At the beginning of the semester, when we were forming our goals for our target languages, I knew I wanted to include cultural aspects mixed in to learning the language. I chose Portuguese, because I took the Luso-Brazilian Studies course led by Dixon, and we learned about some of the history and current happenings in nations where the Portuguese Empire controlled. Dixon also created a CLAC for the course in which Nadiya, a native Portuguese-speaking student, taught us basic words and phrases in Portuguese. I honestly loved the accent, and because both Dixon and Nadiya were so enthusiastic, I think I also became even more intrigued by the language and the rest of its culture.
Now, I meet with Gabi, a student from São Paulo, once a week in order to keep up with the language. I also meet with Dixon once a week in order to go over confusions and help practice my reading speed. When I was thinking about how I wanted to learn with Gabi’s help, I knew I wanted her to speak to me in Portuguese. However, I wanted to learn about the culture in Brazil as well. She has told me about the types of foods she loves including tapioca, bolinho de chuva, and pão de queijo. The tapioca is prepared using tapioca flour in order to make a pancake that is similar to a crepe but is thicker and has a crust. They can be filled with sweet or savory fillings or eaten with butter alone. The bolinho de chuva is a dessert of small, fried, dough balls sprinkled in cinnamon sugar. The pão de queijo are small rolls consisting of tapioca starch, cheese, butter, milk, and eggs. I love trying new foods, so I wanted to learn from Gabi who is native to Brazil, what her favorite foods are. I can Google foods, but hearing from Gabi is much more real.
In addition to learning about the food aspect of Brazilian culture, I wanted to incorporate my future profession into my learning. I am going to be a dentist, so I asked Gabi if she knew any vocabulary words that the dentist might use, and it just so happened that her mom is a dentist in São Paulo. Gabi knew most terms, and she also texted her mom to ask about any terms that she did not know. My favorite term is ‘bochechar’ or ‘to gargle.’ Gabi also mentioned the phrase ‘ faça um bochecho’ or ‘do a gargle.’
I have also asked Gabi about music, because Nadiya had given us a few songs to listen to during our CLAC course. Gabi’s friend from home is a singer, and I have listened to a few of her songs. Gabi says that her style and sound is very classic Brazilian Portuguese.
When it comes to my final presentation, I think I would like to focus on one of these three aspects of culture, because all three can be used in the context of the language. I have also thought about how I have been learning Portuguese by reading in Portuguese and relating it immediately to Spanish in order to relay it back to English, and then straight to Portuguese using knowledge from Spanish sentence structure in order to help me. This has peaked my interest, because I have been noticing many similarities to the two languages, and I talked to Dixon about this, and he mentioned that once I am able to contextually see the similarities between the two languages, I will be able to more easily tell how they are different, or the differences will become more apparent. I am unsure if this is an appropriate topic to choose for the final presentation, however, I find it interesting, and I have enjoyed seeing the similarities but also the differences in how the two Romance languages uniquely distinguish themselves.
Replies
I think it's neat that you're working with two people to discuss about different aspects of your target language. It's pretty cool that you're already learning vocabulary terms and phrases in Portuguese that could be beneficial in your future job as a dentist. You mentioned that you usually go from Portuguese to Spanish to English. Would you say that it's easier for you to relate Portuguese to Spanish or from Spanish to English?