We’re getting close to the D-day and it’s time to speed up our study rythm once again.
Dreaming in a different language
First of all, the Portuguese mental monologue trainings are bearing fruits. I feel comfortable thinking in Portuguese, though I am still too attached to a comfort vocabulary that is still limited. Moreover, I even dreamt of doing this exercise. I swear that my dreams are more interesting than that. But still, that’s something remarkable.
I wasn’t really speaking Portuguese in my dream, it’s just that at some point I find myself strolling in a big city somewhere in a post-soviet country and since I didn’t have much to do I started doing my linguistic meditation exercise.
Don’t miss the post about the language of dreams – soon to come
Açores… Açotsch?!
I tried not to avoid spoilers about the landscapes as much as possible, so I only listened to the narrator’s voice.
I was shocked to see what happens when she pronounces “Açores”, which seems to sound /asot͡ʃ/.
That was a surprise. But I probably should have expected it, given what I had discovered about the pronunciation of Portuguese’s words’ final sounds.
This video might reveal itself very useful. It showed me a lot of words from the domain of tourism.
The next level: the normal flow of conversation
As we need to move to the next level, we’ll have to focus less on the world of politics and more on more natural flows of conversation.
That is why I decided to start watching a Portuguese tv series, called “Odisseia”. Though the topics might seem easier to understand at first, actors that play in a natural way tend to not be interested in speaking clearly, contrary to what politicians ought to do. The challenge is to really read through the way Portuguese speak in their daily life, when they don’t do much articulation efforts.
I will cover this topic in another post, but no: there is no people that speaks fast as a linguistic rule. For every language there can be speakers that speak fast or slow. And yet, it depends on the day, on their mood, on the situation, etc. Also, it’s not a matter of speed, but rather a matter of articulation.
I chose this tv series because I liked the concept and wanted to discover some Portuguese humour. Plus, I really can’t stand Netflix tv series, they all look the same.
The problem is that I couldn’t find any subtitles for it, which makes me work with a double effort.
Despite feeling very confident with my understanding of Portuguese, I now learn to find my modesty again. It truly is hard and I only understand half of what they say. I miss the good old times in which I would listen to political debates. Oh and the times in which I used to listen to TCC presentations.
Ups and downs
It is normal to feel suffering while learning. That’s because if we don’t feel distress, it means that we are only doing things that we are already comfortable with and, all in all, you won’t be learning anything new.
Dare to do what you are not good at, enjoy the uneasiness!
In order to make sure my ego wasn’t deceiving me, I came back to other political videos and, indeed, I can understand them way more easily, even without subtitles.
I even got to the point where I started doubting I was listening to Portuguese.
Considering all this, I decided to go on full immersion and kept watching, rewinding a lot of scenes in order to seize as many words and sentences as possible and even if it still is very difficult, I now feel more reassured. After all, I still have 14 days before my flight to the Açores and I feel it will be enough.
Moreover, once I will be there, I will be able to put into practice my newly acquired Portuguese skills. Two weeks for practice, not bad!