I’ve had to rethink my approach to learning, since I’ve got right out of my routine since the holiday in France. I’m not really writing regularly and all the habits I’d got into – tweeting in Portuguese, reading daily, watching films weekly, doing exercises – have fallen into disrepair. So I’ve set myself a more modest goal: back to the writing and do something else daily, but not feel like I have to do everything. Hopefully if I can get back into the groove of doing a daily task, I can ramp it up again. I’ve got all my study materials together and put them in a box next to the sofa so that I don’t have to get over the hurdle of finding them (thus removing a barrier to my motivation!) I’ll probably post less on here too.
I mentioned in yesterday’s post, my favourite “hack” for conversarion: tell them you’re Danish. If, like. Me, you’re pale and un-iberian-looking, you obviously can’t pass yourself off as a local, but you don’t want people to clock you’re an English speaker because then they’ll be unhelpfully helpful. So pretend to be Danish because nobody speaks Danish. Then you can swear you have no knowledge of other languages and they’ll just have to talk to you in Portuguese. Or run away. I definitely recommend having this trick up your sleeve for an emergency.
Anyway, when we were in France, my daughter, who is learning French at A-level, used the same trick and told them she was “danoise”. I was really proud of her putting herself out there and talking to people. She did really well.
Hello! Well, I have been quiet for a few days after a long, long time of consistent language learning and consistent banging-on-about-it on here. We went to France and I had to squeeze my brain into French mode and its taken me a while to get back into the right frame of mind to get back to work on Portuguese. I’m actually still jointly reading the French translation of Six of Crows with my daughter so I’m going to be twin-track for a few weeks to come, but at least I’m starting the ball rolling again.
I’ve also just finished listening to this course about languistics, presented by John McWhorter who is an author and the host of the Lexicon Valley podcast as well as being an accomplished academic in his own right. He really brought the subject alive. I’ve been interested in the development of language for ages and enjoyed seeing how some of my pet theories, derived from learning Portuguese, French and Scots Gaelic, lined up with current ideas formed by people who actually know what they’re talking about. Portuguese is mentioned a few times, both in its relation to other romance languages and in its role as a source languages for creoles and pidgins in areas where Portugal’s empire spread its influence. Of course, knowing about linguistics doesn’t make you better at speaking another language but I feel like it adds an extra dimension to the experience and I’d definitely recommend it if it’s not something you’ve already tried. It’s on Audible’s free list, meaning if you’re a member you can just listen without spending precious, precious credits.
I enjoyed this as a challenge. And let me pass along the challenge to you, gentle reader: can you write a Limerick in Portuguese? Whack it in the comments and show me what you’ve got. All entrants win a free subscription to Luso Premium. That’s like ordinary Luso except you are allowed to read it out loud to yourself in a Michael Caine voice.
Um Limerick é um poema humorístico com 5 linhas. A primeira, a segunda e a quinta linhas rimam umas com as outras e a quarta rima com a terceira. Desafiei-me escrever um Limerick em português. Desculpem – acho que contem asneiras…
Havia um jovem do Porto Cujo pénis era bastante torto Mijou de maneira errada Salpicou a tomada Por isso o homem é morto*
*Apparently “é um homem morto” sounds more natural but I liked the rhythm better like this so I’ve left it.
Well, I’m back on blighty, as you’ll know if you’ve been following my series of updates from Coimbra and Porto. We’re off to France in a week or so for a proper holiday, so now I’ve got a week to brush up on the language they speak there which is called… What? “Frenge”, I think. Something like that. I used to be pretty good at it but obviously the language-learning part of my brain only has so much room and a lot of it has been filled up with Portuguese so it’s pretty hard to make myself understood these days.
Like Portugal, France has a lot of wildfires in summer and there are some near(ish) to where we’re staying, so we’ll just have to hope the place will still be standing when we get there.
Well, this didn’t happen. We’ll, not properly anyway. It was a bit of a wash out day considered from a planning point if view but that’s OK, i enjoyed it anyway. Travel is usually best if you don’t spend all your time dwelling on what didn’t happen and enjoy the things that do.
I’ve got a couple of book reviews to write up but I haven’t got around to them yet, I’ve been too busy writing a sort or daily diary so I’ll save the reviews till I’m home again.
So I’m in Coimbra, right, just down on a lark, working and running and annoying people with my terrible accent and someone’s just told me that Xutos e Pontapés, the Portuguese Rolling Stones are playing a gig in easy travel distance of here tomorrow and there até still tickets left and they are only – this is the amazing bit – €4 because of some communitarian cultural subsidies. It’ll be after my race so I don’t know if I’ll be up to it but it’s a thought, eh? It’s a thought!
I’ve heard the word “Beto” or its diminutive, “Betinho”, being used a few times as a sort of derrogatory word for a rich, posh person – someone the kids today would call privileged. I think I first came across it in 1986 A Série but didn’t really wonder where it came from. Apparently it’s from the early eighties when a Brazilian Telenovela called Dancing Days first aired on portuguese TV. There was a character in that called Beto, who was the son of well-off parents. He was played by Lauro Corona. The series aired in the late seventies and made its way to Portugal in the early eighties, so it still would have been quite a new word in 1986 when Nuno Markl puts it into the mouths of his protagonists.
Anyway, here’s a clip from the original series. It has strong eighties vibes to me, but I guess these trends don’t fit precisely into decades, do they?
Luso 