The 1st Portuguese class

I can’t remember the last time I felt so stupid and ignorant as I did today…

Today I had my first class in Portuguese. I had emailed the responsible people to find out where the course was being held. They answered promptly, but of course their information was wrong. I also found a notice board with all classes listed, but why would that list be correct? However, in the end I managed to find some friendly people who showed me to the correct room.

I then started my first Portuguese class halfway through the session. If you’re in a big class, most teachers wouldn’t notice that (or even care), but that is different when there are only two other students in the class. It didn’t make it easier that the teacher then refused to speak in English. She has the idea that we will learn better and faster if we only speak Portuguese all the time. This might be a good idea if you know some of the language already, but it is quite a lot more difficult if you basically only know how to say thank you and cheers, which is about how much I know. Somehow I managed to survive anyway, and hopefully I will learn quickly now, but I did not feel very smart at all.

Even in my very limited vocabulary, I have noticed that the Portuguese (I give them the credit and not the Brazilians) have found an easy solution to an old problem. Most people don’t really want to work on the first day of the week. In Portuguese this is solved by calling Monday “segunda-feira”, which basically means the second day of the week. That way no one has to work on the first day of the week! You still have to work on Mondays though…