How to Negotiate an Electrical Problem in Portuguese

In the morning, I woke up to the sound of a loud pop. Thinking that maybe something had fallen off a table, or there was a kind but clumsy stranger in my flat, I promptly went back to sleep. It was only when I woke up for the second time, looked at my phone and realised that it was no longer on charge that I made the assumption that there was a problem. A quick test of the bedside lamp, which failed to come on, confirmed my suspicions. The electricity had gone.

Being a well-skilled amateur electrician, I proceeded directly to the fuse box, flicked it back on and it immediately turned off again. My master theory was that perhaps a fuse had gone. I would take the fuse box off, find the rogue fuse and then go around the corner to the local electronics shop and get a new one. I rushed excitedly to my Portuguese dictionary to find the word for fuse. "Fusível." An easy one to remember.

Unfortunately, the fuse box was nearly impossible to remove so I did the next thing a good amateur electrician would do. I phoned someone who knew about these things; namely my landlord. My landlord knows how to say hello in English, and that's about it. I know no vocabulary for electrical things (not even the word for plug.) I know "desligar" (turn off) and "ligar" (turn on).

The conversation was brief but involved the following wonderful moments;
- me explaining that it must be a bad "fusível"
- me shouting excitedly the word "fusível" many times
- him telling me to "desligar" select things then "ligar" the "electricidade" again
- him repeating instructions to "desligar" things despite my insistence that it was a problem with the "fusível"

Well, to cut a long story short, it wasn't the "fusível". The problem was discovered a day later when a proper electrician was called and it turned out to be a dodgy old cable that needed replacing. A bit beyond my expertise.

I will never forget the word "fusível" and I will endeavour to use at least 10-15 times in random conversation before I leave.