Hey, aren't you taking some sort of Portuguese class?

Well ... kinda

A while back, we wrote about some of the challenges we’re facing learning Portuguese. We ended by saying we were a few weeks out from beginning a government-sponsored class. The class, known currently as Português Língua de Acolhimento (PLA) or Portuguese Host Language,¹ is designed to bring students to a level of language necessary “to apply for Portuguese nationality and to be granted a permanent residence permit or a long-term resident status.” For those familiar with the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR), this class will certify graduates as “elementary users” of the Portuguese language, teaching A1/A2 level proficiency.

Aside from getting better at the language we have chosen to immerse ourselves in, one of the main benefits of the class from our perspective is this:

If I complete the PLA course successfully, do I have to take the Portuguese Language Exam, commonly known as the "Nationality Exam"?

No, if you obtain a certificate at level A2 – Elementary User or higher, you are exempted from taking the Portuguese Language Exam.

Exempted from taking an exam? Yes, please!

We had about two months’ notice that we’d be starting the class and while we were both nervous, the specifics of our concerns were different. The class was scheduled to meet Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays from 16h-19h30 (4 - 7:30 pm). Three and half hours at a stretch seemed a bit grueling and ten and half hours per week for four months felt like we’d registered for a marathon.

Scott was worried about understanding what the instructor was saying. Literally comprehending the words she was speaking. There is a vast gulf between reading Portuguese and hearing Portuguese and while he’s getting pretty ok at the former, the latter has been more of a challenge. And we’d heard stories of people who’d gone to these classes only to find that nearly everyone in the room already spoke Portuguese daily at work and were basically there to get the reading and writing instruction they needed so the classes were taught in rapid-fire Portuguese.

Amy, on the other hand, was concerned more about her health. Evening is prime time for her migraines to appear. It seemed likely she’d have to miss at least some of the 45 or so classes.

On September 18, Amy was not feeling well enough to attend the first day. Scott went and learned that in order to successfully complete the class, participants need to be present for at least 90% of the sessions. Which means we could miss no more than four in total.

While Amy was much better the following day, it wasn’t enough to make the trek and sit for 240 minutes. Rather than continue to fall behind and feel pressure to catch up while knowing she could only miss two more classes, she made the difficult decision to withdraw.

Scott has continued to attend and the rest of this post will be from his perspective.

So, how’s the class going?

It’s actually going really well so far. My concerns about not being able to understand the teacher were a total non-issue. She speaks excellent English, as do all but three or four of the regular attendees. While her use of Portuguese has increased as the class learns more, she has relied heavily on English thus far.

If you can understand this slide, you can succeed in this class.

We’re a multi-national gathering of students - five Iranians, four Russians, four Chinese, one other American, an Argentinian, an Australian, a Bangladeshi, and a Filipino - ranging in age from mid-20s to late 50s. We all had to introduce ourselves the first day, in English (walk up to the front of the class … the whole nine yards). One guy said he’d been in Lisbon for 18 months and would have taken this class earlier but he needed to learn English first.² There’s a graphic designer, a video editor, a Chinese teacher, a guy who owns a pastelaria here in town, a couple of people who work in kitchens, a barista. An impressive group.

Hard at work …

And while some folks may speak more Portuguese on a day-to-day basis than I do, there are others who had next to nothing at the start.

Between working with a tutor shortly after we arrived, sitting through almost a complete cycle of SPEAK discussions, and communicating with Portuguese friends I feel like I've picked up some useful words and phrases. This can be a bit of a double-edged sword. When I drop something like faz sentido (“makes sense”) into a conversation, it often elicits a chuckle. It can also give the impression that I know more Portuguese than I do, which can result in me being buried in a torrent of words I do not understand.

Right now, it feels like I'm hanging paintings on walls that rest on rickety floors. This class seems like it might be what I need to shore up the foundation. It’s forcing me out of my comfort zone - on day 2, we had to record a video of us introducing ourselves (name, nationality, city of origin, profession, and what languages we speak) and, yep, each one of those 17 videos was played for the entire class to see while the teacher offered corrections to our pronunciation.³

The pace feels slow. I don’t know if that’s by design or if our teacher is worried about moving too fast for at least some of us. Granted, this is a super basic class, but it looks like we had a lot to cover in the first 25 hours, which is seven or eight classes, depending on exactly how you count it. Our first test was to come after 25 hours of class. And come it did but we hadn’t gotten to even half of what was listed in that link two sentences back. I’ve no idea what that means as far as covering the material we’re supposed to cover.

Our books.

There are a handful of ways this could go:

1. We could meet for 150 hours, the designated length of the class, and stop regardless of where we are in the curriculum.

2. We could cover everything in the curriculum regardless of how long it takes. (The teacher has already told us the class will run until February even though 10.5 hours per week means 15 weeks to the maximum 150 hours and 15 weeks from the start date takes us to January 11 factoring in two weeks off at the end of the year.)

3. We could go until some pre-determined point in February and stop regardless of where we are in the curriculum.

Probably, I won’t know which, if any, of the above will happen until February.

There’s a lot to learn. This class is a big help. Where to go from there will be the next question.

That’s all for now.

Love from Lisbon,

Scott

1. and formerly titled Portuguese for Speakers of Other Languages (PFOL) or Portuguese for All (PPT)

2. Why yes, yes I did feel stupid after hearing that.

3. What’s that? Do I hear you asking to see it? No? Well too bad … here it is: