Brazilian Gringo italki Challenge Update 1

Brazilian Gringo italki Challenge Update 1 Josh is taking the language challenge to learn Spanish.  He posted about his experiences on his website Brazilian Gringo a blog that was born out of a need to share a more realistic perspective about Brazil, and our mission here is to share language and cultural insights to make Brazil more accessible for people to live, work and do business. Reposted with permission. Original post here. A few weeks ago I announced that I was participating in the iTalki challenge to improve my Spanish since I am going to be living in Chile for a while. I wanted to give a quick update on what’s been happening since then both in regards to life and language learning. Shortly after making that announcement I got news that my grandfather was ill, so I flew back to the US to see him before he passed away. Fortunately I was able to go back and see him in the hospital one last time before he died. My father passed away a few years ago while I was in Brazil and the worst part about that experience was  not being able to be near my family while they were all grieving. This time I didn’t get to miss any of the fun of crying at  the hospital. I’ve been in the US for about two weeks now, which though unexpected is kind of nice. I’ve been on the record as saying that I don’t like living in the US, but it’s really not that bad since I’m spending 90% of my time with my family.  Though I’ll be glad to be out of here again in a few weeks, I’ll also be genuinely sad to leave this time. Coming back to the US disrupted my plans to learn Chilean Spanish a bit though. I was planning on taking 2-3 hours of classes a week for the 6 weeks of the challenge, and supplement that study time with interactions with Chileans in Santiago. Things were pretty hectic so I have only taken a few hours of classes so far, but now that I’ve  got a routine here things will progress more smoothly. As far as the lessons go, I’m really enjoying my teacher. He is a complete language nerd as well, and speaks something like 7 languages to varying degrees of fluency. He showed me this cool trick where he called his cousin and they spoke a hybrid language of English and Spanish where they would switch languages every few words. Being able to switch between languages like that is a pretty cool skill to have. Speaking both Spanish and Portuguese presents some challenges because of how similar the two languages are.  Being able to go back and forth between the two takes a bit of work, though it is still easier for me to speak Portuguese. I can speak Spanish reasonably well, but I still haven’t  attached my  identity to the Spanish language like I have with Portuguese. I’m not sure on the science behind this, but in my head there are two distinct characters: Brazilian Josh and American Josh. They both have unique ways of thinking and speaking as well as their own mannerisms.  I can switch between the American Josh and Brazilian Josh without much trouble because they are both strong characters in my mind, whereas Latino Josh still hasn’t been developed. This means that sometimes Latino Josh will borrow parts of his identity from Brazilian or American Josh to fill in the blanks. I went to a Forró class this week and got to interact with Brazilians in person for the first time in a few weeks.  Kind of in the same way how if you locked yourself in a room for a few days and didn’t interact with anybody you’d be kind of slow in reacting to things people say, Brazilian Josh wasn’t as spontaneous as he was when he was living in Brazil. My Portuguese came out ok, but my body language definitely has lost some of it’s Brazilianness since leaving Brazil. Overall the experience of learning Spanish on iTalki has been very productive and I’ve learned a lot not just about Chilean Spanish but language learning in general. It’s not easy to find a good language teacher, but when you do the results can be magical. I just wanted to get this quick update out there, but later on I’ll publish some insights as they relate to Spanish and Portuguese. Hasta luego Brazilian Gringo italki Challenge Update 1 Josh is taking the language challenge to learn Spanish.  He posted about his experiences on his website Brazilian Gringo a blog that was born out of a need to share a more realistic perspective about Brazil, and our mission here is to share language and cultural insights to make Brazil more accessible for people to live, work and do business. Reposted with permission. Original post here. A few weeks ago I announced that I was participating in the iTalki challenge to improve my Spanish since I am going to be living in Chile for a while. I wanted to give a quick update on what’s been happening since then both in regards to life and language learning. Shortly after making that announcement I got news that my grandfather was ill, so I flew back to the US to see him before he passed away. Fortunately I was able to go back and see him in the hospital one last time before he died. My father passed away a few years ago while I was in Brazil and the worst part about that experience was  not being able to be near my family while they were all grieving. This time I didn’t get to miss any of the fun of crying at  the hospital. I’ve been in the US for about two weeks now, which though unexpected is kind of nice. I’ve been on the record as saying that I don’t like living in the US, but it’s really not that bad since I’m spending 90% of my time with my family.  Though I’ll be glad to be out of here again in a few weeks, I’ll also be genuinely sad to leave this time. Coming back to the US disrupted my plans to learn Chilean Spanish a bit though. I was planning on taking 2-3 hours of classes a week for the 6 weeks of the challenge, and supplement that study time with interactions with Chileans in Santiago. Things were pretty hectic so I have only taken a few hours of classes so far, but now that I’ve  got a routine here things will progress more smoothly. As far as the lessons go, I’m really enjoying my teacher. He is a complete language nerd as well, and speaks something like 7 languages to varying degrees of fluency. He showed me this cool trick where he called his cousin and they spoke a hybrid language of English and Spanish where they would switch languages every few words. Being able to switch between languages like that is a pretty cool skill to have. Speaking both Spanish and Portuguese presents some challenges because of how similar the two languages are.  Being able to go back and forth between the two takes a bit of work, though it is still easier for me to speak Portuguese. I can speak Spanish reasonably well, but I still haven’t  attached my  identity to the Spanish language like I have with Portuguese. I’m not sure on the science behind this, but in my head there are two distinct characters: Brazilian Josh and American Josh. They both have unique ways of thinking and speaking as well as their own mannerisms.  I can switch between the American Josh and Brazilian Josh without much trouble because they are both strong characters in my mind, whereas Latino Josh still hasn’t been developed. This means that sometimes Latino Josh will borrow parts of his identity from Brazilian or American Josh to fill in the blanks. I went to a Forró class this week and got to interact with Brazilians in person for the first time in a few weeks.  Kind of in the same way how if you locked yourself in a room for a few days and didn’t interact with anybody you’d be kind of slow in reacting to things people say, Brazilian Josh wasn’t as spontaneous as he was when he was living in Brazil. My Portuguese came out ok, but my body language definitely has lost some of it’s Brazilianness since leaving Brazil. Overall the experience of learning Spanish on iTalki has been very productive and I’ve learned a lot not just about Chilean Spanish but language learning in general. It’s not easy to find a good language teacher, but when you do the results can be magical. I just wanted to get this quick update out there, but later on I’ll publish some insights as they relate to Spanish and Portuguese. Hasta luego