A grandmother is a mother who has a second chance

Sunday, September 21, 2008

I don't get it

Ed and I are going to Portugal in March of 2009. His family is from there and we're really looking forward to the trip. Over the past couple of months, Ed has been listening to tapes to learn how to speak Portuguese. When we drive any distance, he pops one of the tapes in. Foreign languages is not one of Ed's strong points. He's mastered a couple of words in Italian like "grazie" and "due cappucinos", nothing in German (for our week in Austria). He did do very well when we were in London.

Now he's trying to learn Portuguese. Tonight we were driving to dinner listening to the tapes. He tried to mimic the phrases but stumbled through most of them. There was one, however, that he has mastered. It's how to say "I don't speak Portuguese" in Portuguese!! Now, I'm wondering why the heck that phrase is even on the tapes. Do they not expect you to learn anything else? Is it a joke? I mean, if you learn the language listening to the tapes, why would you need to know that phrase? Am I missing something here?!?

Whatever - at least Ed has one phrase that he's comfortable with. Geesh.

5 comments:

Desert Diva said...

Actually, in my travels some people will try to flood you with a string of rapid fire commentary in their home language. It is somewhat helpful to know the phrase, "I don't speak (or understand) _____.

You guys are traveling the world - what fun!

Bella said...

When I served at a Mexican place, people would always tell me they couldn't speak spanish - in spanish. Which made me laugh at them, we are in MN, not Mexico. They should be able to order their chim-ni-changas and faj-itas on their own.

I'm finally commenting - I've been blog stalking for a while, I found my way over here from Jenni's blog.

Daisy said...

My necessary phrases would have to be:

Where is the bathroom?
Red Wine please.

That's all I need to know. :D

Anonymous said...

I've heard that Portuguese is a rather difficult language to learn, more difficult than Spanish. Now, I haven't really tried to learn them, but just by listening to people speaking it on our trips, I have to agree.

Sounds wonderful that you're going to Portugal! I've been there. Very nice, I liked it very much!

If you're interested I've a couple of posts about our trip there:

Portugal trip: Monte Gordo

Portugal trip: Tavira

Chatterness said...

Oh hell noo,...

the tapes would drive me insane!