I've tried to learn a bit of Portuguese, but clearly I don't have the talent for it. I can get by on basic phrases: Bom dia (Good day), Tudo bem? (How are you?), Tudo bom (Everything's good), Posso ter... (Can I have...) and a few more like those. My conversations with the locals are very brief and to the point, usually accompanied with a lot of facial expressions and hand gestures. Most of them also end in awkward laughs or giggles, mainly directed towards ourselves when we realized we haven't a clue what the other person is talking about.
Some girls Jen and I have met who have stopped in Jeri for a while somehow become fluent in Portuguese in a matter of weeks. I was stunned and thought they just have an amazing knack for picking up new dialects. But just the other day, I found out their secret: Get a brazilian boyfriend then he'll teach you. It's an instant tutor! I don't see Jen or myself following in their shoes, but I'm going to try to initiate more conversations with some of the locals we do know. Most are happy you're giving Portuguese a try, and will correct you where you go wrong.
On another note: Jen and I had our first solo English teaching a few days ago. It went well, although we did choose an easy topic for our first lesson: Food. The adults got right into it and I was impressed that we actually pulled it off. Jen did most of the teaching while I provided examples and corrected her spelling occasionally. The next lesson will be teaching the future tense, hopefully we can pull it off too!
No comments:
Post a Comment