The Adventures of How I Learned Fluent Portuguese on My Own (and How You Can Too)
By: Shira Packer
Tags: Travel, Language Learning, Culture, Language, Brazil

The Adventures of How I Learned Fluent Portuguese on My Own (and How You Can Too)

Ouro Preto, from www.feriasbrasil.com.br from Nanä Coutinho

Many moons ago, I decided to delay the inevitability of getting a grown-ass woman job and explore South America for the year. My travel plan was so loose that it needed a belt. All I knew was that my departure flight landed in São Paulo and, one year later, a return flight would magically deliver me home.

I had barely done any research and would know not a single soul once I arrived. The money I had saved up was peanuts. It was as much as I could pocket from the only shitty job I could find- folding and refolding jeans for pretentious, rich people. I knew I’d be broke as a joke a few months into the trip, so I armed up with a cheap, online English teaching certificate to break the fall.

I could speak a bit of Spanish at the time. ¡Hola! ¿Dónde està el baño, por favor? Surely, that would help me find a bathroom in Brazil where they speak the close-cousin version of Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese? Right?

As quick as you can say “not a chance”, I learned that neither Spanish nor English was going to get me by, which to be honest was fine by me. I was excited to pick up some Portuguese. It sounded exotic with an intonation like the ocean that elaborately rises and falls with the tide. If only I could put my finger on where the waves began and ended in the ocean, or where the words began and ended within a phrase. The words sounded blended up like a smoothie, and I wanted to taste each individual ingredient.

On a Lonely Planet recommendation, I ended up in Ouro Preto, Minas Gerais, a historical, colonial mining town once full of riches from the gold rush days of Portuguese colonization, Catholic church domination, and African slave trading.

Today, it is magically dripping in charm with its cobblestone streets and terracotta roofs. Its streets are hilly as hell and as curvy as a Kardashian. Walking up and down these streets, you can smell the rich cuisine, where beef or bean stews are cooked in wood-fired clay pots and locals make their own semi-soft Minas cheeses and jabuticaba liquors. It is essentially a farm-to-table foodie haven.

Ouro Preto’s jewels go beyond its food and architecture. Although the gold rush was about 300 years ago, even today, it has literal jewels and jewelry shops at every corner. With my poor Portuguese, I miraculously befriended a jeweler of exceptional artistry, who invited me, in Portuguese, to study the art of jewelry making. When I finally understood what he was proposing, I was smitten!

The next thing I knew, I was studying silversmithing….. in Portuguese!

For this reason, my early vocabulary in Portuguese was about neither food nor travel. Rather, my language allowed me to follow instructions about casting, welding, lapidation, and polishing silver. I learned how to sketch ring designs and how to set gemstones. I knew the Portuguese names for all of the workshop tools. I even made a ring from ouro. Real gold. Ask my mom! It’s hers now!

When I was not at the shop silversmithing, you could find me reading the local newspaper in the praça, the town square. I read the paper. Every. Single. Day. And not like a normal person either. I marked it up with underlines, circles, and English translations from my handy pocket dictionary- the paper edition! It was equal parts reading and equal part dissecting. Also to the town square, I would bring my Portuguese grammar textbook even though it was a clunker. Picture a 1970s muscle car reincarnated as a textbook. I did grammar exercises. Every. Single. Day.

People would notice and be curious like George. They must have thought “who is that gringa?” When they approached, I used all the language skills I could possibly muster to introduce myself. Now, Brazil is famous for its highly social culture. I was grateful that the strangers who chatted me up were so encouraging with my terribly poor Portuguese. They would say, “você fala muito bem português”, and I would deny it and blush. However, after four months of this routine, I felt like I was making real progress.

After living and silversmithing in Ouro Preto, I was ready to hit the beach. As slowly as a sloth, I had the luxury of traveling up the Bahian coast and the austerity to do so on a shoestring budget. The adventures that I had that year can not be captured in a blog post and would certainly require my readership to sign an NDA before reading. I’ve done a lot of stupid, crazy sh*t in my life and a large percentage of it went down that year. What I CAN tell you, though, is that a short few months after I left dear Ouro Preto, my Portuguese was just good enough for me to find the biggest love of my life. Eat, Pray, Love, baby.

Today, I am a fluent Portuguese speaker. I even professionally translate Portuguese to English from time to time. I am currently involved in the Brazilian community in Canada. And although I teach English at one of Canada’s largest universities, I speak Portuguese. Every. Single. Day.