I, too, am sick of hearing about how difficult Portuguese is. Learning any new language involves some degree of difficulty and Portuguese is not measurably harder to learn than any other Romance language, for example (perhaps the pronunciation might be harder to master than say, Spanish, but the grammar is not appreciably different). It's certainly not more difficult than learning a tonal language or one that does not use the Latin alphabet if you are a native English speaker. A lot of my in-laws like to comment that my children have picked up English so easily because it's "easier to learn" than Portuguese. They don't consider the fact that Portuguese children all pick up Portuguese easily and that I speak to my children almost exclusively in English. It perfectly exemplifies the phrase "mother tongue". And of course they do not speak fluent English themselves, despite its "easiness", so I wonder how they are able to accurately judge its level of difficulty at all. Enfim. You can tell this irritates me!
Oi Lucy! I read this with a wry smile remembering how I too stumbled with the grammar aspect of learning Portuguese when I was in Brazil in 1981/2, after I’d lived for a while in northern Italy a year before and thought I’d be able to get the gist of Portuguese…oh, the innocence or arrogance of youth huh! Italian was quite different from what I heard in Minas Gerais. I spent time with some five and six year olds playing, watching soaps on tv with my friend’s mum as she crocheted like the proverbial demon and chatted away to me as I flipped the pages of my small dictionary trying to find appropriate words. After a few months I found that I had absorbed vocabulary without realising and was able to follow conversations between two, anymore was a real brain ache 😣
I left to return to England when I realised my permission to stay in the country was up sooner than I thought and due to the Falklands war starting, popping to Argentina wasn’t a viable option any more.
I love the language and it’ll always have a very special place in my heart 💓 Sadly I rarely hear it and have forgotten soooooo much.
In the absence of a Portuguese mother-in-law, I can recommend repeating out aloud the slogans of adverts of television. That's why I could say things like "Zovirax é o único creme para tratamento do herpes labial" long before I was certain about how to say "Pleased to meet you". National Geographic documentaries, (English or Dutch narration, with PT subtitles) ensured that I knew "lontra = otter" long before I knew how to say dog, bitch, puppy, etc. I would also repeat what newreaders said (assisted by the chyron, which in Portuguese is almost exactly what the newsreader actually says), until I realised how superficial most of these news bulletins were, and got bored.
I do love your illustration. Is it one of yours, or do we have Beryl Cook to thank for it?
hahaha. WELL… When you said you didn’t want to be fluent, I thought WHA??? and then you said why, and I laughed!
HOWEVER, let me tell you that you are really missing out. You’re right about the moaning, we all do it, eternally, and you wouldn’t believe that the Portuguese talk just as much about the bloody weather as the British do. But the Portuguese are also really bloody funny, really weird, really sensible, really interesting… and do you really want to only be inside the heads of foreigners in Portugal forever? Or only Portuguese speaking medium English to you? NO!!!! HOW BORING!!!
Go on, get yourself a Portuguese Mother in Law (you can borrow one from somebody) and you’ll never look back.
I hear ya, and my growing comprehension is inevitable given my curiosity and love of this place. Thank you Lucy. Bom fim de semana e liberdade! You are so right about the sense of humour (-:
Glad to see other people having the same struggles. I've gone backwards since Covid as I've only visited Lisboa and most will switch to English to the point where we're both doggedly speaking (or more precisely in my case trying to speak) the other language. I get far more people speak to me (or shout across the street to me) in Portuguese in London if I wear any Benfica gear.
ah meu Deus LUCY! I cannot catch my breath from snort-laughing in recognition!
"Italian spoken with a very Russian accent, underwater" just about did me in.
Especially because whenever I am giving it my all (speaking Portuguese in Portugal) and beginning to register signs of comprehension in my involuntary conversational partner, something slips a gear between my brain and my mouth and I ruin everything by blathering on in either Russian or Italian. THIS IS TRUE.
(I have this "chest of drawers" theory of language acquisition: the most recently learned language is in the top drawer, and when the workers in my brain get overwhelmed and start ransacking the drawers looking for the right term, they start at the top and just start randomly throwing things out. In the next drawer is the language that might have been in use recently, although briefly. Then the workers start in on the drawers that are pretty well-organized but full of mothballs. This tends to result in false idioms, or hopelessly out-of-date slang.)
This makes perfect sense to me. For about a decade (until I started actively trying to learn Portuguese), I used to just speak French in Portugal. Of course back then, the country had not yet been invaded by anglophones, so there was a certain logic to it.
(My, my, here’s another chance for me to explain fun stuff about the Portuguese language! Yes!)
We, the Portuguese are sometimes excessive, meaning that we have two verbs for “to be” (“ser” and “estar”) and two verbs for “to have” (“ter” and “haver”). Yup. Excessive…
So, about the «Bem haja»: it was an old and regional – Central Portugal, inland – way to say “thank you” that was retrieved by PT language speakers from the depths of the dictionary records of old (and very nice) expressions.
Its etymological origin comes from the combination of "bem" (what is good / well) with "haja" (form of the verb "haver" in the present subjunctive, which here means "let there be").
Thank you = gratitude = Obrigado (“I am obliged to you”, “obliged” meaning “obrigado”) = Bem haja = “May you be well/have goodness upon you”.
(Many more fun explanations on PT language available…)
Yes, it looks "churchy", and might (also) have started "there", but it's like all words and expressions connected to "grace", "gratitude", "thankfulness", "good", etc. There is a strong mix between religiousness and secularity.
And yes: Viseu is Central Portugal, inland.
Nowadays "Bem haja" is used to give a more tender and gracious tone to a "normal" Obrigado. [And it puzzles foreigners... (malicious smile)]
Thanks Marta. Interesting. I've usually heard it in more formal contexts almost like wishing people luck, or in writing. I always thought it meant something related to God along the lines of "May the Force be with you"
I think I shall start using it - something I've never dared do before. Bem haja
Love this! I can't help but mention that Brazilian is easier than European Portuguese, but here we are! After decades speaking the language, I thought, I had to adjust my ears. My mouth refused. Love your narration, you've given me the courage to try it myself!
Fun facts: In Portuguese, vowels are written using 5 letters. In European Portuguese, they enable 14 vowel sounds; in Brazilian Portuguese, 12. In French, with 6 vowels they have 16 vowel sounds. In Spanish, with 6 vowels... the are 5 vowel sounds.
Because I came to European Portuguese first, I'm the exact opposite. You should see me talking to Brazilians, especially those with strong accents... I really strain to understand! it's the soft consonants.
You make it seem like it might make sense to me, one day. Or that at least I will always be able to crack myself up (after crying in private humiliation of course)
My experience 35 years ago was similar to yours: A short “crash course” did not prepare me for how quickly everyone spoke, nor for how they swallow the beginnings and endings of words. Virtually nobody spoke English back then, so it was sink or swim for the three years I lived here!
My go to sentence then - and now - “pode falar um pouco mais devagar se faz favor?”
Ah adorei Lucy! Por incrível que parece a dobragem de programas infantis agora é norma, animação, filmes etc. e na verdade não acho que tenha feito maravilhas pelos pequenos. Em miúda como escreves e bem ouvíamos programas legendados e com isso tínhamos acesso a outros idiomas (ingles, espanhol, francês e até italiano e mandarim por exemplo) e ainda melhorávamos a leitura. Tenho só o exemplo do meu filho que é bastante duro de ouvido para o inglês, assim como tem uma certa “preguicite” para a leitura. Não precisa de se esforçar pois a informação é bem mais acessível. O teu português é excelente. E sim acho a nossa língua desafiante mas muito bonita.
Fascinating, Lucy. I started learning Portuguese on Duolingo before my first visit to Lisbon last year. My first thoughts on hearing it spoken was that, though it often looks similar to Spanish on the page, it sounds completely different. Much more nasal than I'd expected. (I imagine it's like someone learning English and then visiting somewhere with a strong accent, like Liverpool.) I've carried on learning. I live in hope I might do better if and when I Portugal again!
I, too, am sick of hearing about how difficult Portuguese is. Learning any new language involves some degree of difficulty and Portuguese is not measurably harder to learn than any other Romance language, for example (perhaps the pronunciation might be harder to master than say, Spanish, but the grammar is not appreciably different). It's certainly not more difficult than learning a tonal language or one that does not use the Latin alphabet if you are a native English speaker. A lot of my in-laws like to comment that my children have picked up English so easily because it's "easier to learn" than Portuguese. They don't consider the fact that Portuguese children all pick up Portuguese easily and that I speak to my children almost exclusively in English. It perfectly exemplifies the phrase "mother tongue". And of course they do not speak fluent English themselves, despite its "easiness", so I wonder how they are able to accurately judge its level of difficulty at all. Enfim. You can tell this irritates me!
I share your irritation!!!
Oi Lucy! I read this with a wry smile remembering how I too stumbled with the grammar aspect of learning Portuguese when I was in Brazil in 1981/2, after I’d lived for a while in northern Italy a year before and thought I’d be able to get the gist of Portuguese…oh, the innocence or arrogance of youth huh! Italian was quite different from what I heard in Minas Gerais. I spent time with some five and six year olds playing, watching soaps on tv with my friend’s mum as she crocheted like the proverbial demon and chatted away to me as I flipped the pages of my small dictionary trying to find appropriate words. After a few months I found that I had absorbed vocabulary without realising and was able to follow conversations between two, anymore was a real brain ache 😣
I left to return to England when I realised my permission to stay in the country was up sooner than I thought and due to the Falklands war starting, popping to Argentina wasn’t a viable option any more.
I love the language and it’ll always have a very special place in my heart 💓 Sadly I rarely hear it and have forgotten soooooo much.
❤️
Adorei este voice-over. Tem muita graça! Obrigada pela partilha (e pelo tempo investido a aprender português!)
Obrigada Raquel! Talvez faça uma voz off em português um dia destes, para assustar, e afastar, todos aqueles que recusam aprender hahah
In the absence of a Portuguese mother-in-law, I can recommend repeating out aloud the slogans of adverts of television. That's why I could say things like "Zovirax é o único creme para tratamento do herpes labial" long before I was certain about how to say "Pleased to meet you". National Geographic documentaries, (English or Dutch narration, with PT subtitles) ensured that I knew "lontra = otter" long before I knew how to say dog, bitch, puppy, etc. I would also repeat what newreaders said (assisted by the chyron, which in Portuguese is almost exactly what the newsreader actually says), until I realised how superficial most of these news bulletins were, and got bored.
I do love your illustration. Is it one of yours, or do we have Beryl Cook to thank for it?
This is one of my favourites of hers: https://www.easyliveauction.com/catalogue/lot/44670a32050a06b17fb5e25fc19a879b/0af8d24542e81eb9357e7ef448a6646f/fine-paintings-sale/
Yes!! Adverts are SO useful! Zovirax , cough medicine and car windscreens, endlessly repeated.
Thank you, happy to remind you of Beryl Cook :)
As a former student of (Brazilian) Portuguese, I totally enjoyed this.
Brazilians are so patient, and they help you along if they see you struggling.
(Don't get me started on the now popular incorrect use of you and I.)
Hi Lucy, I have mixed feelings about this! Here's why I'm *torn* https://youtu.be/rdL9x1URUpM
hahaha. WELL… When you said you didn’t want to be fluent, I thought WHA??? and then you said why, and I laughed!
HOWEVER, let me tell you that you are really missing out. You’re right about the moaning, we all do it, eternally, and you wouldn’t believe that the Portuguese talk just as much about the bloody weather as the British do. But the Portuguese are also really bloody funny, really weird, really sensible, really interesting… and do you really want to only be inside the heads of foreigners in Portugal forever? Or only Portuguese speaking medium English to you? NO!!!! HOW BORING!!!
Go on, get yourself a Portuguese Mother in Law (you can borrow one from somebody) and you’ll never look back.
I hear ya, and my growing comprehension is inevitable given my curiosity and love of this place. Thank you Lucy. Bom fim de semana e liberdade! You are so right about the sense of humour (-:
Que alívio!! Ora, tem um bom fim de semana, cheio de conversas difíceis com senhoras de uma certa idade que talvez possam ser uma sogra tua :)
Just looking up 'SOGRA
Glad to see other people having the same struggles. I've gone backwards since Covid as I've only visited Lisboa and most will switch to English to the point where we're both doggedly speaking (or more precisely in my case trying to speak) the other language. I get far more people speak to me (or shout across the street to me) in Portuguese in London if I wear any Benfica gear.
ah meu Deus LUCY! I cannot catch my breath from snort-laughing in recognition!
"Italian spoken with a very Russian accent, underwater" just about did me in.
Especially because whenever I am giving it my all (speaking Portuguese in Portugal) and beginning to register signs of comprehension in my involuntary conversational partner, something slips a gear between my brain and my mouth and I ruin everything by blathering on in either Russian or Italian. THIS IS TRUE.
(I have this "chest of drawers" theory of language acquisition: the most recently learned language is in the top drawer, and when the workers in my brain get overwhelmed and start ransacking the drawers looking for the right term, they start at the top and just start randomly throwing things out. In the next drawer is the language that might have been in use recently, although briefly. Then the workers start in on the drawers that are pretty well-organized but full of mothballs. This tends to result in false idioms, or hopelessly out-of-date slang.)
Hahah glad I made you laugh.
I still kind of believe I speak French, but if a French person asks me something, only Portuguese comes out
Learning Portuguese totally knobbled what was my respectably fluent spoken French, which has never recovered. Tant pis!
Same here. My french is disastrous!
This makes perfect sense to me. For about a decade (until I started actively trying to learn Portuguese), I used to just speak French in Portugal. Of course back then, the country had not yet been invaded by anglophones, so there was a certain logic to it.
What gets me confused is "Bem haja" x
(My, my, here’s another chance for me to explain fun stuff about the Portuguese language! Yes!)
We, the Portuguese are sometimes excessive, meaning that we have two verbs for “to be” (“ser” and “estar”) and two verbs for “to have” (“ter” and “haver”). Yup. Excessive…
So, about the «Bem haja»: it was an old and regional – Central Portugal, inland – way to say “thank you” that was retrieved by PT language speakers from the depths of the dictionary records of old (and very nice) expressions.
Its etymological origin comes from the combination of "bem" (what is good / well) with "haja" (form of the verb "haver" in the present subjunctive, which here means "let there be").
Thank you = gratitude = Obrigado (“I am obliged to you”, “obliged” meaning “obrigado”) = Bem haja = “May you be well/have goodness upon you”.
(Many more fun explanations on PT language available…)
Thanks Marta! I always wondered if it was something from churchiness? The owner of my local mercearia is from Viseu district, and says bem haja
Yes, it looks "churchy", and might (also) have started "there", but it's like all words and expressions connected to "grace", "gratitude", "thankfulness", "good", etc. There is a strong mix between religiousness and secularity.
And yes: Viseu is Central Portugal, inland.
Nowadays "Bem haja" is used to give a more tender and gracious tone to a "normal" Obrigado. [And it puzzles foreigners... (malicious smile)]
Thanks Marta. Interesting. I've usually heard it in more formal contexts almost like wishing people luck, or in writing. I always thought it meant something related to God along the lines of "May the Force be with you"
I think I shall start using it - something I've never dared do before. Bem haja
😬
it’s a weird one. but I resolved to just translate it as “thank you” and so it stuck.
Love this! I can't help but mention that Brazilian is easier than European Portuguese, but here we are! After decades speaking the language, I thought, I had to adjust my ears. My mouth refused. Love your narration, you've given me the courage to try it myself!
Fun facts: In Portuguese, vowels are written using 5 letters. In European Portuguese, they enable 14 vowel sounds; in Brazilian Portuguese, 12. In French, with 6 vowels they have 16 vowel sounds. In Spanish, with 6 vowels... the are 5 vowel sounds.
Those are very fun facts, love it!
Love this! So there’s a reason I still don’t understand Spanish…. not enough vowel sounds!
After knowing Portuguese, any other romance language should be a piece of cake (or "chicken soup", as we say...). (I'm joking.)
Because I came to European Portuguese first, I'm the exact opposite. You should see me talking to Brazilians, especially those with strong accents... I really strain to understand! it's the soft consonants.
You make it seem like it might make sense to me, one day. Or that at least I will always be able to crack myself up (after crying in private humiliation of course)
One day, it will!!!
Another great article Lucy.
My experience 35 years ago was similar to yours: A short “crash course” did not prepare me for how quickly everyone spoke, nor for how they swallow the beginnings and endings of words. Virtually nobody spoke English back then, so it was sink or swim for the three years I lived here!
My go to sentence then - and now - “pode falar um pouco mais devagar se faz favor?”
Thanks Jeremy! Oh yes, probably THE most important request
Lucy you’re a lovely narrator. Please read everything to me from now on, emails, texts etc all of it
Thank you Sandy :)
Also you have a great voice, you sounded, to me, like Emma Thompson! I hope this is a compliment. Cheers, sedeyooshkeesair! :)
Ehehe thank you. Emma Thompson comes up a lot!! :)
Ah adorei Lucy! Por incrível que parece a dobragem de programas infantis agora é norma, animação, filmes etc. e na verdade não acho que tenha feito maravilhas pelos pequenos. Em miúda como escreves e bem ouvíamos programas legendados e com isso tínhamos acesso a outros idiomas (ingles, espanhol, francês e até italiano e mandarim por exemplo) e ainda melhorávamos a leitura. Tenho só o exemplo do meu filho que é bastante duro de ouvido para o inglês, assim como tem uma certa “preguicite” para a leitura. Não precisa de se esforçar pois a informação é bem mais acessível. O teu português é excelente. E sim acho a nossa língua desafiante mas muito bonita.
Fascinating, Lucy. I started learning Portuguese on Duolingo before my first visit to Lisbon last year. My first thoughts on hearing it spoken was that, though it often looks similar to Spanish on the page, it sounds completely different. Much more nasal than I'd expected. (I imagine it's like someone learning English and then visiting somewhere with a strong accent, like Liverpool.) I've carried on learning. I live in hope I might do better if and when I Portugal again!
To me it sounded like Italian spoken with a very Russian accent, underwater :) Good luck with the learning!