quero falar sua lingua

In my life I've known a lot of people whose first language was not English, so I know the common mistakes people make, the grammar that seems to have no sense behind it (prepositions!), the sounds that seem impossible to make, and definitely that look on someone's face when they don't understand what you are saying. I think this helps in teaching English, along with the fact that, as I've mentioned in previous blogs, I am struggling with Portuguese. I can tell my students don't be embarrassed or shy, because I am in the same situation as you. Learning a language is hard (well at least I think so).

I've always found accents both endearing and amusing, and I only hope that brazilians think the same of me when I speak Portuguese. I know they at least sometimes find it amusing. For instance, no doubt the hardest sound for english speakers to make in portuguese is the "ão" sound. It is an impossibly nasal sound, and in class whenever I say a word like macarrão (pasta) everyone giggles or smiles. But by far, my least favorite word in portuguese is PÃO. Pão means bread, but if you fail to produce that nasal ão sound, it sounds instead like pau, which means wood, but is more commonly used as slang for dick. So essentially 90% of the time I say bread it sounds like I am saying wood or dick, which really makes people laugh. Unfortunately, this had led me to avoid using the word as much as possible. I never know at the grocery store when I go to the baker to order if she will simply hand me my bread or will look at me like I just ordered "6 woods, please" or even worse "6 dicks, please". You never know how much you use the word bread until you try to never say it!

Oh well, I get to laugh when brazilians say they want to lay on the beach and it sounds like "I want to lay on the bitch".

Lotta, you aren't the only one who doesn't like v's! :)

Side note: For those of you who were concerned about my work schedule, no worries, the disappeared teacher has returned, so I don't have to do 15 hour days anymore. In fact, I had the afternoon off. And it looks like I'll be paid appropriately too!