I walked our daughter EC over to her kindergarten this morning, which is not far. She had lost one of her top front teeth over the weekend, and was thrilled to show off her gap-toothed smile. The teacher at the door gave her a hug and said something including “dente”, the Portuguese word for tooth.
Perhaps EC, age 5, understood more than I did, although I wouldn’t bet on it.
She is starting her 12th week in this public Portuguese kindergarten and is now speaking a little of the language. She says “aqui” and “ali” at home, as well as “mai” and “pai” (mother and father), and “espera” (wait) and “toma” (take.)
But she is hardly fluent.
I had hoped she would be further along by this point. My expectations were raised unrealistically high, as I had suspected might be the case even at the time, by early on hearing predictions from people who were in a position to know.
Sophia, an experienced teacher of Portuguese from Portugal, told me EC would start spitting out whole phrases of the language within a month. A woman from Germany, who I spent an evening with in a restaurant, told me she was speaking English within two weeks, after her family moved to Dallas when she was about six. We heard other such tales.
I bet these timelines could have been true for EC if she were say the child of German- or Japanese-speaking parents. But she is the child of Americans, and her native language is English. I’m concluding that makes things both easier and more difficult for her.
All of her teachers speak English moderately well. And several children in her class already speak English as a second language. Rather than floating in a sea of unfamiliar sounds, she is constantly being thrust life rafts of English.
This has certainly softened EC’s entry into this new environment. The teachers, as I have had a chance to observe a few times, will speak to EC in English, if they have the time, after telling her or the class instructions in Portuguese. And for EC it’s nice to have a few friends she can talk to in English. I’m sure it’s no accident that her best friend currently is a little girl whose parents are originally from India, where English is widely spoken as a legacy of British rule.
The point is, it’s a lot harder to learn a foreign language if you are a native English speaker, whether you are child or an adult. I think it’s germane to point this out, since we get so much shit, we Americans, for the paucity of our foreign language competence.
There is usually some lingua franca, history shows us. In the past in the West it has been French, and Latin and perhaps Greek. I think Chinese has functioned as a lingua franca in Asia.
In the European Union, it is English even though, with the departure of the British via Brexit, only the member states of Republic of Ireland and Malta speak English as their native tongue. Even the Chinese, our big competitors, put tremendous emphasis on learning English so they can trade internationally. English is the world’s most dominant lingua franca, I’m pretty sure.
Having recently been living in Prague, I am reminded of how German was the language of business and government in the Austrian-hungarian empire before World War I. I still wonder whether there is some alternate history where the empire could have gradually shifted into a more commonwealth-like structure, with the emperor having only a ceremonial status.
Back to EC.
She is doing well here. Though her Portuguese is (to me) coming slowly, she is a happy child and seems unburdened by the need to learn a new language. I think now that she is picking up some words she is starting to enjoy it. Her temperament helps her, which is cheerful and upbeat. When faced with a new situation, she seems to say to herself, how can I face this in the happiest and most pleasant way? Not a bad skill to have and I hope this stays with her.
I suppose we were somewhat adventuresome in putting her in full immersion in a local school, although now I can’t imagine doing otherwise.
Before we moved to Portugal, our initial impulse was to put her in another “international school”, where English is the primary language. She thrived in an international school in Prague. But she only learned a little Czech.
There were many such schools in Lisbon, including British-based ones like hers in Prague. (I have a new respect now for British education.) But as I researched the international schools in Lisbon, mostly by talking to people through Facebook groups, I learned that students in them often never become fluent in Portuguese. What you speak at school all day really is important. This seemed like a bad fate. So we put EC in a public school. This also freed us from having to live in Lisbon, Porto or the Algarve, where most international schools are located.
Tummy Time: Fish Times Three
Last week after walking EC to school (K and I trade off), I walked over to the high-ceilinged city market. After surveying the bountiful selection, and chatting a bit with the sellers in my halting Portuguese, I bought a nice sea bass, a robalo, to bake for the evening meal.
But then just an hour or two later, I saw on the blackboard placed outside one of my favorite lunch spots that they were serving “peixe grilhado”, or grilled fish, as the “prato do dia.” Darn. I didn’t want to miss that.
I took the trouble to walk by a bit later. The man at the big open grill outside the restaurant had whole fish over charcoal. Each fish was placed in a wire holder with a handle that made it easy to flip. He was making two kinds, carapau (which I’ve written about) and Dourado. Looked good.
So hey, I can eat fish twice in one day. And shouldn’t I stop thinking of that as unusual? There are so many kinds of fish here. And so many different ways to prepare that. I might have chicken for lunch and pork for dinner without thinking about it.
So shortly thereafter, I walked into the restaurant and was seated. I ordered the grilled fish, of course. I was served two whole carapau, and a half of a dourado. Quite a lot of fish. I ate it all. My skills at eating around the bones of the Carapau are improving.
Later at dinner at home, I made the sea bass in parchment paper and that came out well too. I am still looking for some perfect sauces to serve with fish at home, even though the Portuguese use only olive oil and salt as garnishes. Which do taste great. I notice the Portuguese never serve lemon wedges with fish. Because they don’t need to. The fish is so fresh, it’s not necessary.
I did hear complaints though, from the little one. Fish again, she said, not in a happy way. The previous night, I had made marma, or skipjack tuna, in my pizza oven. Didn’t come out so well. She ate a lot of the sea bass though, which tasted even better after I put olive oil and salt on it, the way the Portuguese do. I still would like to develop a repertoire of good sauces to make that go on fish. It’s not very Portuguese, but I like a good sauce.
So I had had three meals in a row with fish, if we leave out breakfast.
Fine by me.
Are you using this post to extract from your audience a few good sauce suggestions? I'll consult with Dina. Often we do something very light, like chopped tomato and onion/garlic with some fresh herbs. Of course, the French have many sauces, a few of which I am sure go well with fish.
It isn't only Americans whose language acquisition is held up by English. For example, I have two friends, a couple who live in Arlington. The wife is from China and the husband from Finland. Despite the best intentions to learn each other's languages, they tend to fall back on English to communicate with each other despite English not being either of their native languages. It takes discipline. Their children are doing better with Chinese because their mother insists on only speaking Chinese with them at home.