What A Mississippi Riverboat Looks Like

insistent Spanish, a

Bianca Stamato

I started studying English

the thirties. My generation did not study English in school, because here the major languages \u200b\u200bwere French and English.

My first contact with the Hispanic world was in 2005 when my husband and I went to Buenos Aires and Montevideo with a group of friends. Of the six Brazilian tourists only one person had studied English. We do not speak English, we thought, mistakenly, that we would defend very well in the language of the "brothers." Rotten lie, as my teacher Joan, our "Portunhol" We proved fatal, said phrases such as "*" is longe? "Instead of" is it far?; "* AJAS who gives?" Instead of "What do you think the bags fit here?" "* Scuse!" Instead of "sorry!".

A year later, he was in love with the English, so I spent my vacation in Chile, in a beautiful place called Pucon. Again, I tried unsuccessfully to talk to my "Portunhol." I have several travel stories on my disastrous attempts to speak English. The most funny and ridiculous happened when I needed to buy personal hygiene products at the pharmacy and did not even know how to say simple words such as comb and brush. Distrusted even that "colírio" called drops ... so I spent half an hour to make myself understood. Everyone laughed at me, even my husband. Besides pregnancy

not get comfortable communicating in a language so similar to Portuguese, I felt a deep shame for being so alienated from the reality of America. Throughout my life until then had studied English, French, Italian and, moreover, German. He had visited the United States about five or six times, but never interested me by my neighbors.

After the uproar over my ignorance supine decided to study English in early 2007. The did it for love of language and Hispanic culture. I do not for professional reasons or something similar. For three years I'm holding on just to be in love with Pablo Neruda, Vargas Llosa, García Márquez, Isabel Allende, Laura Esquivel, Eduardo Galeano and many others. I can not explain why I like both studying English. Must be a little blood from my great grandmother Rosa Argentina that runs through my veins. Today

Caetano singing along to "I'm crazy for you, America!".




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