Pedro Carolino

Pedro Carolino was a Portuguese writer associated with English as She Is Spoke, the famously chaotic Portuguese-English phrasebook first published in the 19th century. The book was meant to help Portuguese readers learn conversational English, but its bizarre wording and mistranslations turned it into an enduring example of unintentional humor.

Reliable biographical details about his life are scarce. Some reference sources identify him as living from 1788 to 1866, while others simply place him in the mid-1800s, so it is safest to say that he was an obscure Portuguese author whose reputation now rests almost entirely on this single, very unusual book.

Part of the book’s legend comes from the long-standing claim that Carolino did not truly know English and seems to have worked indirectly through other language guides and dictionaries. Whether read as a curiosity, a linguistic mishap, or a genuine publishing oddity, his work has outlived most successful phrasebooks of its era.