Imagine that you are having dinner with a good friend and you want to treat your friend. Your server has just brought the check and your friend is reaching for her wallet. The following dialogue happens: You: It’s on me today. Friend: No, you don’t need to do this. Let’s split the Read More
How Speaking the Language Helps Break Cultural Barriers
Going to work in a foreign country can be exciting and nerve-wracking, fun and scary. Cultural barriers are a very real thing that can make the experience that much harder. So it is important to rely on a set of strategies to break cultural barriers and make it easier to live and do business in a Read More
Here’s Why I Want You to Make Mistakes Learning Portuguese
Today my client and I were talking about personal growth. The article said that emotionally mature people do not dwell on their mistakes. In a different article about entrepreneurship, the author explained that making mistakes is important because of all the learning that it makes possible. Read More
4 Techniques to Beat Procrastination and Improve Language Learning
From the beginning, we should be aware that studying a new language requires periods of lecture and practice. You should be thinking: “Yes, I know about that”. However, what happens when you sit down and open your book? Many people feel a "small physical pain” in their head and it can disappear in Read More
Learn Portuguese Differently: How About Coffee and Chocolate?
How about learning about coffee and chocolate to improve your Portuguese? I’d say that sounds like a lot of fun. Especially if you are an advanced Portuguese speaker, or feel that you have reached a plateau, you will greatly benefit from taking different courses in Portuguese. Chocolate and Read More
Know How Your Brain Works and Learn Portuguese Easier
I enjoy watching my husband Carl cooking a new dish. For me, cooking is a major challenge. I never know the right point of anything. Is the dough thick enough? Is it too thick? Should I put more of this or that? It's frustrating. With Carl everything works fine. In the end, it seems like we had Read More
Here’s a Simple Technique to Help Your Language Learning
Have you ever felt disappointed because you studied so much for that test, but got a bad grade? As a language learner, how many times have you felt that you understood the lesson, but later found out that you were using that new word or grammar point incorrectly? We blame it on the teacher or Read More
A Tool to Help Keep New Words with You
Despite using Portuguese every day, the fact is, it's just that, everyday Portuguese. There's nothing inherently special about the words I usually use since I use it with my girlfriend at home and on the street when I buy something. It's not like I discuss the essence of Taoism or theoretical Read More
Language Learning Mindset: Intelligence is Expandable
When I was visiting The Hague, in the Netherlands, I tried to learn a few words of Dutch. I found it really hard to pronounce it right. As a shy person, I quickly decided I wasn’t good with Dutch and stopped trying to learn some more. Now as I look back I see what the problem really was: I did not Read More
Brazilian Portuguese & The Universal Translator
At the end of July last year, a short article reprint came out on the tech site Cnet called, “Google has a ‘near perfect’ universal translator” (the type of Star Trek fame). Part of the content from the article is based on a conversation with Brazilian Hugo Barra, Android’s former product guru, who Read More