Our Portuguese lesson never materialised this week as our teacher’s internet died. We had dutifully studied our Trabalho em Casa and were keen to practice. We had been tasked to prepare questions to ask the teacher using:
How ~ Como? * What ~ O que? * Where ~ Onde? * Which is ~ Qual é? * When ~ Quando? *
* Who ~ Quem? * Why ~ Porque? *
The challenge we face is not only pronouncing the words correctly as we mentally endeavour to prepare and ask a question, but we don’t understand the reply. Also, as we have discovered, the written sentence is not word for word for what is actually said in everyday Portuguese. The beginning and ending of words are not pronounced so a new word is created. Despite listening several times to everyday conversation, it feels like we are trying to crack a secret code.
For example, I noticed when our Portuguese friend sent voice messages on WhatsApp to test us, we were completely lost and had to cheat sssshhh and use Google Translate before we could formulate a reply. Despite her best efforts, each word rolled into the next, creating a new word.
I swear FB is like the genie in the bottle because what appears in my FB feed?
and I found myself nodding in agreement. Liz was spot on. I then signed up to listen to her webinar which proved equally informative. I am trying SO hard to grasp conversational as well as written Portuguese, and like my diet, despite the humps and bumps in the road, this time I am determined to succeed.
NB: If you are studying Portuguese alone do be mindful to check you are learning European Portuguese and NOT Brazilian Portuguese they are different as Liz of Talk the Streets explains.
You can also check out Liz on Facebook.
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Piglet in Portugal 
Está só difícil se tu não falar. Mesmo falar correcto ou errado. Quando tu falas errado, tu aprende novo palavras ou vocabulário. Está só porque errados tu és melhor. Caminho agora, eu estou escrito isto com meu português, não usar tradutor ou meu livros. Meu amigos de Portugal e Brasil chama eu falais diferentes mas é correto. Meu problema é eu pensar em Inglês e translado eu tenho é palavra por palavra e o contexto de Português e Inglês é oposto, está fazer meu linguajar um pouco diferente. Mas não ofenda ninguém, é sobre falar, falar e mais falar 👌
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Keep going, this is such a brilliant thing to do and so good for the brain! I do feel your pain, though ~ I spent five years learning Spanish from scratch and never quite cracked the conversational side of things. Are your Portuguese neighbours supportive of you trying? In Asturias, the native speakers were lovely and really encouraged me to have a go, even if they only understood every fifth word, they seemed to get the gist of what I was trying to say and some kind of exchange took place! Our Italian neighbour (married to a Spaniard) had learnt her Spanish totally through reading and advised me to read as much as I could which helped a lot in understanding the grammatical constructions but conversation is a different thing again, isn’t it? I think immersion really helps, too, I found it useful to spend time just being surrounded by the language but it takes a lot of courage to join in with the chat! I read somewhere that we should listen to a new language for a year before trying to speak it because that’s how babies learn to speak their mother tongue, it makes a lot of sense in theory but isn’t too helpful if you need to talk to people. I’m currently refreshing my very rusty basic Welsh and trying to improve so I can keep up with our grandchildren, definitely good brain gym but at least unlike when we lived in Spain and France, I can always fall back on English if need be. Boa sorte!
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Our immediate neighbours come from Lisbon and only use the house as an occasional holiday home. He is rude and ignored me when I tried to speak to him. I have a Portuguese friend who tries to help but I struggle to understand. Right now I am going back to basics and pronounciation.
Yes, Verbal communication is far harder than the written word. IT’s the pronounciation that gets me. I understand some of the basics but my head empties when someone asks me a question.
I’ve been listening to some Portuguese Podcasts or cookery demonstrations. That is beginning to help as I focus on listing the verbs and words I do understand and look up repeated words and keep a note.
Hey, good luck with the Welsh. It looks very complicated!
Thank you for dropping in, Lis, and offering some useful tips
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Keep on studying, Piglet. Don’t listen to those who say Portuguese (or Spanish) are easy to learn. It takes effort and is really worth it. I’ve studied Spanish 40 years and am still learning. (That’s meant as encouragement.) It took me two years to become conversational. You can reach a conversational level. The most important point is to let go of the expectation of understanding every word. Make sure you listen to music in Portuguese and read the printed lyrics. That will teach you about how the words join together. Boa sorte.
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Obrigada, Rebecca. 40 years is a long time … well done. I see your blog is written in both Spanish and English. I’m impressed! I like the idea of listening to music to help understand. Yes, I can see that would work because the delivery is slower.
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What I’d recommend most is complete immersion separate from your husband for 10 days to 2 weeks. We learn our first language through immersion and our brains are wired for it. Find a well respected home stay program in another city. Could be a lot of fun! Then join a weekly conversation group.
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Portuguese is not a difficult language to learn. Perhaps, it’s the metod/teacher you happen to come across that makes it seem so…. Porquê: It is always a question: Why? An example: “não gosto dele” (I don’t like him..) PORQUÊ? (Why not?) (because he is nosy): PORQUE ele é curioso (Porque is an answer/ the reason why I don’t like something, etc.:
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It depends. Are you saying this from the stance of a Portuguese native? Remember in English we don’t have to contend with masculine or feminine nouns. For example we only have one way of saying MY. Not 4. minha. minhas, meu and meus. And the gender of the noun affects everything even adjectives.
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Good for you for your perseverance, Carole! I’ve just started my Spanish lessons and am already finding it a bit challenging. I believe perseverance is key. Time will tell.
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Yep, like the dieting, perseverance is key. Good luck with the Spanish. I often listen to the SPanish tourists who holiday here and their language is very musical.
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I have listened to Liz before, and followed her on YT. She gives a lot of good insights and help. It was good to se the webinar once more, thanks! I first read that your teacher died… before I read again and realised there was an “internet” also. Puh!
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Oops … the mind can sometimes play tricks when we read LoL I like Liz’s pronounciation guide. My Portuguese spoken Portuguese sucks. I really must take some time out to practice all the different sounds.
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Goodness, me! What a challenge. Best of luck.
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Thanks, Laurie. At least it keeps the brain active even if it feels climbing Everest would probably be easier
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So good for you for keeping on learning the difficult language.
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We were sitting at supper tonight, and I mentioned you and your other half to The Engineer. I said how it must be quite isolating on a daily basis, not to be able to understand what is being said.
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Yep it is… but it is not just Portuguese where we live. We are on language overload. Neighbours include, Romanian, French, Dutch, German, Belge, Italian and Portuguese. The common language between all is English.
But everyday language in the village is Portuguese (Algarvian) which adds an extra challenge. I’d love to be able to talk to the locals about gardening etc. especially when we go to the local markets.
Enjoy your supper in Marseilles. 🙂
French is definitely a challenge 🙂
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