How I learned Portuguese the hard way, but had a blast doing it

I have been in Brazil for nearly two weeks and it is becoming clear to me that I am not as fluent as I used to be in Portuguese. The last time I was in Brazil for more than a week was in 2000 – ten years ago. And, I almost never have the opportunity to speak Portuguese outside of Brazil. This makes me think back to how I learned to speak Portuguese in the first place. It kind of happened by chance. And, it wasn’t even in Brazil.

In 1998, I was working at a restaurant in DC called Café Atlantico. One day, while chatting with another waitress, Ana, she and I came up with a fabulous idea – that I would drive to Tierra del Fuego, at the end of South America. I got excited about the idea, and began to plan for it. I had $10,000 saved from working as a waitress and living rent-free at my parents’ house. I called my brother, Ian, and asked him if he and Allyson wanted to come along for the ride. At the time, Ian and Allyson were Phish-heads and traveled in a van all over the US. So, they’d be my perfect partners for the trip. Ian and Allyson agreed they wanted to go. All I needed was a car.

I told my dad I planned to buy an old van. He told me I could have his Dodge Ram van. Sweet! It was big and comfy with plush seats that could fold out like a bed in the back. I got my sister, Katrina, to drive across country with me, as Ian and Allyson were in Bellingham, Washington. Katrina and I drove to San Francisco, and then up to Bellingham. When we got there – all the way across the country and up the coast – Ian and Allyson had chickened out. Ian mentioned the violence going on in El Salvador and Panama, and said he didn’t think it was a good idea.

I was not about to go by myself, and had no other suitable travel partners. Ian and Allyson were the only hippies I knew. So, I went back to San Francisco and stayed at my grandfather’s apartment. I found a job at a French restaurant, and decided to take the GRE – the graduate school entrance exams. I enrolled in a class and took the exams. Once all that was over, I decided I wanted to go back to DC. I had some friends in San Francisco, but their idea of fun was to sniff coke all night and sit around talking B.S. I had to get out of that scene.

Back in DC, I easily found another gig as a waitress at Cities in Adams Morgan. I worked there for a bit, and then decided that, if I couldn’t go to Latin America, I at least could go to Portugal. I called up my friend, Alix, who was living in Lisbon, and asked her if she could find a place for me to stay in Lisbon for a month. She readily agreed, and I began to study Portuguese.

I bought a little book called “Teach Yourself Portuguese” and listened to the cassette tapes on my way to work each day. I took the cassettes with me when I went with my friend Uzoamaka to Nigeria for a month, and also with me when Vicky and I went to Cancun for a week just before I left. I still had about $10,000 saved when I got on a plane to Portugal in March 1998, thanks to my steady income as a waitress.

When I got to Lisbon, I fell in love with the town, and decided I wanted to stay a bit longer than a month. I went to the STA office to change my ticket. The agent told me that there were no return tickets available in a month’s time, and that the next opening was in November. I decided to change the date anyway, in the hopes that I could change it back later.

Once I decided that I was going to be in Portugal for a while, I began to look for a job. One afternoon, I was hanging out downtown, and met a street performer who did clown tricks. He and I chatted for a bit. I told him I was looking for work. He told me he had a friend who owned a Brazilian restaurant – Zeno – in As Docas. He agreed to take me there, and we went the next day. I met the owner, Zeno, and, despite my very limited Portuguese skills, he agreed to hire me.

My first night at Zeno, they put me on the patio serving drinks. I didn’t understand what most people said, but was able to repeat. If the customer said “Dois chopps,” I would repeat it to the bartender, and bring back the two beers. And, so it went. I made it through the first night, and then the next two nights on the patio, serving drinks.

Then, they decided that I could work inside, serving food. I have to say – I was humbled by the patience the Portuguese customers had with my inability to communicate. If I didn’t understand, they would repeat the order slowly … u-m-a p-i-c-a-n-h-a, por favor. So it went. A month or so later, I had the menu down pat, despite the occasional mix-up.

One day, a customer asked me to describe a dish – camarao ao abacaxi – which was a pineapple, cut in half, filled with shrimp and creamy sauce. I had quite a bit of difficulty using my rudimentary Portuguese to explain it. In those cases, I would call my colleague Silvia to come and take over, which she always did.

Another evening, a customer asked for “uma batida da pinga” which is an unusual way to refer to a caipirinha. However, I was a bit taken aback by what sounded to me like a request for inappropriate activity below his belt. It turns out that cachaça – the main ingredient for a caipirinha – is called “pinga” in Brazil.

By the end of the second month, I was pretty functional in Portuguese. And, by the end of the third, I could even pick up on what my colleagues were joking about at the other table. I ended up staying in Lisbon until November of 1998 – the date to which my ticket had been changed. I was 24 years old and had a blast in Lisbon. And, I became fluent in Portuguese.

In many ways, I learned Portuguese the hard way. There were many times when I had to express myself the best way I could and risked great embarrassment. Other times, I had to sit in silence and wonder if all the jokes in the room were on me. But, it was worth it, as I learned a new language and made many dear friends.

Now, unfortunately, I am going through a little of that same process again as I struggle to understand the jokes on the other side of the room. But, at least I have quite a bit more than the “Teach Yourself Portuguese” cassette tapes behind me.