I haven’t posted to this blog in a long while, …mainly because I finally became more or less fluent!
Several months ago I walked up to my boss and told him that either I quit, or he can allow me to take a 3 month vacation. He said I could take the vacation! So, I went to join my girlfriend in Minas Gerais. She returned to Brasil after staying in the US for over one year. So, I spent 3 months in a town near Ouro Preto and took a Portuguese class at UFOP. I was lucky enought to also teach English at a local school.
So, now I’ve been back to my real life (Arizona), I’ll explain how I keep up on my Portuguese lately.
- MSN. (duhh) …No friends? Go to a language exchange site (see list to left). Hell, go to a dating site! Remeber, there are at least 10X the # of Brazilians wanting to learn English than people like you. Use this to your advantage.
- Skype. Speaking is essential. Get past the fear, speak for an hour a day for two weeks, you’ll see a huge difference.
- Spell checker! Install the PT-BR addon in Firefox.
- Movies. Try this: www.downsbrasil.net
- MP3’s. Try this: www.4shared.com
- Orkut! Essential for online relationships with Brazilians. Very easy to make friends in the English-learning groups. Just be aware of the horrible Orkutanisms like “axei” instead of “achei“, “kra” em vez de “cara“, “naum/ñ” em vez de “não“, “xau” em vez de “tchau“, etc.
- Blogs. For example, with funny/disgusting pictures with just a few words: lolhehehe.com , about learning english: teclasap.com.br , interesting with beautiful pictures: avenidacopacabana , etc. Good way to come across new words.
Good luck!
4 comments
Comments feed for this article
May 26, 2009 at 5:01 am
Sicko
Loved the definition you gave to LOL.
May 27, 2009 at 3:11 pm
dannykadoshi
Hahahaha…I loved ur text..I’m brazilian and learn english talk with “gringos” in msn and sites of relationship…… =)
June 24, 2009 at 3:01 pm
Marc
Dear Blogger,
you are nominated for the “Top 100 Language Blogs 2009″ competition. Congratulations! After last year’s success the bab.la language portal and Lexiophiles language blog are hosting this year’s worldwide language blog competition once again. We are confident to surpass more than the 350 blogs which entered the competition in 2008.
We have made two major changes to last year:
1. Due to the amount of blogs we have created categories.
(Language Learning/Language Teaching/Language Technology/
Language Professionals)
You are in category Language Learning
2. User voting will count 50% towards final score
Voting will start on July 8, leaving you enough time to prepare your readers for the upcoming voting. Voting will close on July 27 and the winners will be announced on July 30.
For more information on the 2009 competition and what it is all about visit [http://www.lexiophiles.com/english/top-100-language-blogs-2009-nomination-started]
So now you may ask yourself what you can do. Here are some suggestions
-Nominations are open until July 6, so feel free to share any blog you like with us
-Each blog will have a one-sentence-description for the voting. If you would like a special description to go along with your blog, just send me an email [marc@bab.la]
Kind regards,
Marc
On behalf of the bab.la and Lexiophiles team
[http://bab.la]
[www.lexiophiles.com]
Marc Lütten
bab.la GmbH | Baumwall 7 | 20459 Hamburg | Germany
Phone: +49(0)40-707080950 http://bab.la/
Handelsregister AG Hamburg | HRB 101207
Geschaftsführer: Dr. Andreas Schroeter, Dr. Thomas Schroeter, Patrick Uecker
October 7, 2009 at 9:54 am
jody
hi, your posts are very interesting! well done for managing to become fluent so fast. i’m trying to learn italian but it seems never ending!