Why I’m (re)learning Portuguese
Portuguese was my first language but I quickly lost the ability to speak it once I started school. I was never really (re)interested in learning to speak Portuguese growing up. I was very much focused on being a “real” American. I thought English was the only language I needed to know. The reasons had a lot to do with discrimination, nationalism, assimilation, and all sorts of stuff that I didn’t realize until I became an adult. But that’s a topic for a different blog post.
What really changed my mind about Portuguese was, after I had my son, I realized that he wasn’t going to have the multicultural experience I had growing up unless I exposed him to it. Brazilian food wouldn’t be his comfort food like it was for me. He wouldn’t hear Portuguese and associate it with family. He might even end up eating pizza with his hands. The horror!
I want my son to be able to claim his Brazilian heritage and not have it be discredited by people because he can’t speak Portuguese. I want him to know the culture and the language. So, I’m learning Portuguese and teaching it to him.
How I’m improving my Portuguese
I use a lot of resources to help my speaking but the best thing I’ve been doing is to speak Portuguese daily.
Vocabulary
- Google translate: I use google translate a lot. It’s not great for absolute beginners because it does make a lot of mistakes and you need a little bit of background in Portuguese to be able to spot when it’s inaccurate.
- Amazon Alexa: It’s very convenient to call out to Alexa when I can’t remember how to say something.
- My mom: Of course I can just ask my mom, but sometimes she’s busy.
- Olá Portuguese for Families: You’ll see this resource a few times in this blog post because I made it specifically for my family. My son and I are both very visual learners so the vocabulary builders/posters/cards include both a photo and Portuguese translation, including all the forms the word comes in (specific, non-specific, singular, plural, masculine, feminine). This was something that was really hard for me so making visual resources where all this information is all written out has made it so much easier for me.
Reading
- Translate books: I translate my son’s English children’s books to Portuguese. I first try on my own and then use google translate. I typically have my mom double check the translation.
- Short Stories in Brazilian Portuguese: There are plenty of these types of books for improving Portuguese. They’re written with a lot of dialog to help with speaking as well. I will admit, the story line is pretty boring.
- Chapter books: Because the short stories were so boring, I’ve started reading chapter books instead. There is less dialog in a typical chapter book but it helps boost your vocabulary.
Speaking
- Olá Portuguese for Families: Here it is again! Our main language goal is to speak Portuguese, reading and writing are secondary. I’ve tried other curriculums/classes but they never really fit in with what we needed as a family. The sentence frames I created are modeled after what we use in real life at home. I use them every day and when I master one set I move onto the next. The thing I really like about our curriculum is that the sentence frames are for a purpose. You’re not just memorizing sentences at random but learning grammar rules. And when you move onto the next set of sentences you build, ever so slightly, on those rules you just learned.
- Talk Box Mom Phrase book: Talk box mom has a great little phrase book. It is full of commonly used phrases that parents use with their children. I like it but it’s definitely you learning random phrases without any understanding of why these sentences are the way they are.
How I’m immersing myself in the Portuguese language
Immersion is the best/fastest way to learn a language so this is what I’ve been doing to try to do that.
- Speak Portuguese at home as much as possible!
- Changed my phone and computer settings to Portuguese.
- Honestly, it can get pretty annoying having my whole computer/phone be in Portuguese. When searching for things on google, my computer sometimes automatically translates the websites into Portuguese, too. Eerything takes a little more effort but I know it will pay off in the end.
- Listen to kids music in Portuguese in the car.
- We mostly listen to Galinha Pintadinha but there are plenty of Brazilian children’s albums on Spotify.
- Watching kids tv shows with my son.
- I include links to kids media in our Portuguese curriculum that correlates with the units.
- I make my mom speak Portuguese with me.
- Sometimes I call her up just so we can have a conversation in Portuguese. We usually talk about nonsense.
- Watch Youtube videos in Portuguese about minimalism and gardening.
- Follow Portuguese speakers on Instagram.