I sat there shuffling uncomfortably, stirring in discomfort while attempting not to engage with the ongoing conversation, at times pretending to read whatever I happened to have on the screen of my unassuming tablet device. A friend of mine I see on a regular enough basis that the time we spend together is often passed in comfortable idleness had run into friends from the design school, a small troop of particularly trendy students wearing their hair in variously bouffant and abstract cuts, shaved on one side but not another, cut here, grown out there, wearing tight clothing with plunging necklines and tailored angles that would make a person like myself look foolhardy at best.
"Por que ele não fala, não fala português? De onde está?" "Ele é americano de Colorado, percebe português mas não fala, ou melhor, fala português mas não quer. Então só fala inglês mesmo que possa falar a nossa!" "Olha, é que não quer ou não gosta? Há uma grande diferença, sabes!"*
*"Why isn't he speaking, he doesn't speak Portuguese? Where's he from?" "He's American from Colorado, understands Portuguese but doesn't speak, or better, speaks Portuguese but doesn't want to. So he just speaks English even though he can speak our language!" "Listen, is it that he doesn't want to or doesn't like to? There's a huge difference, you know!"
I interjected to my friend in English, understanding the conversation, and he used it as the perfect case in point. "Não," I wanted to say, "não é que não quero falar – é só que falto palavras demais para expressar-me. Estou a tentar."** The point, however, is that I didn't, and I continue to remain hushed in similar situations, occurring with steadily increasing frequency as the network of people I interact with is augmented by means of the people I already know, the amount of people who don't or don't want to speak English following suit accordingly.
**"No, no it's not that I don't want to speak – it's just that I lack too many words to express myself. I'm trying."
This interaction, par for the course on the most typical of days, wherein I am expected (and fail) to live up to a certain baseline standard of speaking the host language that I have proven capable in more courageous (and inebriated) moments, sit in direct contrast to that of just a few days prior during the commencement of my first political course at Católica, a class on journalism and politics in the public sphere. It's the only one of my seminars that I have in Portuguese, and the course has been reduced from five to three meetings for reasons known only to the depths of time at this point, forcing the condensation of a course already dense in intellectual material, if weak in conceptual innovation and conviction. So it was that I spent three hours in complete horror, an excess of espresso coursing through my veins in the vain hope that I might be more alert and catch the slurred, mumbled language of the professor a little better, as if the words were particles floating around the air like some kind of political alphabet soup, there for the grasping if only you can get past how scalding hot the whole ordeal is. The other students were all Portuguese of course, and thus without problems it commenced and plodded along, me taking notes from the slides and listening painstakingly attentively to make sure I caught the details that I could. I managed to understand the general idea of what was going on, but I lacked any sort of understanding of the subtle and nuanced detail of the lecture, a fault that does not sit comfortably with me in normal circumstance and much less so given the one in which I find myself. The professor speaks in the exact manner of Portuguese that renders my comprehension effectively null and void, and that is precisely what I was hoping would not happen. The evening resulted in a heavy burden of stress that left me tired more than anything else.
In the aftermath of the class, and in ruminating on the matter of both scenarios as matter of contrast, I came to the conclusion that in fact I probably should live through such stresses more frequently and, indeed, that is much the same experience as the foreign students I tend to acquaint myself with must have on a frequent basis until at some point you really do catch each word, consuming each letter until the soup has digested into phrases of meaning and true consequence. For that, it must also be said that the stress incurred from feeling like drowning in a foreign language that is just slightly out of grasp from listening is in fact the same as daring to speak and sputter and stumble through the words you do know to express yourself as the foreigner making an effort to say things rendered much more nimbly and effectively in the commonly-understood mother tongue. There is not a grande diferença between the stresses of both situations. In both, there is enough of a linguistic base upon which to build, to progress, and to grasp the situation at hand that simply doing more of it would be the best enabler for current and future progression. In both as well, the overwhelming tendency is to run away just as the stress begins to build, before the lid of the pressure cooker is closed and you're forcibly steamed into a mushy lump of pliable knowledge.
I'll stop with the food metaphors eventually.
The point taken out of all of this is that at some point the process of learning the language is as vain and hollow of an excuse as the Italian students' complaints that they didn't speak Portuguese were the handful of times I went to that class. It is a lesson that I believe students of language in universities often are not forced to confront, which is to say that it is not the process of learning the language itself that bears any kind of merit, the usage of the language as a tool of communication being inherently the merit that is sought. In the context of living abroad, it is the ability to expand social horizons and remove cultural boundaries by using the language of others that is meritorious, not being recognized for having a certain knack for the rapid and thorough acquisition of linguistic rules and knowledge of aspects and quirks of language. Not speaking just becomes annoying and lazy instead of understandable after a certain point.
There are other things that present themselves as issues for me breaking down the speech barrier, namely issues that have everything to do with my manner and personality and nothing to do personally with anyone involved in the situations where I should be talking to them. I, like both of my parents, am more than a little bit obstinate and more generally stubborn and as such immediately lose the desire to say or retain an idea of anything I would want to say when I'm commanded to speak. "Say something!" elicits utter, deafening silence from me, no matter in what language the words are spoken, be it English, French, Russian, Portuguese, or so on. I have heard it forever and done the same thing forever, and at this point it's not always deliberate so much as it has become a reflex. Скажи что-нибудь. Ты что не говоришь? Parle! Parle! Dis-moi quelque chose. Say something. Fala! Fala, agora não falo inglês. You'll wait a long time for an answer to that one. The other thing is that despite being a remarkably social creature, I don't actually tend to have much of anything to say when thrust into a group of new people who all otherwise know each other, unless being asked questions or introduced more generally and expected to say a couple of things about myself. In Portugal, in my experience, you are expected to interject and thrust yourself into conversations to make your presence known, to order food and get what you want, to do anything socially more broadly speaking. It's a different manner of socialization that I'm not completely used to and I still function without that concept having fully sunken in yet.
One of my frequent points of advice for people that come to me for it is to stop trying to do things and simply to do them if they want to advance toward their objectives, something that anyone who has played an individual sport or had deadlines has surely played before. Stop thinking about it, stop complaining about it, stop dwelling on the task at hand, and just do it. Nike has built an entire brand around this very concept. Let's see if I can channel the Nike in me.
"Por que ele não fala, não fala português? De onde está?" "Ele é americano de Colorado, percebe português mas não fala, ou melhor, fala português mas não quer. Então só fala inglês mesmo que possa falar a nossa!" "Olha, é que não quer ou não gosta? Há uma grande diferença, sabes!"*
*"Why isn't he speaking, he doesn't speak Portuguese? Where's he from?" "He's American from Colorado, understands Portuguese but doesn't speak, or better, speaks Portuguese but doesn't want to. So he just speaks English even though he can speak our language!" "Listen, is it that he doesn't want to or doesn't like to? There's a huge difference, you know!"
I interjected to my friend in English, understanding the conversation, and he used it as the perfect case in point. "Não," I wanted to say, "não é que não quero falar – é só que falto palavras demais para expressar-me. Estou a tentar."** The point, however, is that I didn't, and I continue to remain hushed in similar situations, occurring with steadily increasing frequency as the network of people I interact with is augmented by means of the people I already know, the amount of people who don't or don't want to speak English following suit accordingly.
**"No, no it's not that I don't want to speak – it's just that I lack too many words to express myself. I'm trying."
This interaction, par for the course on the most typical of days, wherein I am expected (and fail) to live up to a certain baseline standard of speaking the host language that I have proven capable in more courageous (and inebriated) moments, sit in direct contrast to that of just a few days prior during the commencement of my first political course at Católica, a class on journalism and politics in the public sphere. It's the only one of my seminars that I have in Portuguese, and the course has been reduced from five to three meetings for reasons known only to the depths of time at this point, forcing the condensation of a course already dense in intellectual material, if weak in conceptual innovation and conviction. So it was that I spent three hours in complete horror, an excess of espresso coursing through my veins in the vain hope that I might be more alert and catch the slurred, mumbled language of the professor a little better, as if the words were particles floating around the air like some kind of political alphabet soup, there for the grasping if only you can get past how scalding hot the whole ordeal is. The other students were all Portuguese of course, and thus without problems it commenced and plodded along, me taking notes from the slides and listening painstakingly attentively to make sure I caught the details that I could. I managed to understand the general idea of what was going on, but I lacked any sort of understanding of the subtle and nuanced detail of the lecture, a fault that does not sit comfortably with me in normal circumstance and much less so given the one in which I find myself. The professor speaks in the exact manner of Portuguese that renders my comprehension effectively null and void, and that is precisely what I was hoping would not happen. The evening resulted in a heavy burden of stress that left me tired more than anything else.
In the aftermath of the class, and in ruminating on the matter of both scenarios as matter of contrast, I came to the conclusion that in fact I probably should live through such stresses more frequently and, indeed, that is much the same experience as the foreign students I tend to acquaint myself with must have on a frequent basis until at some point you really do catch each word, consuming each letter until the soup has digested into phrases of meaning and true consequence. For that, it must also be said that the stress incurred from feeling like drowning in a foreign language that is just slightly out of grasp from listening is in fact the same as daring to speak and sputter and stumble through the words you do know to express yourself as the foreigner making an effort to say things rendered much more nimbly and effectively in the commonly-understood mother tongue. There is not a grande diferença between the stresses of both situations. In both, there is enough of a linguistic base upon which to build, to progress, and to grasp the situation at hand that simply doing more of it would be the best enabler for current and future progression. In both as well, the overwhelming tendency is to run away just as the stress begins to build, before the lid of the pressure cooker is closed and you're forcibly steamed into a mushy lump of pliable knowledge.
I'll stop with the food metaphors eventually.
The point taken out of all of this is that at some point the process of learning the language is as vain and hollow of an excuse as the Italian students' complaints that they didn't speak Portuguese were the handful of times I went to that class. It is a lesson that I believe students of language in universities often are not forced to confront, which is to say that it is not the process of learning the language itself that bears any kind of merit, the usage of the language as a tool of communication being inherently the merit that is sought. In the context of living abroad, it is the ability to expand social horizons and remove cultural boundaries by using the language of others that is meritorious, not being recognized for having a certain knack for the rapid and thorough acquisition of linguistic rules and knowledge of aspects and quirks of language. Not speaking just becomes annoying and lazy instead of understandable after a certain point.
There are other things that present themselves as issues for me breaking down the speech barrier, namely issues that have everything to do with my manner and personality and nothing to do personally with anyone involved in the situations where I should be talking to them. I, like both of my parents, am more than a little bit obstinate and more generally stubborn and as such immediately lose the desire to say or retain an idea of anything I would want to say when I'm commanded to speak. "Say something!" elicits utter, deafening silence from me, no matter in what language the words are spoken, be it English, French, Russian, Portuguese, or so on. I have heard it forever and done the same thing forever, and at this point it's not always deliberate so much as it has become a reflex. Скажи что-нибудь. Ты что не говоришь? Parle! Parle! Dis-moi quelque chose. Say something. Fala! Fala, agora não falo inglês. You'll wait a long time for an answer to that one. The other thing is that despite being a remarkably social creature, I don't actually tend to have much of anything to say when thrust into a group of new people who all otherwise know each other, unless being asked questions or introduced more generally and expected to say a couple of things about myself. In Portugal, in my experience, you are expected to interject and thrust yourself into conversations to make your presence known, to order food and get what you want, to do anything socially more broadly speaking. It's a different manner of socialization that I'm not completely used to and I still function without that concept having fully sunken in yet.
One of my frequent points of advice for people that come to me for it is to stop trying to do things and simply to do them if they want to advance toward their objectives, something that anyone who has played an individual sport or had deadlines has surely played before. Stop thinking about it, stop complaining about it, stop dwelling on the task at hand, and just do it. Nike has built an entire brand around this very concept. Let's see if I can channel the Nike in me.
