I mostly study Portuguese as an excuse to buy more books. This week it’s “O Principezinho” (The Little Prince) by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry and “Português Atual“, which has all the grammar I need for the B2 exam. I already have a book of Modelos (mock exam papers) but this will be a good way of getting on top of the grammar in the next couple of months.
I signed up for iTalki’s Olympic Language Challenge. I’m doing OK. I’ve already hit “Power-Lifting” (3 hours of teaching in a day) and when I have finished my current booked lessons that will get me javelin (5 consecutive days). Then all I need is to do another 5 hours in July to hit marathon (20 hours total in the period). I quite fancied doing the fourth activity, Archery, which would mean taking a lesson each in three other languages, which I think would be a good laugh but I wanted to do at least one of them with my daughter and she wasn’t up for it. I haven’t completely given up though. I need to think about how to make it fun and also let her choose a teacher. iTalki lets you see the person in a video first so you can make sure they aren’t scarily strict. That’s reassuring.
Mini-challenges like this are a pretty good way of motivating yourself if you need a kick-start, and I definitely did. I question their value as a long-term way of keeping motivation alive though, because they encourage a stop-start attitude, where you reach the end of the time and decide to just not bother any more. It’s already underway, but if you fancy signing up a little late you can have a look here.
Yesterday’s exercise involved two lists of words. I had to take a word from each list and make a phrase or portmanteau word. Por Exemplo, “Estrela de Mar” or “Belas Artes”. I managed to get the first dozen or so with the aid of a dictionary but I was left with three in each list that I couldn’t budge. I decided to pair them up at random and enter them into Google Search and see what sites/pictures each brought back. If a particular combination came up with nothing but pictures of cheese wheels then I’d know I had a winner.
On the first try, I was a bit taken aback with the phrase “Troca de Casal”. Oo-er, madam! Mrs Lusk walked in to find me giggling at a screen full of saucy looking men with moustaches rubbing their hands and leering at the sight of scantily-clad raparigas. Apparently, Troca de casal means “wife-swapping”.
The correct combinations, if you’re interested, were “troca-tintas” (literally, a paint-slinger, or more figuratively, someone whose words can’t be trusted. In short, a bullshitter) and “Cabeça de casal” (head of the household”)
| água
azul belas cabeça castanho chapéu estrela guarda luso |
novo
obra pé porta saca surdo trinca troca fim |
rico
mar fato prima mudo claro voz tintas escuro |
sol
artes brasileiro colônia rolhas semana cabra casal espinhas |
Well, they said I wouldn’t get the resultados until Setembro, but it’s only July and the angels have wafted the good news to me on their wings – I have passed the DEPLE exam! There’s a bottle of Prosecco in the fridge. I worked harder for this than I did for any of my University modules, or for anything, really, since my “A” Levels in 1852, and I couldn’t be more proud!
Update: Apparently the classificação: bom means I got between 70 and 84%. That’ll do me.
This story in Atlas Obscura is amazing and illustrates perfectly the importance of choosing the right resources to help you learn a language.
I think I might try a new thing: writing notes of mistakes I have made in lessons to avoid making them again. Here are a few from today’s lesson with a new teacher:
após de trabalhar tão duro
should be
após trabalhar tão arduamente
because após doesn’t need a “de” after it (I always find these small change words hard to deal with!) and “duro” means hard in the sense of solid, as opposed to “working hard” and apparently it sounds a bit sexual in the wrong context, so best avoided. Ahem. Moving on, “arduamente” (cognate with “arduously”) seems to be a better fit
para conhecer um ao outro
should be
para nos conhecermos
because it’s a more natural way of speaking in place of a literal translation of “get to know one another” it’s more like “to us get to know us”. Anything involving the infinitivo pessoal is bound to be very, very unfamiliar to English ears, so it’s all down to practice, I suppose, and getting used to it so you can pull it out of the word-hoard when you need it.
se tem épocas
should be
se tiver(es) disponibilidade
Actually, “épocas” sounds weird in English, since it’s obviously cognate with “epochs” but it’s the way the CAPLE registration page describes a lack of available spaces in their schedule (“Ainda não existem épocas disponíveis neste LAPE”), which is why I used it. Formal Portuguese sometimes uses weird words no normal person would use so it’s better to say “disponibilidade” (“availability”). “Tiveres” or “tiver” is the future subjunctive because it’s something that I’m talking about in the future and there’s some uncertainty in the mix.
Finally
Arranjar
in the sense of “arrange a meeting” doesn’t work. It’s a false friend. Arranjar means to fix something that’s broken. The correct word is
Marcar
which has a few senses, including “to score a goal” as you can see here.
Buying iTalki Credits with the exchange rate at 1.326 be like…
I spotted a blog on Twitter today that has some really nice online resources for language learners. Unlike most blogs, it doesn’t just tell you things, it actually has some online test exercises too, which is nice. Here’s a link to the DIPLE/B2 page, which is the next level up for me, but if you look at the menu on the right-hand side you can see they have pages for all different levels.
The Blog is called Nós Falamos Português and you can find it here!
I find myself strangely embarrassed to talk to Portuguese people. A couple of friends have skyped me and asked how I feel about the referendum. I couldn’t really tell them though because I was too drunk to remember how to say “ashamed of living in a country that is 52% idiots” in Portuguese.
One of the people I follow on twitter put it like this:
It means “Have any English people tried to swim to Europe yet? Don’t let them come in. We have to protect our jobs“, and I know what he means. If I was from the mainland I wouldn’t want to speak to us either.
In keeping with yesterday’s historic Brexit vote, I have decided instead of learning Portuguese I’m just going to speak loudly and clearly to foreigners: “Don’t you speak English?” I will shout as I order my tea and crumpets.
Luso 