Lessons From My Portuguese Language Class
I learned more about cultures than the language
Portugal is serious about assimilation, and it offers free language courses to new migrants. We signed up, and this is our story.
Language class challenges
With every new experience we encounter here, we try to be open to what it actually turns into versus what we thought it was going to be. Language class was another chapter in the book of being open to those tangential lessons I learn when I discover a new culture’s way of getting things done.
In August, my husband and I enrolled in the A1/A2 (beginner level) Portuguese class at our local secondary school. We were told we’d be called when class was starting because dates were not yet available.
The call arrived a week ahead of the October start date for the next class. We were told classes would be every Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday evening from 6 pm to 9 pm and it would run through December.
Three nights were more than we expected, but it got even more intensive when we arrived and were told that Wednesdays would go until 10 pm because we needed to attend for 10 hours every week. This was a lot of time, but there is a reason we stayed.
