Learning to speak Portuguese
It´s been a year since I moved to Brazil in July 2013 and 8 years since I first visited the country.
I find it important to mention that also I married a Brazilian 7 years ago …
In 2005 , I decided to learn Portuguese in order to do field research in Brazil as part of my PhD. This assignment was supposed to take place in 2006. So, I had a year ahead of me to learn enough Portuguese and do well in the interviews. That meant that I needed to understand people, to express myself, read and write. What a challenge !
In September 2005, I signed up for a group course (1 ½ hour per week) in Paris. In a few months, I started writing in Portuguese following the advice of my teacher .
That was a real effort because my time was tight. Looking back, I realize that this training made a big difference.
This course gave me great knowledge of grammar. However in a group course I had little opportunity to speak. Every time I met a Brazilian friend (visiting or living in Paris),I tried to communicate with them and practice mu Portuguese.
When I arrived in Brazil in October 2006 to start my research, I didn´t have enough fluency to conduct the interviews. Then, I went to live with my mother-in-law who did not speak a word other than Portuguese. At that time, I had no choice: I had to learn as fast as possible! The immersion brought me great results, in a few weeks. I went to do the interviews and all went right. In January 2007, I returned to France with research completed and knowing how to speak Portuguese.
Getting to Brazil
After that experience, I always tried to practice and improve my Portuguese. I kept contact with the language through music, movies and even soup operas.
Everything was a tool for me to listen to this beautiful language and acquire more vocabulary.
Finally, in 2011, I decided to move to Brazil. The change happened in 2012. When I arrived, I needed to diversify my vocabulary, learn slang and sharpen my understanding. It was very intense and I confess a little tiring. At first, I seemed to forget French and mix both languages. I had to make an effort to jump from one language to the other many times a day. So, I got a lot of practice both languages.
In one year, my Portuguese improved gradually, especially pronunciation. My accent is still fun for my friends! For example, they laughed a lot when I tried to say that I had seen a type of parrot called “arrarrá”! It took me a while to explain that, in fact, I had seen a macaw. My friends agreed among themselves not to mention or correct my mistakes in pronunciation to make it “cute” for me, but after a while, I began to realize hidden glances among them when speaking
certain words like “irronico” , “carramel”. One day, I told you this guy was “sucking mango” instead of it looking like “a dog sucking mango” which is a Brazilain idiom.
Even nowadays I still hear people telling this story. All this struck me because I learned two things. The first one is that Brazilians like to joke.
The second one is that you don’t have to worry about perfection. I know that I will definitely keep making mistakes, but that doesn’t matter much.
Surely, it is important to always try to improve. But for me, the most important thing is to have enough level to communicate and express everything you want to speak or write, which allows you to work, and to be able to chat with our friends!
Sonia Stransky
