After traveling around Brazil for a little over six and a half weeks I decided to take a language course. My ability to understand Portuguese had significantly increased (I even attended a fairly complicated three man play and at the end only had two major questions for Mads). However, I still felt that I was unable to converse with people when out on my own. While it has been easy to use Mads as a crutch, I do plan to return to Brazil and would like to be able to get around if she is not with me. So I looked online and found the Bridge Brazil program (http://www.bridgebrazil.com/). The program was kind of pricey. A one week course cost about $500 (tuition + registration) and that didn't include the R$135 (~$70USD) text book that I opted not to buy as I thought it was silly for one week.
The classes were held in Centro- the downtown working district of Rio. I was able to walk to/from class in about 30 minutes. Classes ran from 8:30am - 12:30pm. I didn't really let the 7:30am wake-up call stand in the way from me having fun. Mads and I still went out Monday, Wednesday and Thursday nights. My fellow classmates looked at me like I was insane when I would tell them how we were out till 4am. Clearly I was very concerned about my studies. I was able to pay attention in class (thanks to some strong coffee) and rally at night (thanks to some naps). More than a week and my body would have definitely started to reject me. But I think I managed just well.
Now comes the important question: Am I able to speak Portuguese? Answer: Not really. BUT I wouldn't say the classes were pointless. I just think one needs more than a week to become fluent. The classes definitely helped me with the pronunciation of letters and words (which is the hardest difference between Spanish v Portuguese) , use of the proper pronouns and conjuration of verbs. I plan to buy a copy of the outrageously expensive textbook on Amazon.com and continue the learning process on my own. I definitely think if I actually put effort into it I can become fairly competent at speaking the language. Then how cool will it be to say that I am trilingual?
Funny story from Friday night: I was out and overheard these Brazilian guys speaking to two Argentinan girls. Typically it is not too hard for native Spanish speakers to understand Portuguese as many of the words are very similar, however the sentences they were using happened to contain those few words that are completely 100% different (it is words like this that led me to want to take the class in the first place). I stepped in and translated to the girls. Next thing I knew I had 5 new friends. I spent the rest of the night chatting between the Brazilians and Argentinans. What I discovered, much to my dismay, is that even though I can't speak Portuguese, the few words I do know are totally killing my Spanish. I kept saying words like "agora" instead of "ahora" and falar" instead of "hablar". It was so annoying. The girls found it cute - thinking I was trying to speak both languages equally as bad. I tried explaining to them that I actually can speak Spanish and my brain was having problems at the moment due to my recent Portuguese classes (I am am sure the alcohol had a small role to play as well). As the night went on my deficiency in both languages diminished... that or we were all too drunk to care.
