Language helps you, Language fools you!

Today let’s remember some funny stories. EVS is something really big in a life of a person who goes through this journey. Sometimes you have to deal with upcoming problems and hard work, and sometimes you just smile and say Oh well, it is life.

 So today I want to tell you a story how sometimes language can not only help you but also make some obstacles. Firstly, when I came to Portugal to do my EVS I knew just a little bit of Portuguese. Actually now, I think, that at that time I have convinced myself pretty well that I knew a little bit of Portuguese. I could understand some things, but talking part was as for everyone really hard.

I decided to work extra to faster improve my level. From one side, it was really easy, because I spent a lot of time working with kids, and it is normal, that they still don’t speak English, or their English is even worse than mine non-existing Portuguese. However, kids just had some specific questions in the beginning so it was not that hard to be in their level, but I wanted more.

I asked some Portuguese friends, if they know any ways how I could improve my Portuguese. They were really kind and said that reading books really help. So I started to read in Portuguese. By the way, I also had a course in the university, but as I already said I wanted to improve faster.

First book was really hard – I basically was translating every other word, but ok I managed to read it. However, maybe the main idea got lost in the way… Like in any language in Portuguese as well are some words that are written similar, but the meaning is totally different. In my fist book I would always encounter with the word sido – that in Portuguese is a past tense of to be, but at that time I didn’t have a fancy dictionary that could tell me that, and sida – is AIDS, so in my imagination, all the guys in the book had aids, because this word I managed to find. It was a little bit strange, but you know, it is a book anything can happen.

The next book I took had pastor alemão, that in the beginning sounded ok – a German pastor, but then the German pastor was always following one guy, it became weird and I finally figure out that it’s not a German pastor like some kind of priest, it’s German Sheppard – a dog! But as long as I managed to convince myself that what I was reading was true, I had more than interesting books!

I am still reading books and improving my vocabulary and the structure of the sentence, just sometimes I read words how I see them, not how they are written and for that reason, sometimes people don’t understand me. Like I was talking about cacatriz, and no one knew what it was, because a scar is cicatriz. Or I saw a little nice saparinho in the sky and no one else could see it, because there were only passarinhos!

I think every language is interesting to learn, with all the crazy stories of all the wrong interpretations of the words or phrases. But the most important thing is to try and not be afraid later to make fun of yourself!

Gi