As native speakers of a language we don’t consciously think about the things that make life difficult for beginners. There are many words in any language that are confusingly similar and sometimes they lead to interesting, embarrassing, or even threatening situations.
One of the first set of Portuguese words that caused us mirth was the following. All of them are adjectives shown in the feminine form, i.e. as the words would be used by Audrey.
- Casada – married. The s is almost like an English “z”.
- Cansada – tired.
- Caçada – hunted! The ç is like an English “s”.
The first lesson in our textbook involves learning to describe ourselves. Combined with the obvious opportunity to confuse o marido - (my) husband with o morrido - the dead (person) you can imagine why we laughed! With a bit more vocabulary now in hand, we can add to the confusion with cacada (junk) or caçado (sly).
It’s very important where the stress is placed in a Portuguese word. There are rules that would take several sentences to explain, but a written accent mark, if present, trumps whatever rule would have otherwise applied. In Maçã – apple – the accent distinguishes the word from Maça – club or cudgel – in which the first syllable is stressed. There is yet another word, Maca in which the “c” is pronounced like an English “k”: it means stretcher or litter. So far we haven’t managed to purchase a cudgel or a stretcher, but we certainly have tried. Perhaps it’s just as well you can’t get them in a grocery store.
All three of those words are feminine, but sometimes the gender, indicated only by the article o or a distinguishes the meaning of homonyms. A capital means capital city; O capital means capital in the economic sense. But just when we thought we had that figured out: Capital used as an adjective has the same meaning in English, as in “capital offense”, and can appear with either masculine or feminine nouns. We don't think we've committed any of those, yet.
We have also encountered a large number of words that are very close to their English and/or French equivalents, so many in fact that when I don’t know the word for something I can often get away with using the English or French word and modifying the pronunciation and/or the word ending so that it sounds Portuguese at least to my ears. However that can be risky, as the following reverse example shows.
We have friends here, a German missionary couple that are also studying Portuguese; their English is good but not perfect. Last week we had invited them by Email to join us on a short trip. The husband called Audrey by phone and apologized in English that they would not be able to come along because they were both VERY constipated! Audrey wasn’t as shocked as she might have been: we had just learned that the Portuguese word constipado means to have a cold. Frighteningly, the smaller of our dictionaries allows for both meanings – perhaps allowing for the possibility of being plugged up at both ends?
The US Foreign Service Institute estimates that their language students – already with other foreign language skills and assessed as having good language learning ability – can on average reach “general professional proficiency” (Level 3 of 5 levels) in Portuguese with about 600 class hours, plus homework and practice time. During our stay in Portugal we are expecting to have a total of about 450 class hours, albeit with the added advantage of being immersed in the environment. Pray that we may be good students so as to reach the highest proficiency possible in the time available.
No comments:
Post a Comment