Sadly, mastering the ão in pão does not make me a fluent Portuguese speaker. When I arrived here 2 months pregnant with my first born, I gave myself the 4 years. 4 years to learn Portuguese fluently, reading, writing, and speaking. I felt that was more than enough time, even for a slightly lazy and occasionally unmotivated person such as myself.
Well, 4 years has come and gone. I have mastered the art of conversation, sometimes correctly and sometimes not. Hell, it counts if the person understands it. I haven't been formally educated in the language (not counting the 3 week course I did when I first came). And come on, 6 different verb tenses?! Conjugation? Irregular verbs? They don't write like they speak, they don't speak like they write. It's not an easy language to acquire.
None the less, I'm slightly disappointed in my writing skills. I had to write a small note in my son's school notebook about what we did during they weekend. The teacher will read each one and ask each student to tell the class about it.
I'm just waiting for the teacher to pull me aside and inform me that I should be writing the note, not my 3 year old.
So what am I going to do about it? I thought about buying Portuguese grammar tapes and playing them while I sleep. Hey, it could work.
Seriously though, should cash start flowing a little easier in August, I may try to take some private classes. Any foreigners living in Rio want to get a group together and hire a teacher?
Why August? My littlest will finally be in school a couple of hours a day! Cheer cheer and back flip! Yeah for free time (minus the time I will be working).
Btw, here's a link to a Portuguese Language blog. This post is about something I use incorrectly all the time. To take vs to Bring ie. levar vs trazer
http://www.transparent.com/portuguese/levar-vs-trazer/
Know of any other good pages and/or teachers?
