This is an improvement on my focus last week which was revenge (a dish I rarely find satisfying served at any temperature). Luckily this was short lived.
I want to travel to Brasil this summer as a graduation present to myself. When I'm there I want to be able to speak and understand people, rather than remaining in my English speaking tourist bubble. Hopefully my linguistic genius of a friend will be accompanying me, but relying on someone else to speak for me for a month is not my style. So I'm about to start learning Brazilian Portuguese.
It's an emotional moment for me, with guilt being the prevelent emotion. I started learning Spanish before I went to Cuba and actually managed to speak pidgin Spanish (Spanglish) if you will, by the time I left. Unfortunately 5 years later I have forgotten everything except "hola, que tal". I also recently have been trying to update my year 9 level French, and with the ideal base in the South of France with which to practice, it's pretty embarrassing that my skills remain sub par. Currently I'm a Jill-of-no-trades but I'd like to be master of at least one! And maybe starting something new, where I already enjoy the film, music and dance of a culture will motivate me.
The plan so far is to use a well known language course which is completely speaking and listening focused (the most difficuly parts!) and this should take me 3 months to complete. Based on other peoples' experiences of the course I should be able to understand a local news broadcast when I have finished the 3 months and have a decent conversation. After that it's up to me to maintain and increase my vocabulary and grammar, practice reading and writing and plan my trip!
I have approximately 7 months. It's plenty of time! (*gulp*)
Here goes lesson 1....
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