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A New Language

I've been finding in Brazil that if I talk to someone in Spanish they can understand me because these romance languages are so similar.  Of course, the portuguese that comes back at me is often very difficult for me to understand.  Anyway, I'm able to get by.

My next chosen stop was Florinopolis, a city basically based on a big island with lots of beaches.  Sounded like a nice place to stop in for a night on my way to Salvador.  I'd been given two recommendations - some Chileans told me to go to the northern part of the island and some English guys told me to go to the east.  I ended up going to the northern part and on arrival met a guy from Sao Paulo who told me I'd made the wrong choice.  The northern part was a very ugly beach filled mostly with Argentinians, the eastern part was the quietest and the best.  Damn.

The beach was indeed pretty ugly.  Very skinny, lots of buildings right next to it and WAY too many people.  At least my Spanish got me by here though.

I talked to the guy from Sao Paulo about speaking Portuguese.  I'd figured that Spanish and Portuguese are so similar I'd give it a good go.  He told me some differences and I read up about Portuguese pronounciation.  Armed and ready, that night I went to the common area of the hostel to make some new friends.

Most people spoke English.  OK, fine, but I got them to speak some portuguese with me and I was starting to get it.  They even said my pronounciation was pretty good for a foreigner, which was flattering (though I suspected it was caused by a sore throat that I'd been developing!

After a bit of practise they brought over a friend who couldn't speak English.  It was time for my first conversation in Portuguese.  Hmm... I wasn't a star.  But we could certainly communicate, which gave me a lot of confidence.  I can say that she lived in the South of Brazil and worked as a software developer.  Two days in the country and I speak the language!  What a star!

Filled with confidence I went to bed that night keen to start exploring this new language.  I never went to the beach in Florinopolis...

On the language:  Well, it turns out in the south of Brazil the portuguese is very influenced by Argentine Spanish.  My portuguese is really not that great.  Dammit.  But I can communicate.

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