Lack of inspiration leads to this
Yes, I will write this one in English.Why, well because I can.
See, lack of inspiration has led me to write a mock extract of "The Lord of the Rings", to include the "Lyrics of the Week" section - well, not a section per se, but you know what I mean - and to write about music and stuff.
Actually, I quite enjoy writing about music, mainly because that means listening to music before writing about it. I never go deep into the analysis of an album because people better equipped for that job have already done that.
My posts about motorcycles and motorcycling have led me to move that subject to my other blog, the one I used to ghost-write for my VW Beetle, Borges. Now I "co-write" it alongside Borges and Branca, my motorcycle. Yes, I am sane.
I never attended English courses or schools. Most of what I knew before I went to college was self-taught. See, back in the day, I used to get records from a friend and put them to tapes. Now, I had the need to know what was being sung, not only the meanings but the correct lyrics. So I used to copy the lyrics, whenever available - using my dad´s typewriter. I absorbed a ridiculous amount of information that way, I started to notice the patterns of the language, so on and so forth, to the point of knowing it better than my English teacher in 6th, 7th grades.
College was traumatic at first, because 90% of my colleagues were fluent speakers. One of the classes in the first year was taught entirely in English. Needless to say, I missed most of it. By the way, my "ear", as we say it here, is pretty bad, remains largely untrained. Not my teachers´ fault, mind you.
But still I was able to absorb a lot of it, like a sponge.
Years passed and I practiced my English, well, not at all. Except for the odd magazine article or music and movies. Suddenly I was living abroad, in a country where English was spoken simply because the local language could be considered exotic. But sometimes I had to speak as badly as the locals, at the risk of not getting the message through. I had no confidence whatsoever in my language skills. Until the day I bought a magazine, Newsweek I think it was, and read it from cover to cover, without stopping or hesitating. From that day on I never stopped. New magazines and books followed. The TV programming was in English with Arabic subtitles, so my "ear" got its training after all. I still do most of my reading in English.
During this period I was at the consular section of the Embassy and gave some American some information about visas and tourist destinations in Brazil. As he was leaving he complimented me on my pronounciation and said that I had a Miami accent. I still don´t know whether that was positive or not.
And during all that time I lived abroad I met a whole lot of people who never spoke or even tried to speak correctly. And they got along just fine. I dropped a great deal of prejudice then. I noticed, mostly during my time in Saudi Arabia, that Americans, British and the like, don´t really care how the message gets through, so long as it does. Only people who have a good experience living in different countries tend to think like that. We tend to be perfectionists and even make fun at foreigners who can´t speak bloody Portuguese correctly. That is not nice, I´ve learned.
Which brings me to another point concerning language and culture. Let´s use parisians as an example, shall we? It used to be common to hear people saying that the Parisians couldn´t or wouldn´t speak English and that they were very harsh, impolite, so on and so forth. On my first trips to that beautiful city, I could observe how some tourists behave, Brazilians included. Brazilians have this thing that make them believe that they will be treated as queens and kings by the simple mention of the fact that they are Brazilians. Well, the French, or parisians for that matter, couldn´t care less. What they can´t stand - and I second them here - is people who can´t even try to say "good morning" or "please", before or after ordering anything or asking questions. It´s not so hard to try and learn a few things in the local language. I even tried to say those things, and "coffee" and "beer" in Czech when we were in Prague.
What we used to do in Paris was: good morning, good evening in French, to start with. To avoid being asked questions in French I immediately asked, in French, "do you sepak English?". 95% of the times it is enough to break the ice. And, please, always thank for whatever people do to or for you, it´s good manners, simple as that.
But I digress, that was not what I meant to write about. It´s just that all these experiences add to our knowledge of any language, by which I mean that if you want to speak it correctly, you need to have a little bit of understanding of the culture. And practise it. And listen carefully.
See, lack of inspiration has led me to write a mock extract of "The Lord of the Rings", to include the "Lyrics of the Week" section - well, not a section per se, but you know what I mean - and to write about music and stuff.
Actually, I quite enjoy writing about music, mainly because that means listening to music before writing about it. I never go deep into the analysis of an album because people better equipped for that job have already done that.
My posts about motorcycles and motorcycling have led me to move that subject to my other blog, the one I used to ghost-write for my VW Beetle, Borges. Now I "co-write" it alongside Borges and Branca, my motorcycle. Yes, I am sane.
I never attended English courses or schools. Most of what I knew before I went to college was self-taught. See, back in the day, I used to get records from a friend and put them to tapes. Now, I had the need to know what was being sung, not only the meanings but the correct lyrics. So I used to copy the lyrics, whenever available - using my dad´s typewriter. I absorbed a ridiculous amount of information that way, I started to notice the patterns of the language, so on and so forth, to the point of knowing it better than my English teacher in 6th, 7th grades.
College was traumatic at first, because 90% of my colleagues were fluent speakers. One of the classes in the first year was taught entirely in English. Needless to say, I missed most of it. By the way, my "ear", as we say it here, is pretty bad, remains largely untrained. Not my teachers´ fault, mind you.
But still I was able to absorb a lot of it, like a sponge.
Years passed and I practiced my English, well, not at all. Except for the odd magazine article or music and movies. Suddenly I was living abroad, in a country where English was spoken simply because the local language could be considered exotic. But sometimes I had to speak as badly as the locals, at the risk of not getting the message through. I had no confidence whatsoever in my language skills. Until the day I bought a magazine, Newsweek I think it was, and read it from cover to cover, without stopping or hesitating. From that day on I never stopped. New magazines and books followed. The TV programming was in English with Arabic subtitles, so my "ear" got its training after all. I still do most of my reading in English.
During this period I was at the consular section of the Embassy and gave some American some information about visas and tourist destinations in Brazil. As he was leaving he complimented me on my pronounciation and said that I had a Miami accent. I still don´t know whether that was positive or not.
And during all that time I lived abroad I met a whole lot of people who never spoke or even tried to speak correctly. And they got along just fine. I dropped a great deal of prejudice then. I noticed, mostly during my time in Saudi Arabia, that Americans, British and the like, don´t really care how the message gets through, so long as it does. Only people who have a good experience living in different countries tend to think like that. We tend to be perfectionists and even make fun at foreigners who can´t speak bloody Portuguese correctly. That is not nice, I´ve learned.
Which brings me to another point concerning language and culture. Let´s use parisians as an example, shall we? It used to be common to hear people saying that the Parisians couldn´t or wouldn´t speak English and that they were very harsh, impolite, so on and so forth. On my first trips to that beautiful city, I could observe how some tourists behave, Brazilians included. Brazilians have this thing that make them believe that they will be treated as queens and kings by the simple mention of the fact that they are Brazilians. Well, the French, or parisians for that matter, couldn´t care less. What they can´t stand - and I second them here - is people who can´t even try to say "good morning" or "please", before or after ordering anything or asking questions. It´s not so hard to try and learn a few things in the local language. I even tried to say those things, and "coffee" and "beer" in Czech when we were in Prague.
What we used to do in Paris was: good morning, good evening in French, to start with. To avoid being asked questions in French I immediately asked, in French, "do you sepak English?". 95% of the times it is enough to break the ice. And, please, always thank for whatever people do to or for you, it´s good manners, simple as that.
But I digress, that was not what I meant to write about. It´s just that all these experiences add to our knowledge of any language, by which I mean that if you want to speak it correctly, you need to have a little bit of understanding of the culture. And practise it. And listen carefully.
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