Posted in English

Audible…

… Has a 99p introductory offer on at the moment if you wanted to get in on the audiobook action. You could scoop 3 portuguese language audiobooks for next to nothing, like o Principezinho, A Morte do Papa, o Anibaleitor, o Mistério da Estrada de Sintra, or Portuguese Short Stories. I’ve raved about audiobooks a fair bit, because they’re books, but you can listen to them so what’s not to like? You’ve probably tried audible already but if you haven’t, what are you waiting for? I’ve been a member since the pre-amazon days, when you had to lie and pretend to be American to sign up. I used to download them to a scrappy mo3 player that could only hold one book at a time, and I think it was even dial-up. Oh god!

These are affiliate links by the way, so if you decide to take the plunge, I’ll get a few pence which I can use to pay the fines for all the grammar errors i make. It’s an expensive business, being this careless, so every little helps.

Posted in English

Linguistics

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.

The Story of Human Language by John McWhorter

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.

Posted in English

The Greatest Stories Ever Heard

As regular readers (hey, stop laughing – I have regular readers! I do!) will know, I am obsessed with audiobooks, so I have been trying for a while now to compile a definitive list of all the european portuguese audiobooks available, so I have been through every single audiobook in Audible and listened to the accent and I’ve wrestled with Kobo’s completely useless search function to bring a few golden nuggets from among the grit. You can find them all here. I’ll add to the list as new ones become available. If you know of any I’ve missed, please let me know. I feel like I’ve been pretty thorough but I’m just one person and it’s a big internet.

There are affiliate links on the page, by the way: I’m hoping my obsession will pay for itself one day.