portoguese as it is spoken in rio is a colorful language, rich in colorful expressions, musicality, and adjectives that often have to be interpreted to determine their proper meaning in context.

one characteristic of cariocas is a tendency to emphatize descriptions of people, places, and events - and this tendency certainly manifests itself in their recounting of stories and reactions to their surroundings.

Whether to highlight the bad or convey the good, in informal situations most cariocas love to exaggerate and add color to any description.

they are fond of the superlative - Views are regularly described as the best in the city, beaches the best in the country, a film the finest ever seen, a party the most exceptional of the year.     

Conversely, a whole host of locations are termed the most dangerous in the city and adversaries are referred to as uniquely or unprecedentedly corrupt and evil. 

Similarly, cariocas often opt for extreme and high impact language - words like 'incredible' (increível), 'marvelous' (maravilhoso), 'enormous' (enorme), and 'horrific' (horroroso) are common parts of the linguistic tapestry of the city.

rio de janeiro is constantly referred to as the 'marvelous city', and many menu items in restaurants across town have items named 'mega' and 'super'.

People also bandy around the phrases 'beautiful' and 'I love you' with abundant generosity.      

Facts, figures and chronology have an impressive elasticity in the stories that cariocas tell - Events are made to seem much more shocking, funny or profound to suit the objective and whims of the teller.

when asking how far away a station or building is, the real time will often be halved or quartered to provide a much more pleasant and appealing figure.

it would be erroneous however to conclude that there is a degree of dishonesty or artificiality in carioca discourse - the people of rio tend to have strong, emotional responses to the people and world around them, and it is fitting that the language and expressions they use reflects this intense sensibility.       

importantly, while meaning shapes language, meaning in turn can be shaped by language and cariocas have developed an ability to calibrate and properly interpret exaggerations so that 'the best' means 'I loved it', 'five minutes' could mean half an hour, and the intended meaning is located behind the extreme, colorful and expressive terminology of the everyday.  

this is something to keep in mind by foreign visitors when literally translating what is being said and talked about.