Since I can speak Spanish pretty fluently and since the Portuguese class I'll be taking is designed for speakers of romance languages, I was pretty sure I wouldn't be expending too much effort to learn what seemed, at least initially, to be like Spanish with a few weird accent marks (like ç, ã, and ê). Boy was I wrong.
Written Portuguese isn't too bad. I'm more or less capable of reading and comprehending the articles on Portuguese Wikipedia--like this one about marriage equality ("casamento homossexual") in Portugal!
Unfortunately for me, however, while the written forms of both Spanish and Portuguese are pretty similar, the spoken forms of the two languages are actually ridiculously different--something my good friend and budding Portuguese major, Konrad Coutinho, warned me about.
Some of the weirdest things for me as a Spanish-speaker are:
- The Portugese "R" is pronounced a variety of ways. Sometimes it's like the Spanish "R" but other times it's like an English "H" sound. For example, Rio de Janeiro would be said like Hee-oh jee Zhuh-nay-roo. This also makes me wonder whether my name's going to be pronounced differently once I'm there.
- The "L" at the end of a word makes a "W" sound. So the name of the country of Brazil is something like Bruh-zeew.
- And then basically everything in this article.
Lucky for me, everyone who's taken this class seems to love it. And I've recently discovered that a (surprisingly large) number of my friends falam português! I think the major pitfall in my Portuguese-learning experience is just going to be nerves. I don't even like speaking English with people I don't know so it's really going to take a lot of effort to just jump right in and make the plunge and speak Portuguese with all the Brazilians. Wish me luck!
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
I'm going to Brazil!
Hopping on the summer blog bandwagon, I've decided to start this one up in the hopes that I'll be able to keep in touch with everyone from home and from Yale while I'm abroad. I'm notoriously bad at a journaling, updating, and generally writing things in a timely and regular manner so we'll see how this little project turns out. Ideally, I'll update it every couple of days--maybe I'll even throw in a picture or two! But let's not get ahead of ourselves... So yeah! Let's see how this goes and hopefully we can all stay in touch this summer.
The Plan - O Método
So what am I actually going to be doing for the next two months? With the help of Yale's (incredible!) International Summer Award, I will be doing the Yale Summer Session in Brazil. It's essentially supposed to be like a Yale semester crammed into a shorter period of time; so, basically, I'll be taking Yale courses, with Yale professors, along with Yale students--just in Brazil. Not surprisingly, it's this last bit that I'm looking forward to most! (Though, I'm really happy to be heading back. Partly because I miss the place, partly because I miss the people, and partly because I get to visit recent grad Ariela Rothstein in Boston!!!)
Well, after a couple weeks of rest (read: total, soul-crushing boredom) at home, I'll head back to New Haven for two weeks of classes on Yale's campus. To be honest, it seems like it's gonna be pretty intense. Three hours of "Elementary Portuguese for Speakers of Romance Languages" every day and then an hour and a half-long seminar called "Introduction to Brazil: A Cultural History." But I've heard that it's totally awesome and you really get to learn a lot about Brazil and get a solid foundation in Portuguese.
After our stint in New Haven, we'll hop on a plane to Rio, take a four hour bus ride, and ultimately end up in Paraty! Paraty (pronounced Par-a-CHEE), is a historic little beach town that's become a pretty big tourist destination. We'll be going in the off season (the southern hemisphere's "winter"--it's still probably going to be above 60 the whole time) and Professor Jackson said it's going to be pretty empty, which sounds like it could be a lot of fun! We'll be staying at an inn called the Pousada da Condessa.
Following our two week stay in Paraty, we'll head to Rio for the last month of the program. I'm so excited! We'll be living with homestay families for the whole duration and having classes at the Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro. I'm definitely nervous about this too; will I speak enough Portuguese? what's my host family going to be like? But for all the nerves, I absolutely can't wait to spend a month in one of the most incredible cities in South America.
A major bonus throughout my time abroad is going to be the World Cup. Brazilians are manic about futebol and my uncle (a major soccer fan) says that Brazil has a good shot at doing pretty damn well; how awesome would it be if they won? I'm definitely gonna have to work on my hardwired American indifference to the sport before I get there!
I'll write again soon with some of the stuff I'm doing to prep for my trip. Including my attempts to learn some Portuguese on my own. Mi cerebro hispanohablante is having a lot of difficulty :(
The Plan - O Método
So what am I actually going to be doing for the next two months? With the help of Yale's (incredible!) International Summer Award, I will be doing the Yale Summer Session in Brazil. It's essentially supposed to be like a Yale semester crammed into a shorter period of time; so, basically, I'll be taking Yale courses, with Yale professors, along with Yale students--just in Brazil. Not surprisingly, it's this last bit that I'm looking forward to most! (Though, I'm really happy to be heading back. Partly because I miss the place, partly because I miss the people, and partly because I get to visit recent grad Ariela Rothstein in Boston!!!)
Well, after a couple weeks of rest (read: total, soul-crushing boredom) at home, I'll head back to New Haven for two weeks of classes on Yale's campus. To be honest, it seems like it's gonna be pretty intense. Three hours of "Elementary Portuguese for Speakers of Romance Languages" every day and then an hour and a half-long seminar called "Introduction to Brazil: A Cultural History." But I've heard that it's totally awesome and you really get to learn a lot about Brazil and get a solid foundation in Portuguese.
After our stint in New Haven, we'll hop on a plane to Rio, take a four hour bus ride, and ultimately end up in Paraty! Paraty (pronounced Par-a-CHEE), is a historic little beach town that's become a pretty big tourist destination. We'll be going in the off season (the southern hemisphere's "winter"--it's still probably going to be above 60 the whole time) and Professor Jackson said it's going to be pretty empty, which sounds like it could be a lot of fun! We'll be staying at an inn called the Pousada da Condessa.
Following our two week stay in Paraty, we'll head to Rio for the last month of the program. I'm so excited! We'll be living with homestay families for the whole duration and having classes at the Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro. I'm definitely nervous about this too; will I speak enough Portuguese? what's my host family going to be like? But for all the nerves, I absolutely can't wait to spend a month in one of the most incredible cities in South America.
A major bonus throughout my time abroad is going to be the World Cup. Brazilians are manic about futebol and my uncle (a major soccer fan) says that Brazil has a good shot at doing pretty damn well; how awesome would it be if they won? I'm definitely gonna have to work on my hardwired American indifference to the sport before I get there!
I'll write again soon with some of the stuff I'm doing to prep for my trip. Including my attempts to learn some Portuguese on my own. Mi cerebro hispanohablante is having a lot of difficulty :(
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