Nicky is a student at Caminhos Language Centre. In a series of posts, he will describe his experience during his 16-week Portuguese course. Nick is a native English speaker and has never studied another language before. He will be in Brazil for 6 months, mainly in Rio de Janeiro. Follow Nick’s adventures each week with his learning experience, school activities, and life in Rio from the perspective of a newcomer.
Improving
So, I’m officially no longer a beginner. I was very happy to learn that I did very well on our test at the end of course A. Then I moved to my new B1 level class and realized that I could no longer hide behind the image of a Portuguese novice. No way, I’m at the pre-intermediate level and it’s time to improve.
Our new class is made up of a larger number of Spanish speakers than my previous class. I think that Spanish speakers have an advantage and a disadvantage when it comes to learning Portuguese. The advantage is that they already have a good understanding of Portuguese grammar rules and much of the vocabulary is similar or even the same as Spanish. Their last strength, but still a double-edged sword: sometimes, Spanish speakers end up using “false cognates”. This can often be compounded by a very strong accent, resulting in the student speaking a kind of Portunhol (a peculiar mix of Portuguese and Spanish). That said, most of the time I find myself feeling a little envious of how quickly they manage to learn Portuguese.
With a new level comes a new teacher, and Antonio brought a new wave of energy to our group. Antonio is a true Carioca (native of Rio de Janeiro), and he introduced a new, very interesting and interactive style of conversation. Our classes are now 95% conversational, with various interesting topics to debate and discuss. Sometimes the topics are very straightforward, and other times they are more complicated. When I found myself heatedly debating the benefits of Capitalism over economic models, I realized that the days of “Hi, my name is so-and-so, I’m so-and-so old” were over.
Getting Worse
Unfortunately, the weather in Rio decided to take a 180-degree turn. Instead of heat and bright sunshine, the sky overshadowed Rio, and along with the rain came thunder and lightning. Some nights we have real spectacles, but it’s not something you want to catch when you’re out on the street.
Image from my phone: not the best time to wear a swimsuit. But is there really a right time for that?
It might have been the weather, but I ended up catching a cold at the beginning of my sixth week of the Caminhos course. How someone can get a cold in Rio de Janeiro in the middle of summer I can’t understand, but I ended up falling for it and missed the course for the whole week.
Passing the Time
Most of the days I spent at home allowed me to catch up on my favorite TV shows and also watched several soap operas on TV Globo (the most popular broadcaster in Brazil nationwide).
Besides soap operas and soccer, the rising passion of Brazilians, both men and women, is MMA and the UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship). This weekend we watched the return of the Brazilian and MMA poster boy, Anderson Silva, to the UFC 183 fight after recovering from the fight in which he broke his shinbone. It was a fight between a Brazilian and an American, and there could only be one winner, with Silva coming out on top. He gave a very emotional interview, and told the crowd in Los Angeles that it was a very happy day for Brazilians all over the world. His words didn’t need to go far, because the audience was packed with very enthusiastic Brazilian fans who paid a fortune to personally watch the fight in Los Angeles. If that’s not a sign that Brazilians are really excited about the sport, then I don’t know what is.
