I have started writing mostly simple words and phrases in Portuguese. I prefer to write in free hand (we learned this on the first day when we tried to use a computer as a common medium to teach on and it failed spectacularly). I have started to see the patterns in how nouns are gendered and conjugation patterns across verbs with specific suffixes. However, I have just recently begun to notice these patterns as we have learned about the grammatical rules behind them in class like parts of speech (and sentence trees), subject-verb agreement, and the concept of government, in terms of sentence structure, generally.
For example, a simple sentence is made up of one clause and a complex sentence is made up of more than one clause (including one independent clause and however many dependent clauses).
Learning about the broad linguistic concepts that apply to languages universally has allowed me to stop comparing grammatical rules in Portuguese to English or Spanish, but instead begin to build my own knowledge of its grammar in reference to concepts of sentence structure, subject-verb order, and more that we have learned in class. For example, adjectives are modified according to the verb’s gender in Portuguese. Additionally, there are several general patterns of verb conjugation depending on verb suffix. There are also irregular verbs that do not follow any of these rules. I am better able to conceptualize these concepts in terms of verbs, subjects, and adjectives through our conversations about parts of speech and agreement.
Some examples below:
Irregular verb:
Ir = to go
Eu vou = I go
Voce vai = you go
Ele/ela vai = he/she goes
A gente vai = we go
Nós vamos = we go
Voces vao = you go
Eles/elas vao = they go
Verb suffix patterns:
Falar = to speak
Eu falo = I speak
Ele/ela fala = he/she speaks
Comer = to eat
Eu como = I eat
Ele/ela come = he/she eats
Partir = to leave
Eu parto = I leave
Ele/ela parte = he/she leaves
Conjugate cantar (to dance), decidir (to decide), beijar (to kiss).
Comments
I also think I prefer free-hand! In my language, the keyboard layout is much different than QWERTY (in terms of equivalent letters in my target language). I think for me, not being able to see the letter each key types is the biggest hindrance, as I have to either have a photo of a Farsi/Persian keyboard up (overlayed on top of an English QWERTY keyboard), or I have to memorize the layout.