Freakin' phonemes

I once had a professor from Columbia who told us she couldn't hear the difference between the words "shit" and "sheet." She used this as a funny example while teaching us that humans are born with the ability to distinguish between all possible phonemes, or language sounds, but lose the ability to hear phonemes to which we are not exposed. The theory is pretty well supported but I'm not sure I bought her shit/sheet story, or a more recent teacher's bitch/beach story either. Now I am a believer.  There are two "ou" sounds in Brazilian Portuguese, au as in "ouch" and an ão sound that does not exist in English but is described as nasal. Unfortunately, au and ão sound the same to me and I can't replicate the difference between them. This means that when I try to say the word  pão, which means "bread" I actually say the word pao, which means "stick" or "wood"  but is a slang for "dick." It is uncomfortable for everybody and has started making me self-conscious in a country where one of our favorite foods is cheese bread. 

The glass half empty

There was a young girl on the trail who thought Keppy was cool and asked about his breed. I told here he was sem raça definida (unknown breed) and she told me, very seriously, that she was pretty sure he was a border collie mix. She shared some facts about border collies and I smiled because she reminded me of another dog-loving girl I used to know. We saw her later that day and she asked if Keppy could "speak." I joked that he could, but only in English. So far, we had only talked in Portuguese.  The little girl responded in English. "Did you say he speaks English? I speak English." Knock me over with a feather. I asked (in English) how she learned and she shared her story. A girl from England moved into her class and the two turned best friends and taught their languages to each other. I asked how long they had been friends and she said, a few months. I wasn't sure how to feel. Then she said, "I think it's pretty easy to learn English" and I definitely felt a certain way. God bless the little girl and her giftedness and I'm glad she found this friend; but dog also bless me and Carol who study every day and try so effin hard. It goes up and down, but in that instance, the language-learning glass was half empty. 

The glass half full

 

A friend with a lot of experience says that kids are more likely to focus on their language gains and adults are more likely to focus on their language deficits. I've seen this happen with people learning to snowboard. The first day, a kid will fall and cry and need cocoa but to hear them tell it they are pretty good; an adult will fall and cry and need tequila but to hear them tell it they are too old for this shit. Carol and I both feel too old for this shit. But, we have been encouraged to see the glass as half full. It takes kids about 8 years before they start articulating like adults and about 14-16 years before they really start sounding "adult" in content. They get perfect immersion, with mandatory school attendance, and there is a lot of vocabulary that they don't need yet. For instance, "insurance deductible" and "intake manifold." Carol and I have been working on Portuguese for almost six years. Many of those years with very little exposure. We are doing okay. Our glass is half full. We know how to talk about health insurance and car maintenance; we can share ideas; we are not too old for this and we will certainly start sounding "adult" soon.

Nothing but a smile

 

We have three beaches withing walking distance and the closest is clothing-optional. It's a nice hike and a pleasant beach, and we go there often. I was there this week (clothed) reading a book in a protected nook above the beach. An older, larger, couple came up nudely to find a place to picnic out of the wind. I said hi, they said hi and the guy asked if Keppy bites. I said he didn't and they settled in. I kept reading until the lady came over and and asked if it was okay to move their blanket next to mine. I felt like it was kind of close, especially since they were both super naked but said it was fine. So there we were, me and the naked couple, making small talk. First thing I noticed is that I maintained great eye-contact and it helped me listen. The second thing I noticed was that the lady was understanding my Portuguese and we were having a real conversation. I found myself getting more and more excited about the conversation and less and less uncomfortable about their state of undress. We talked for so long that I was a little late getting home. I'm still trying to understand my feelings about nudism  but I know how I feel meeting someone with whom I can communicate. I feel like smiling.

The wheels came off

 

We identified some "must haves" before leaving for Brazil which included at least one job between us.  Carol was going to hold that job, but about two months before our departure we learned the that it wasn't going to work out. I panicked and raced through red flags like a world cup skier straight into a bad job that ended dramatically a while back. Guess what? We are just fine. Being unemployed in Brazil isn't a tragedy. Waiting until everything was perfect would have been a tragedy. Letting the dream die would be a tragedy. The wheels came off but there are paths in places where wheels can't go. We are snowboarders and much prefer sliding to rolling anyway. 

Once, twice, three times quierida

 Querida is a Brazilian term of endearment that translates to something like "dear one." It is super common. We don't use it ourselves, because we don't know the rules but we feel all warm inside when people people use it with us. There is a small market at the bottom of the hill where we are living. I walk down there a lot and usually need help to find what I'm looking for. The first time I couldn't find juice, the second time I couldn't find coffee, the third time the lady called me querida and sent a kid to help me. Same thing at the rotisserie. The third time we stopped there the guy outside called me querida and the guy inside gave Carol a business card and said he could help us find an apartment. In our experience, Brazilians can be pretty quick to warm up. At the first encounter you are a stranger, the second time you are recognized and by the third time you just might be a querida. 

Little civilities

 

We had a low tire so we stopped to get some air. As it was the first time we have needed air, and first time anythings are always hard, we prepared for the new event. We assumed the air would be handled by the person who fills the tank, which is never the motorist in this country, so we brushed up on our tire-filling vocabulary and got ready. As we pulled into the gas station, we noticed an air hose kiosk a little bit away from the pumps. Great. We drove to the kiosk, braced for the language test that the kiosks usually deliver and started digging for change. First thing we noticed was that the air was free. Then we realized that that the instructions consisted of four easy-to-follow pictures with no words at all. To top it off, the metric for tire pressure was the same as what we use in the US and it was digitally displayed on a large screen. There was even a bell that rang when our tire hit 32 psi. What a country!

Trailer Park

 

There are some American things for which there are no Brazilian concepts. The trailer park is one of them. One of our teachers asked us to tell a story about the where we lived growing up. I lived in a trailer park and wanted to tell something that required an understanding of the stereotypical American trailer park.  During the conversation, we learned there is no such thing as "trailer park" in Brazil. They don't have a word for it, they don't have the concept of it and they don't understand the stereotype. The closest we could get to the physical characteristics of a trailer park was a campground, but Brazilian campgrounds are nothing like US trailer parks. The closest we could get to the stereotype was a favela but trailer parks and favelas are not comparable in any way. So, I didn't do a very good job telling my story.  It was exciting, however, to get this example of cultural-linguistic differences because we are fast becoming cultural-linguistic nerds. 

The hedgies

We were talking with a guy on a beach. He was pretty hard to understand but we were happy to be talking in Portuguese so we hung in there. As we walked toward the trail, he pointed to the sea and said something about "hedgies" I heard rede which is the Portuguese word for hammock, or net, but saw nothing that resembled a rede and it didn't make sense. Carol who understands better than I do heard "heads" and we started looking for the "heads" in the water where he was pointing. Soon we saw them. We got really excited. There in the waves, was a whole row of heads. But of what? The guy was saying something about fish, I guessed turtles, Carol asked about penguins. The guy repeated himself a few times using a lot of words that we didn't understand before he quit trying and walked away.  As he walked off, we realized that he was indeed saying rede and what we were seeing was the edge of a fishing net going out into the sea. It's funny how you hear what you want to hear and see what you want to see. I appreciate the guy for trying and am a little embarrassed that we are, at times, so bad at this.

False friends

English and Portuguese have a lot of words in common. Lots of science words and names of things like hospital and taxi sound close enough for everyone to move forward in a friendly fashion. These are our word friends. There are also false friends. False friends can cause trouble. If someone asks you to put the meat in the frigideira and you put it in the fridge, you were the victim of a false friend because the meat should have gone into a pan. If you say you are excitado about your plans and everyone looks uncomfortable, it was a false friend at fault because excitar only refers to sexual excitement. If you push painfully into a door marked puxa, it was false friends again, puxa means pull in Brasil. Friends are important when learning a language. False friends are also important. 

T shirt says

For a place where only a small percentage of people speak English, we sure see a lot of it on walls and t-shirts. Often the English is kind of off or doesn't quite fit. Sometimes it makes no sense at all. We were talking about this with our teacher and he told us about the father of one of his friends: older, conservative, no English and maybe a little curmudgeonly. Apparently, the guy wears a Too hot to handle t-shirt while he grills and drinks beer on the weekends. The day we talked about too hot to handle dad, Carol and I went out for a walk.  We found ourselves behind a guy wearing an English-language shirt that said Less Monday More Summer.  We agreed with the sentiment but noted that the message was not quite how we would say it in English. The next English-message shirt we saw had just three words in all caps: BURN, LIFE, VIBE. We scratched out heads. It is puzzling how these shirts get printed and we can't help but wonder how it is that people end up wearing them.

Keppy is our wingman

 

We try to get an authentic language experience every day. These experiences usually come at a cost. We talk with clerks, servers, vendors and other people who are willing to exchange some of their Portuguese for some of our money. Free lessons require creativity and often involve the dog. We like to take him to the Cachorrodromo in Campeche. It is the biggest dog park on the island and it's a win-win. He plays with other dogs and we use him as conversation bait. We tend to get comments about his looks, whether or not he bites and his energy. All conversation is good conversation, so we always engage. We do pretty good now that we know what to listen for and have some answers ready. If we can respond to the person's first question or comment, they usually slow down and chat us up a little. Maybe they will give Keppy a pat or kick his ball. If we stare blankly they just move on.

Metrics

The cognitive load is high in this country. New ways of talking and new ways of thinking are complicated by new measures of just about everything. To know how warm it is, we multiply by two and add thirty; to know how much something costs, divide by the exchange rate; to know how heavy, multiply by 2.2; to arrive at 1700 be there at 5; to drive 12 kilometers down the road, pay 5.5 reis for a liter of gasoline. It's heady work, all this calculating, and it gets exhausting but I think we are both getting a little better at accepting the numbers for what they are and skipping the math.  

Advice from a man

We needed to find somewhere cheap to live for the summer and had been looking in some random places. One of these places is Porto do India, an Indian retreat a few miles up the Canto Da Lagoa trail. While we were checking the place out, the owner shared some language-learning advice. He told us to focus on phrases rather than words or rules. He said when he came to Brazil he learned a new phrase every day for the first thirty days and after that he was well on his way. He shared a story about a day when his phrase was não estou nem aí which literally translates to "I'm not even there" and is a strong way to say "I don't care."  He was dating a Brazilian who asked about plans for the evening. His practice was to use his phrase all day, especially when responding to questions so he responded não estou nem aí and it caused an argument that bothers him to this day. Interesting language approach, decent story. I don't think we will stay at the retreat but I did learn something from the guy. If I pick a phrase for the day, it will be something like do fundo do meu coração which means from the bottom of my heart and I will use it all day long to tell Carol how much I love her.

Seeing what we couldn't see

As we get to know this country and culture better we are able to see things that we couldn't see before. Carol used to get kind of fraught about the grocery stores because she could never find what she was looking for. Now she understands how things are categorized so she knows where to look and she knows how things are packaged so she recognizes what she sees. With the notable exception of maple syrup, she can now find whatever we need. Another place where we are able to see things we couldn't see before is on the streets. At first, the "motorcycles" were just one of the many faceless hazards coming out of nowhere and adding to the chaos. Then we started to realize that it isn't chaos and the motoboys have their place. Their place is weaving through the traffic and in-between the lanes of cars. Once we figured that out we started really seeing them. Turns out, they aren't faceless hazards after all, and, as Carol pointed out with some incredulity, some of the motoboys are women.  

Emerson

There was a school called Emerson near the house where we lived in Salt Lake. It had a field that served as the neighborhood dog park and we went there a lot. Like sometimes every night a lot. When we got settled in at Matadeiro, we started calling the nearest stretch of beach Emerson and went there most nights to throw frisbees. It was a proper Emerson with other dogs for Keppy to play with and lots of room to run. The Emerson at the Açores house was also a piece of beach near the house. It didn't have many dogs or a doggy vibe, but there was plenty of hard, flat sand and it was great for throwing balls. Our new place is at the top of a dirt road. We tried to make an Emerson out front but it isn't a good Emerson, you can't throw a frisbee very far for fear of losing it over the edge and you can't throw a ball at all cause we are at the top of a hill. The dogs around here don't play. They bark furiously from behind closed gates. The road ends at a trail that goes over a hill to a beach. We tried to make that beach our Emerson but it didn't take. Our current Emerson is the big grassy bank along the lake near our language school. It's a chill place, with hippies and some dogs. The dogs don't play much but they don't bark much either. It's okay for ball and frisbee throwing, pretty good for people watching and we like the vibe. Unfortunately, they started constructing a fence there today, so we may be looking for a new Emerson soon.