris

Paris is a city built in circles. There is a river in the middle, the Seine, and there are thirty-seven bridges across it, some of them plain and functional, others heavy with statues. The streets around the river are narrow and grey, and there is stone everywhere — the buildings are pale, the roofs are dark, and the whole city has one single colour in the rain.

There are cafés on almost every corner, and they all look the same from the outside: small round tables, wicker chairs, a waiter in a white apron. The tables face the street, not the wall, because in Paris people watch people. There is very little space inside; there is even less space on the pavement. Nobody seems to mind.

The Parisians are polite, but they are not warm. There is a distance in the way they speak to strangers, and it is not rudeness — it is a rule. They greet you properly when you enter a shop, and if you forget to say bonjour first, the temperature of the conversation drops immediately. There are tourists in every square, but the city clearly does not belong to them. The bakeries open at seven, the parks are full of old men reading newspapers, and life continues exactly as it did before anyone arrived with a camera.

Rome

Rome is the opposite. There is no order in Rome, and there is no plan. There are ruins in the middle of ordinary streets, and nobody looks at them twice. There is a two-thousand-year-old column standing next to a bus stop, and there is a man selling coffee under it.

The city is loud. There are scooters everywhere, and there are almost no rules about where they go. There are cats in the ruins, hundreds of them, and there is a woman who feeds them at the same hour every afternoon. There are fountains on many corners, and the water is cold and free, so people fill their bottles and walk on.

The Romans are direct. They speak with their hands, they interrupt each other, and they laugh loudly in public. There is no distance here at all. Waiters correct your order if they think you are wrong. There is an opinion about everything — about the weather, about the government, about the correct amount of cheese. Food is not a pleasure in Rome; it is a subject, and there are experts on every table.

Tokyo

Tokyo is enormous and completely silent. There are fourteen million people in the city, and there is no noise on the trains. Nobody speaks on a phone. There are signs in the carriages asking for quiet, but the signs are unnecessary — everyone already knows.

There is technology in strange places and old technology in obvious ones. There are heated toilet seats in cheap restaurants and fax machines in modern offices. There are vending machines on residential streets at two in the morning, and there is no fear that anyone will break them. There is almost no litter anywhere, and there are almost no rubbish bins either, because people carry their rubbish home.

The Japanese are extremely helpful and extremely reserved at the same time. If you look lost, someone stops. Sometimes that person walks with you for ten minutes to show you the right exit, and then apologises. There is a strong sense that other people matter more than you do, and it shows in small things: the queues are straight, the shop assistants bow, and the taxi doors open by themselves so that you do not have to touch anything.

New York

New York is vertical. There is no space to grow outwards, so everything grows up. There are buildings so tall that the street below is in shadow at midday. There is steam coming out of the ground, exactly as it does in the films, and there are sirens all day and all night.

There is a different language on every block. There are Dominican restaurants next to Korean supermarkets next to Polish bakeries, and there is no attempt to make them match. There are twenty-four-hour shops on most avenues. There is nothing that you cannot buy at three in the morning.

New Yorkers are fast and surprisingly kind. They walk quickly, they speak quickly, and they lose patience with anyone who blocks the pavement. But there is no coldness in it. If you ask a question, you get a real answer, usually with an opinion attached. There is a story on every corner and someone who is happy to tell it to you.

What the notebook says

There are four cities in this notebook, and there is one conclusion. Paris has rules and hides them. Rome has no rules and admits it. Tokyo has rules and everybody follows them. New York has rules but there is no time to explain them.

There is no best city on this list. There is only the question of which kind of order you can live inside.