Thinking back, I believe I have been learning Brasilian Portuguese over the past 3 years. Learning a language outside of the country it is spoken in is much harder than being surrounded by it daily and fully immersed. That being said, I feel as though I have done a pretty good job so far and have made alot of progress since the beginning. My listening comprehension is great. I can read fairly well and write at the level of a small child probably. Speaking is much harder though out of all of these because for a long time a new comer to a language has to formulate most of the sentence in their head before speaking it. Getting the words in the right order and making sure to have the proper gender is a big speed bump when trying to say something correctly in the infancy of your new language.
All of my friends for the most part consist of other Brasilians that my wife and I are close with. For example, I cant even log onto my Facebook page without 99% of all the posts being written in Portuguese. Occasionally, I stream Brasilian movies, TV, etc from the computer onto my TV. My language learning tool of choice is Rosetta Stone. I'll speak breifly on this, but I highly recommend it to anyone that is serious about learning another language. Even over taking classes or any other method I would say this is the way to go. It's a bit pricey around $600, but completely worth it. Feel free to email me if you want to discuss that any further.
The point I'm trying to reach is that I have become very shy as to use my new skill I have developed. Oddly enough, one I never even knew I would undertake. That's what makes this all so exciting. Have you even known someone to be really good at an instrument, lets say the piano, yet they were always too shy to play for people. Put them in a room by themselves and they could belt out a whole concert but were hesitant to continue if another living being was around. Well, thats how I feel with my Portuguese. Let me clarify, I am in NO WAY an expert at the language. Merely a child. But I feel in my mind that I have learned so much and have much desire to master the language someday. (If thats even possible)
Recently (Last Thursday), I challenged myself to step out of my comfort zone and use what I know in a real life situation. I was at the Farm Progress Show in Decatur, IL. This is one of the biggest farm shows in North America and brings all companies and people from around the world to show off their products and services to any who want to see it. Brasil has always had a strong showing from spectators that get flown here to see what its all about. My company (Pioneer Hi-Bred) always sponsors a big group of Brasilians to come to this event. Well, it was lunch time. I had made my way to a lunch table with a fellow co-worker and sat down to eat. There were two men across from us that were defiantly speaking a foreign language but in a tone so quiet I could not tell if it was Spanish or Portuguese. Finally, after a few minutes of strained eavesdropping I was able to pick up a few words that told me for sure this was Brasilian Portuguese. I spent the next 4 or 5 bites of my pulled pork sandwich trying to convince myself to strike up a conversation. See if I could do this on my own. Especially with no Brasilian friends of mine nor my wife around to help translate in the event of a lingual train wreck. It started with me asking where he was from. Then he asked if I was Brasilian. Chuckling inside I told him no. He spoke virtually no English what so ever so this was all in for me. Over the next few minutes we discussed what he did and what I did. Where I was from, where my wife was from, where we were moving and so on. All in all we had a nice conversation over the next few minutes as we both finished up our lunches. Yes, there were a few bumps here and there but it all turned out great. My biggest difficulty was him speaking so fast. My brain went into hyper-drive to collect all the words that were coming from his mouth.
When lunch ended we both shook hands said Bom Dia and went on our ways. I felt so good after the experience. I finally had stepped out of my comfort zone and put my Portuguese to work with nobody around to help me at all. It almost gave me a new sense of feeling about speaking more. There is nothing to be ashamed of when screwing up. Its how we all learn. Even if those around us may laugh from time to time, they will make the effort to correct you and help you move forward in your learning. I think from this point forward I will try to speak more to my wife and friends. After all, one day soon we will be in the country and unless everyone there wants to learn English for me, I think I'll be the one who has to step up and speak Portuguese. I look forward to it. I dream of the day I can look back and think..........wow, I didnt know much back then, but now I do. Yes, that will be a good day........
Brandon
