Lost in Language

Living in a land where everything is conducted in a language that's not my birth tongue gives me very different sensitivities. It's harder to pick up on subtleties and details. I have to ask a lot more questions or just be content with not completely knowing. Sometimes I realize that I don't know the rules of certain types of conversations. I find myself wondering things like, "Would it be more appropriate to continue expressing some sort of sympathy right now or should I just be quiet?" "Was that supposed to be funny? And if so, why? Should I be amused or saddened?" Also, while I can't shut off my ability to process English, if I accidentally (or not-so-accidentally, for example, when I'm on the bus) space out, Portuguese words can become like background noise.

On another level, I am so much more sensitive to emotions. Operating in a language that's not my own makes me more vulnerable. And if I switch "on" and really listen to what people are saying, which I try to do most of the time, I sometimes "feel" what they are saying even more easily than I can pick apart individual words. And when I'm in this space of "feeling," everything hits me deeper.

Recently I was in an interview with a boy, deeply addicted to drugs. He was uttering something like, "I've tried to stop, but I can't." Exactly what he uttered evaporated for me after I heard it, but the meaning behind the words felt like a physical punch, especially as they crossed the table and hit the boy's mother, who was trying, trying, trying to contain her own sea of emotions.

It's as though I'm watching the words acting on the people saying them and receiving them. And hours after the meeting, the feelings stick to me and become something I must ponder and untangle and make some sort of sense of before I can free myself from them.

And, when I am tired, Spanish words sometimes come to mind quicker than Portuguese ones. This is funny to me because right now, with both languages rattling around in my brain, speaking Spanish is difficult. When I'm tired it's hard to pronounce Portuguese without sounding like I'm swallowing words. Sometimes I do really feel like the words are fighting me, trying to jump down my throat exactly as I'm trying to push them out of my mouth. I'm certain that my vocabulary has improved since I've gotten here, that I'm speaking less Portuñol and more actual Portuguese. But I also feel less confident at times, wondering if perhaps it's because I realize how much more there is to learn, how much more there is to understand of this beautiful, melodic language.

I think that we exercise different parts of ourselves with each language that we speak. I'm curious to pay more attention to how I am when I'm speaking English vs. Portuguese vs. Spanish. Right now I seem to enjoy it most, after long days in Portuguese, when I'm talking with A. and our conversations weave in between Portuguese and English, with Spanish sprinkled in every once and a while. Perhaps that's why Spanglish has always felt so comforting. Maybe I just don't like to choose between one thing and the other but to mix it all together into an interesting, ever-changing concoction.

So, a Tire Walks Into a Bar....

Borracharia
Originally uploaded by Blue Dragonfly Girl

It's true that Spanish and Portuguese have a lot in common. But as this photograph illustrates, they are definitely not the same.

This Brazilian tire is advertising a Borracharia:
Borracha [tire/rubber] + ria [an ending put on to a word to convey some sort of speciality store] = a store that will change your tires

So, why am I getting into all of this?

Well, because every single time that I see a borracharia, usually when I'm on the bus, I laugh. Sometimes out loud. Yup, that's me, the easily amused foreigner, chuckling to herself as she looks out the window.

You see in Spanish, borracha does not mean tire.

Borracha (or borracho, depending on gender) means drunk.

So in Spanish, which follows the same ria = speciality store logic as Portuguese, a borracharia would be something like a "drunk-ery", ie a place to go get drunk. I kind of like the frankness of the statement. Why go to a bar when you can get straight to the point and go to a drunkery?

My goodness, there are a lot of drunkeries all over Brazil...or conversely, one could imagine that when the bars close in Spanish-speaking countries, there are quite a few tipsy tires rolling through the streets.

Yes, this is the kind of thing that I spend my time musing over...

And Then I Sweetly Misspoke...

Sunday
Originally uploaded by Blue Dragonfly Girl

I got to participate in another youth group this afternoon. It involved more painting and in my standard style I managed to get white paint on my jeans, my bracelet and of course way up inside my fingernails.

It was fun!

Before everyone left, E., the coordinator, asked me to teach an English word to the teenagers that I thought might have some resonance. So I chose "sweet" explaining how though it literally refers to yummy-tasting food it also can be used to describe good things. Saying "That's sweet!" can be like saying, "That's cool!"

Everyone thought it was a sweet word and repeated it out loud (sometimes adding a bit of a vowel sound at the end because that's what Portuguese speakers like to do to all words that end in consonants). Sweetchi!

As we continued to talk about it I said that it was kind of like saying "bacana" (great).

Except that everyone paused and looked at me strangely when I said "bacana."

The art coordinator, T. said, "Uh, no that's not the same I don't think."

I realized that I had put the emphasis on the wrong syllable.

Instead of saying bacána, I had said bacaná.

"No, no, I meant to say bacána," I quickly added. 

Everyone started laughing, initially I think in surprise, then it got louder but remained pretty good-natured in tone. Still, no mistaking it, they were definitely laughing at me and not with me.

I realized that what I said had sounded just a little too close to comfort to the word, bacanal.

But, truth is, I didn't know what bacanal meant. I just knew that everyone was laughing so that clearly I'd stumbled accidentally upon something inappropriate.

I said, "Hmmm, I'm guessing that I should be embarrassed by what I just said, shouldn't I?" Some kids nodded. No one explained to me what I had said. I couldn't help but blush as I started laughing too.

Still, while I turned a darker shade of red I mused that there's nothing like embarrassing yourself in front of a group of teenagers. I hoped and rationalized that they would see that I could handle it and keep on going on.

Whatever it was I said, it must have been funny.

E. gracefully made some comment about all the craziness of carnival from the weekend messing with our brains and, laughter subsided, we moved on to another topic. They certainly didn't force me to stay with my embarrassment too long. One kid even asked me how the war was going in our country...I certainly had to pause before responding to that one, but came up with a decent answer I think based on the kids' body language while I was talking.

"See," said E. "With Alison we can talk about silly things and we can talk about serious things."

When leaving one girl wanted me to write the word "sweet" down for her so she could remember. All in all, I left feeling good about the afternoon and looking forward to seeing everyone again.

When I got home I looked up "bacanal" online (it wasn't in my Harper Collins which I find rather prudish of them) to see what I'd compared the word sweet to.

So, as it turns out, it means....orgy. Yes, orgy.

I told 15-year-olds that saying "sweet" is very similar to saying "orgy." Meu deus!

I turned bright red and had a return laughing attack as I sat here alone in my room in front of the computer, thinking perhaps it was better that I only find out now what I had so sweetly misspoken before.

A Case of the Second-Market Days

Segunda-Feira
Originally uploaded by Blue Dragonfly Girl

It was raining when I went to bed last night and rain woke me this morning, tapping against the window panes. The electricity went on and off until the early afternoon.

The day was gray and wet. I watched people outside as they dashed across puddle-filled intersections, hiding underneath umbrellas. It was a good day to study, which is what I mostly did.

It felt like a Monday. Or I guess, segunda-feira, as they say in Portuguese.

Which leads me to a question of the language of days. In Spanish learning the days of the week was a snap. But, in Portuguese - even years later - it's a different story.

The days of the week are as follows:

Monday = Segunda-Feira [Translating literally to second-fair/market - essentially second market day]
Tuesday = Terça-Feira [Third market day]
Wednesday = Quarta-Feira [Fourth market day]
Thursday = Quinta-Feira [Fifth market day]
Friday = Sexta-Feira [Sixth market day]
Saturday = Sábado
Sunday = Domingo

The weekends I get. No big deal. (Besides, they're the same in Spanish, so I'm really covered there).

However...when some is saying to me, for example, "Let's meet on Fourth-Market day," I truly have to take a few seconds to count through the days in my head to arrive at what day that might actually be, "The second day is Monday, the third day is Tuesday then so ah, right, Quarta-Feira would have to be Wednesday. Got it!" Sometimes I have the desire to start counting the days on my fingers.

I always feel a little worried in the back of my mind that I'm going to mix up the days and show up on the wrong day for something because these days of the week just don't stick in my head.

The problem - according to The-Man-Who-Came-From-Italia (who counts Spanish as his favorite language) is that these numbered days could be perfectly acceptable, but why, why, why did they have to begin on the second day?!

I would assume that Sunday is/was a day for God and so, clearly not a day for going to the market. Hence it doesn't have feira in its name. Even if you want to believe that Sunday starts the week, it doesn't count in the numbering of market days.

And, it's not just foreigners (Italians, Salvadoreños and Americans at least) who take umbrage at Monday being a Second-Market day. I was pleased to discover in the poetry of Mario Quintana, that he too, in all his Brazilian-ness, might also be sometimes taken aback by Mondays. As he wrote in his poem titled, "To Awaken the Imagination" (Para Despertar a Fantasia):

"O pior da segunda-feira é que a gente sempre chega atrasado: "Meu Deus! como é que eu fui a perder a primeira feira?!"

"The worst of all about second market day (Monday) is that we always arrive late: "My God! How is that I went and missed the first market day?!"

I now feel properly vindicated in my slowness to understand the movement of the days of the week.

Wishing a wonderful whatever-you-want-to-call-this-day to you all!

Thank You, I'm Female

Portuguese is one of those languages that likes to express whether a person is male or female through its words. Basically if words you are using to describe yourself end in "a" you're expressing yourself as a female, if they end in "o" then you're indicating your maleness.

I don't know if any folks have come up with any other alternative ways to express one's gender identity and there isn't a truly neutral option that I know of for people who would rather not place themselves so firmly in one camp or the other.

To say "thank you" in Portuguese, you say "obrigado" if you identify as male and "obrigada" if you identify as female. In other similar languages (Spanish for example) "thank you" is a gender neutral sentiment, but in Portuguese the word literally translates to "obliged" which is therefore an adjective and requires a gender identity choice.

We can assume, for example, that the mall trash receptacles in the picture below happen to be male (and potentially twins?) because of their use of "o" at the end of obrigado:

 
And, as a woman, therefore, I always say "obrigada" whenever I happen to be thankful for something, which is much of the time here.

So.

All that said and all my assumptions made, it came as a surprise here in Porto Alegre to hear many women actually saying "obrigado" with the "o" ending.

Since I'm good at questioning myself, I started wondering if I'd been doing it wrong all along.

And maybe I was wrong about those trash receptacles too! Perhaps they were female and I made a wrong assumption because they had nonchalantly used the "o" ending?!

Finally, I decided I better ask someone.  A young man about my age told me that really it didn't matter, that women saying "obrigado" was just following along the typical lines of a macho culture.  He told me, "The only women who say "obrigada" are feminists."

"Oh," I said, "Well, I'm a feminist, so I guess I better keep saying 'obrigada.'"

Hmmm, so if those trash receptacles were female, then they definitely weren't feminist females.  And what if a person who identifies as male also wants to express that he's a feminist. What then?

Afterwards I found myself musing on this (at least the feminist part) and was curious to confirm this theory with others. However, everyone else said something along the lines of, "Ah, people just feel lazy and don't always pay attention to proper grammar. You're doing it right. Keeping saying 'obrigada.'"

Hmmm, so perhaps those trash receptacles were just lazy females disregarding Portuguese grammar?! Or perhaps I should just ask them. Or perhaps it really isn't that important...this effort to reduce people (or things) into gendered categories seems to be a little more nuanced than I initially thought in Portuguese 101.

So I could be displaying my feminist tendencies or my rigid adherence to proper grammar or simply conveying to the world around me that I happen to be female, all when I utter the simple word "obrigada." Who knew that saying "thank you" could potentially imply so many things besides gratitude?

Swimming in Jell-O

Originally uploaded by Blue Dragonfly Girl

Yesterday evening I went into the hostel kitchen to look for a napkin to clean up some tea I'd spilled.

There was a guy in there washing some dishes and he looked up at me expectantly. I wanted to say, "I'm just looking for a napkin," but my mind went completely blank and I couldn't for the life of me remember the word. So, I looked around the room -- with him continuing to stare at me. I didn't see what I was looking for and left without saying anything, laughing at my own awkwardness.

I've been reading the blogs of my classmates who are also interning in non-English speaking countries and by comparison, my situation is pretty tame. I mean, at least I can read the script that the street signs are written in. Not only that, but I speak and read Portuguese pretty well. It's not where I'd like it to be, but it'll get there. Besides, people generally understand me when I'm speaking and I generally understand them. And we can have really interesting conversations about all sorts of things. It's fun and exciting and sometimes I catch myself purely enjoying the different sounds I get to make in this language. The different words I get to form and the different meanings I get to express.

Still, it does feel a bit like swimming in jello. It's a bit of a struggle but it can be done though it's harder and much less elegant than in water. At the same time it can be fun and silly if I can just laugh at myself.

Sometimes I find myself listening to a person, understanding at least the sentiment of what they're saying, but realizing that if I stop paying attention for just one second, I will be totally lost, floundering, unable to pick up the thread of the conversation. It reminds me how in my native tongue, I probably spend a lot of time only partially listening to people. I'm listening but I'm thinking my own thoughts at the same time, perhaps making a grocery list in my head. It's not that I'm intentionally being rude, it's just that because I don't have to try, I don't always put all my energy into every conversation that I have.

But here, I have to. I have to pay complete attention. Perhaps this actually helps in the friend-making process because people can feel that I am very present in the moment with them, trying my damnedest to understand what they are saying.

It also becomes funny though when I am left without the details. When the word just isn't there and I don't know how to explain something simple. When I forget how to say 'napkin' or that my throat feels 'sensitive.' Or when someone standing next to me at the bank or in the elevator tries to make small talk. They say something, usually in slang or too quickly for me to understand, and I stand there trying to contemplate if this "thing" that they said was supposed to something funny? Was it a joke? Was it a question they were asking me? How do I respond? Should I just smile knowingly and nod my head? But, what if they were saying something serious and then they think I'm being rude? And then I have usually taken so much time in this contemplation that saying anything back to them is kind of like laughing at a joke three minutes later...Do I pretend I didn't hear them? Do they think I'm ignoring them? Ai, yai, yai.

Yesterday when I was walking back to the hostel a woman came up to me asking me questions. Perhaps it was about the construction nearby. Perhaps it was about directions to some place? I didn't know. She looked at me plaintively.

"I don't know," I said quite truthfully in Portuguese. She looked at me without speaking. I looked at her. I think she understood my cluelessness. She moved on.

Ahhh, swimming in jello.

Oi!

Oi!
Originally uploaded by Blue Dragonfly Girl

The language immersion has been a good one so far. I tend to throw in a liberal dose of Spanish words and am lucky that A. will usually gracefully let me know that perhaps I could say, "enquanto" instead of the Spanish equivalent "mientras" (the English equivalent is "while")...

I managed to communicate with pharmacists about the un-fun allergies I've been experiencing. There was a lot of gesturing on my part and they were amused with me, but kind. I could understand their questions but didn't always have the vocabulary to respond. When asked if I had throat pain, I couldn't for the life of me recall the word for "tender" (it seems that "sensível" or "dolorido" would have been appropriate) and acting that word out Charades-style seemed beyond my capacity. Though, goshdarnit, I tried. Still, they gave me some pills and I am trustingly taking them. Hoping, hoping, for some relief.

The most interesting communication experience however, has been trying to obtain a cell phone.

I first went to the Vivo store armed with my boyfriend's old cell phone. He'd used it successfully abroad, but the SIM card they tried out didn't work. It's too bad because the phone looks a bit beat up and I doubt anyone would possibly want to steal it from me if I were to use it on the street. The guy helping me was super nice. But, I was amused to realize during our conversation that he was speaking verrrry slowly and just a notch louder than usual. "Wow!" I thought, actually a little touched, "He's totally using a foreigner-voice on me to make sure that I understand."

I went back to the store the following day ready to shell out $100 Brazilian reais to buy a phone and then pay more for some phone minutes...I thought this would be easy. I wasn't going for some fancy phone plan. It was a different guy helping me and he was equally nice...I had only brought my license (and translated international license) because I don't like to carry my passport all the time. I figured it would just be useful to have this for ID when I used my credit card.

The guy consulted with his supervisor, showing him what I had. Nope, they weren't good enough. "Well, I can go home and get my passport. What time are y'all open until?"

"Until 7," the guy said, "But I'm only here until 6...but the thing is what you really need is a CPF? Didn't they give you that?"

"Huh?" I said, "I don't know what you mean. I can show you a passport, with a visa. Is that good enough?"

Apparently not.

I had him write down what it was I needed: Registro de Estrangeiro - Certidão de Pessoa Fisica (CPF)...

"How about if I come next time with a Brazilian person?" I asked, "Will that help?"

He looked visibly relieved. "That would be even better," he said, "You know a Brazilian?"

Later A. told me that a CPF is practically the equivalent of an American Green Card. Clearly something I don't have. Apparently they're tightening cell phone requirements in an attempt to make it harder for incarcerated folks to get access to cell phones in prison, and as a result, harder for regular folks to get access too.

And so, this afternoon will be cell phone attempt #3. I'll arrive at the store with a passport AND a Brazilian and knock on wood that this will work. My guess is that having a cell phone will make communication that much easier, even if no one will be able to see my theatrical hand gestures over the phone.