… If I’d been asked to guess where I lost the most marks, Compreensão do Oral would not have been my first choice!
Wow, well…
Category: English
Well That’s Refreshing. And Refreshing.
My last exam result came out in early January last year, so I have been constantly checking and re-checking the page to see if the DUPLE results are out. I leave it open in my browser and then refresh it next time I have a spare minute.
No luck yet.
New Vocab of the Day: Culatra
Culatra means the part of the gun where you’d usually load the ammunition. So if it’s saindo pela culatra it’s… Backfiring! Their idea has backfired. I like that.
Uma Opinião Que Não É Uma Opinião
Costumo de escrever opiniões nos livros portugueses que leio. Ouvi este Audiolivro enquanto embrulhava as prendas de natal sob influência do Baileys, portanto a minha memória está embaciada e a minha opinião não é confiável… Peço desculpa. Talvez no próximo Dezembro eu volte a ouvir, sem álcool. Os contos individuais são disponíveis na loja Kobo mas provavelmente não te apetece lê-lo em Janeiro!
My Prime Minister, Ladies and Gentlemen
Yessss!!
I’m not sure “typical” is quite the right word. It was too touristy for my wife, so she refused to go on them, but I’m glad he got to have a go, even if I didn’t.
Maybe This is It. Maybe I Just Need To Get Bitten
Wife Decoder Kit
I picked this up from here and I’m looking forward to unravelling the secrets of the island.
Só Neste País
This looks interesting and I might have to add it to my list of things to add to my next Wook order. In the caption for the second image, it took me a second to realise what “o 4° pastorinho” meant. It’s a Fátima reference isn’t it. The pastorinhos are the three kids who saw the Virgin Mary in 1916. Oh dear god, I hope that’s a joke because if he really said that it’s the most cringe thing ever.
A Couple of Interesting Things Happening in London, One of of Which Might Not Be Happening, Who the Heck Knows?
Just by pure chance I heard about another two Lusophonic Occurrences here in London this week.
One is the Utopia Film Festival, which started yesterday and goes on till the twelfth. The films look quite serious and not exactly entertaining but if I can shake the lurgy, I might go and see one towards the end of its run.
And the other is a weird one. It’s a brand new international Portuguese literary festival in London, on Saturday the 7th. But hang on, haven’t we already had a brand new international Portuguese literary festival in London, FLILP, in June this year? I mean, I’m grateful for all these international Portuguese literary festivals you’re bringing to my town, but there must be other towns and other countries that need brand new international Portuguese literary festivals!
Anyway, it’s called Letras Lusas Em Londres and it was organised by Alcino Francisco, who I actually met and spoke to at FLILP in June, where he was one of the guests, and bought a copy of his book.
It’s surprisingly hard to find details of the festival though. I can see a few people on Insta refer to it, and even an interview with Alcino himself, but I can’t find an official account for the event on Insta. Alcino Francisco’s own Instagram account is dormant. If I Google the name of the festival, there’s a Facebook page right at the top of the ranking, but when I click on the link I land on some random video clip, so I think the page was deleted. This news article describes it, but there are two links to the organisers’ websites and both of them are deadlinks.* I can see there’s a reasonably full list of guests on this page, but nothing like this glossy publicity materials FLiLP put out in the run-up to their launch. It’s all weirdly hush-hush really. I dug around all over the place. I found another blogger who had done a couple of posts about it, so he must be better informed than I am, but, again, I’m not seeing anything linking to some central place on the Web where the organisers have set out a programme, or what to expect or… Well, anything really. The woman who put together FLiLP seems much better organised, as well as… Ahem… More original.
An old friend of the family has suggested we go together but even if I wasn’t full of cold germs, I don’t think I’d want to trek over there because I’m not even sure it’s actually happening. That’s how bad the lack of information is.
*By the way, it also contains the phrase “@s leitor@s” which almost made me want to take Solanium’s example and learn Spanish instead.
Ave Atque Vale, WritestreakPT
I just had a look in r/WritestreamPT on Reddit. It’s a forum I posted in more-or-less daily over a period of about two years. I assumed it would have just carried on regardless. When I left, I was having a bit of a crisis of confidence because I felt like I kept making the same mistakes over and over, and since there were only so many Portuguese volunteers around, I was hogging attention that other, less dim learners could have used.
I think the decline had already set in though. There were fewer and fewer teachers working. Even the Brazilian teachers left. People kept going anyway and didn’t seem to be bothered if nobody corrected what they write.
But when I looked today, the only recent posts were from a bot that posts the “Dia de Socializar” message each week. O scrolled down. There hadn’t been a human for 3 months. Even Solanium, a PT-BR learner, with an unbroken streak of 1182 days, hardly ever making a mistake, and so focused that he didn’t even make a big deal when his streak reached 666, just kept on going (I would have planned that post a month in advance I tell you!)… Even he had stopped. And just to twist the knife further, when I had a look at his profile, he has been posting in r/WritestreakES! Wut??? He’s learning Spanish now? I feel betrayed!, 😭
It’s a shame, but i have fond memories of the place. I guess I was lucky enough to be involved when it was in its heyday.
Luso 