During these weeks of studying Portuguese, I focused on relating my every-day life into Portuguese learning. I found it easy to use the current state of the world as well as it COVID-19 pandemic progressed. I read O Globo, a national newspaper based out of Rio, twice a week in order to keep up with reading comprehension. I am unsure of the stance of O Globo in regard to its political and social values, whether it is a more liberal or conservative paper, however, I know it is one of the most established papers in Brazil. Dixon had mentioned the paper a couple of times during our Luso-Brazilian Studies course in the previous year. I find that the news is a nice place to practice reading speed, because the sentences are not too complex or complicated. I can just read through fairly quickly. When I do read for speed, I do not worry so much about my comprehension, as compared to my pronunciation of the words. Unless the articles have complex topics and vocabulary, I am generally able to comprehend the passages easily without having to stop and look up words.
In order to reinforce my use of Portuguese into every-day life, I changed my phone’s language into Portuguese. Yes, I already know where each app is located, and I could probably ignore any written script on my phone and still be able to accomplish what I need to. However, by changing my phone’s language, I feel as though it subconsciously got me in the mindset of Portuguese. The words I saw may be repetitive and unchanging, but it was also a constant reminder of my journey of learning Portuguese.
On the grammatical side of my learning, I reviewed the preterite and imperfect by writing about what I did the day before. I also used Dixon’s Portuguese course material to review. He uploads songs for his students to listen to, and then he adds in a worksheet for the students to answer questions and talk about the subjects of the songs. Two of the songs he chose and made worksheets for, were focused on the preterite and imperfect. I was able to see the two tenses side by side, which made them more distinguished from each other.
During our weekly meetings, we continued to chat about our lives in Portuguese. One week we talked about shows on Netlix and AppleTV. I remember being fairly proud of the fact I could talk about Home Before Dark on AppleTV without too much struggle. He had me explain to him the plot and the characters. We then talked about how my family enjoys watching K-drama on Netflix. We had just finished Sassy Girl on Netlix and started Oh My Ghost. Dixon told me about Kim’s Convenience, also on Netlix. In addition to TV, we talked about our families and lives. His family lives in New York, and my brother does as well. We chatted about “orso,” which means Bear in Portuguese, because my dog’s name is Bear.
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