For this month’s language learning we didn’t move as fast as other months because communication was a little harder over spring break. However, I felt like we made good progress for my standards especially with increasing my vocabulary more and just getting a better understanding of how some grammatical things work with certain verbs. I think that currently my biggest challenge is forming grammatically sound sentences and conjugating certain verbs in which I don’t have any recognition of, so that’s something my partner and I really wanted to try and focus on this month. Which is why I’ve been doing assigned practice HW (some) from the resource PracticePortuguese, but I should be doing more to really cement my learning between meetings.
To start, one of the main themes of vocabulary my partner and I worked with was around the house vocabulary. I had really wanted some more knowledge for everyday reference, and we thought that common household items and things which are used every day would be helpful. We started by simply learning some words and studying from a PowerPoint. Some common words included: concha, jarra, chaleira, peneira, vassoura, and avental. We worked with these words just in a basic sense and then did some picture association exercises where I’d fill in the blank of words based on their pictures. My favorite word by far was vassoura, or broom in English, because I have begun to use that word within my own kitchen now. The hardest word was escumadeira, or skimmer in English, because I was just unfamiliar with that in general. All in all these exercise just helped me to expand upon my knowledge of the language by getting exposed to new words, and helped to expand my vocabulary which I can further reinforce hopefully in daily activities.
The second component of this month’s learning was focusing on the main verbs of the language estar, ser, and ficar. This involved differentiating the differences between estar, ser, ficar in Portuguese and how to conjugate each of them in different scenarios. The key thing that stood out to me from the start because of my Spanish background is that I was familiar with ser and estar, but ficar was completely foreign to me. As it turns out, it’s actually extremely common to the Portuguese language. It can be used a lot informally to basically say anything from “staying”, “continuing”,“renting”,“combined, and more. For example, I could say “Fica conmigo”. This means Stay with me. Or, I could say “Onde fica a tua casa”. Which means where IS your house? The same word can be used to mean multiple things like keep, to be, become, stay, etc. This is very different from Spanish as ficar doesn’t really exist. Now, all three of these verbs are very similar and can take on overlap in meaning, but it’s important to try and distinguish when to use which. From my understanding, one uses ficar when it’s associated with change, and estar when talking about temporary traits or qualities. As for ser, you use it for describing inherent qualities, but ficar actually can’t be used for that and can only signify “becoming”. This still kind of confuses me, but I’m aiming to work more on it in the coming months. These 3 verbs are central to the language and forming conversations, so it will be more of a focus to come.
Overall, this month was the slowest of the months due to logistical issues, but I still feel my partner and I made great progress. I definitely learned a lot and continue to progress which is always a good thing. In the coming month I hope to become more conversational as my number one goal.
Comments
I do think for the future, the book Pois não: Brazilian Portuguese Course for Spanish Speakers, with Basic Reference Grammar will be extremely helpful for you with your Spanish speaking background. It definitely makes the transition from Spanish to Portuguese a lot easier (though it is still challenging).