1st Biweekly Report

[Taiyaba Ali]

These past two weeks I had the flu, and due to this unexpected illness, we had to change the course of my learning plan. We had to focus on listening and comprehension, because I could not speak very much. Barbara and I chose to listen to popular Portuguese songs and read their lyrics while listening to them in order to understand their meanings. I discovered that one of my favorite Spanish songs, “Corazon” by Maluma, was originally a Portuguese song, and so Barbara thought it would be fun to listen to the English version, then Spanish version by Maluma, and finally Portuguese version of the song to try to see the differences in each version. This really helped me understand how different Portuguese is to the other languages, and how it sounds when talking really fast. These activity also made me very interested in other Portuguese songs, and styles of music, so we listened to Funk and Portuguese Rap, and I discovered that in both of these genres, Portuguese artists like to tell long and beautiful stories of love and passion. We also listened to other artists like Seu Jorge and Anitta, which was very fun. I think this week has helped me understand the cultural influences of Brazil and the rhythmic style of Brazilian music. I am excited to listen to more Portuguese songs in the following weeks!

[Barbara Mayumi de Faria Fujita]

I was glad we managed to adjust your learning in the face of adversity! I hope that you got to listen to other Brazilian songs. I know you are now interested in Brazilian culture and/or traveling to Brazil, in addition to Portugal -- which originated your interest in Portuguese. That fact alone makes me very happy/feel like we accomplished something :)