Jocelyne Rodriguez
Journal Entry 9
Reflect on your experiences of (trying to) read and write in your target language.
Reading in Portuguese has become easier with practice. There are some sounds that remain difficult to pronounce but overall, I have been able to pick up pronunciation patterns in Portuguese (wether I can successfully pronounce certain words is another question). When it comes to writing, I have been struggling with Portuguese accents as the rules are very obscure following the Portuguese Language Reforms from the 1990s. Furthermore, I sometimes mix spellings of similar words in Spanish and Portuguese. Overall, I have experienced greater improvements in reading than writing.
Are you bilingual? If so, would you agree with the arguments made in the two readings on bilingualism?
I am bilingual and I agree with many of the arguments made in the readings. It is true that there are certain cognitive processes that I find to be easier for me than some of my monolingual friends like ignoring distractions (it is very easy for me to tune out my second language). Furthermore, I have found that knowing more languages can facilitate learning new languages as you have a more extensive background to make connections to other grammatical systems.
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