Episode 8: Jack's Big School Trip, Plus Learning Portuguese

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello and welcome to As the Dinoson's Turn. So Jack got back from his big school trip that uh had been on everybody's mind for several months. And we asked if he wanted to talk to us, and he declined the opportunity. So we're just going to talk about his trip.

SPEAKER_02 0:23

Well, you know, honestly, one of the things is that we actually had to force Jack to go on this trip. Um, I said, yes, it's gonna be great. You're gonna have a great time. You know, it's travel, you should do all these things. And he didn't want to go because he is such a homebuddy and an introvert. So I think there was a big um I was nervous about how it would go given that he didn't want to go in the first place. And when you make Jack do something and he doesn't want to do it, he gets kind of teenage angsty, which anyway. Um, so I was concerned about that. But you know, it was funny, the lead up to it, everybody was like, oh, Jack's gonna be gone for a few days, right? So everybody was it it literally was. I mean, Tyler was talking about it.

SPEAKER_01 1:13

Like, I've never been away from Jack for that long. It was so sad. I'm so worried, and you know, I'm not gonna be able to sleep without him, kind of thing.

SPEAKER_00 1:22

So But I guess it went well.

SPEAKER_02 1:26

It seems to have. I mean, he um went and you know, took a couple of pictures. He forgot to take more. So he took pictures of things that were important to him, like the his favorite neighborhoods that we were in um on our first trip to Lisbon. Um, you know, the the one of the big um football stores, you know, in on the main drag. Um so I think that was those were the big things that he was excited about.

SPEAKER_00 1:59

And they stayed at a hostel. He had he had a few roommates that all seemed to go okay also.

SPEAKER_02 2:06

Yeah, they stayed in a group of four, um, and they were staying in a Posada de Juventud. Um, so it's definitely just for youth and youth groups. Um, and things were starting to pick up because I guess the International Day of Youth is being held in Lisbon.

SPEAKER_00 2:25

Oh.

SPEAKER_02 2:26

And so they were gonna stay there too. So there was a little bit of overlap going on, but they had a a great time.

SPEAKER_00 2:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 2:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:34

Well, good. I think it was good for him to go and and do something with his classmates.

SPEAKER_02 2:39

What I do love though is I gave him money and I said, Go, you know, have fun. Here's for your meals and stuff. When you find things you like, buy them. And what did he do?

SPEAKER_00 2:50

He bought stuff for all the rest of us and nothing for him.

SPEAKER_02 2:55

Yes. So he bought presents for everyone, including buying a birthday present for Tyler, whose birthday is in a couple of weeks or a month, basically, but Tyler's making it sound like it's like tomorrow. So but he didn't spend any money on himself. Nothing. It was just, I don't know, he's a pretty sweet kid.

SPEAKER_00 3:16

Yeah. Well, I think that so because he's repeating ninth grade, he gets to go again. Well, I guess even if he didn't repeat, isn't it something is it something they do for like ninth, tenth, and eleventh every year?

SPEAKER_02 3:31

I think ninth, tenth, and eleventh can go on a trip every year, and this time they were all going to the same place, but ninth was like they stayed with their class. But yes, he can go every year on this trip. And he has had the c the conversation of like, do I have to go next year? And I'm like, I think travel is a good thing no matter how old you are, and this was his very first experience. It was really important for me that he got to do this. He just turned 15, and the very first time that I got to leave the country was with my Spanish class when I was, you know, in high school and was 15 or 16, and I thought it was I mean, it completely changed my life. Um, it doesn't sound like his was life-changing, but he did have a great time.

SPEAKER_00 4:18

Of course, we don't know if it was life-changing, and I mean, with you, you seem to have transcendental experiences with things and and have a decisiveness about things that that maybe he doesn't he didn't have this time, but we'll see.

SPEAKER_02 4:38

I think that um we'll see how it goes. He's processing. He was glad to come home. His feet really, really hurt. That was the big thing, because they walked a ton. Um and there are a couple of places he wants us to all go again.

SPEAKER_00 4:51

Well, that's a good sign that there's places he wants to see again.

SPEAKER_02 4:56

I I think that's a good sign. I mean, he's not gonna spill his soul and tell us all of his deepest thoughts. It's not that kind of kid.

SPEAKER_00 5:04

Well, we've been in Lisbon in November and we went back again a few weeks ago, late June or early, I guess it was early July, and we did more of the touristy things in November, and when we were there personally last time a few weeks ago, we did more quieter things, I guess.

SPEAKER_02 5:24

We did what the kids wanted to do, which was very much, you know, go to the mall and do relaxation things. But I think that him going on a trip and staying at a youth hostel and then even having to figure out dinner on his own one evening, even though they went to a mall that's nearby, so people could be in a contained place. Very smart of them. Um and you know, going on this little bit of an adventure. Um, I think it was a good taste. So we'll see what we can uh help him, how we can help him expand his horizons in the future.

SPEAKER_00 5:58

So they drove there on a bus, right? And so it was a road trip from well, if you heard clunking in the background, that was the cat jumping down from his perch on the he sits on the stone wall over that direction, and he jumped down and knocked some stuff off.

SPEAKER_02 6:17

So he's got good timing. Um, it was it was a road trip, bus trip. Um, thankfully everybody had like their own kind of seats so they could spread out a little bit more, which was nice on their bus. Um and there were two buses in total that went for the ninth graders, and so I think that was nice that everybody had their own space. I do have to say that he said um they got there and they went to Oceanarium, which is like the aquarium, and he thought that was brilliant and wonderful. But the walking tour on day two, where they walked the entire city of Lisbon, about killed him. Um, he's like, My feet burn, you know. If you've walked a lot when you're on a trip, your feet burn. And they did it's not like they took breaks and aired their feet and relaxed and sat at cafes like you should every 45 minutes or so. Um, but so they he said his feet really burned and that he just wasn't sure if he was gonna be able to do it. Um at that same time though, one of the things at the same time though, one of the things I really appreciate was that he kept going. I mean, he didn't just be like, nope, I'm done. Um, so that's a good sign too, because we've not always had that experience.

SPEAKER_00 7:33

That's true.

SPEAKER_02 7:34

Um, so he kept going and and at least it sounds like some of the kids started asking him questions about the US and what school was like there and why he's here. Um and because it's Portugal, and because what they learn in the news, you know, is about school shootings in the US, they all asked him if they came because his school had gone, as he said, gone pew pew, because they didn't know how to say school shootings. Um, and he said, no, his school hadn't. I'm like, did you explain that schools in the area had? And he's like, no. He's like, it's fine. Um, but they were interested in in getting to know him a little bit more, and so that I think was a good thing for him too.

SPEAKER_00 8:21

So what else have we been up to recently? And I guess we're I think intensive Portuguese classes.

SPEAKER_02 8:29

Intensive classes, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:29

We're all taking Portuguese, all four of us are.

SPEAKER_02 8:32

Yeah, we are. And how is your Portuguese class going?

SPEAKER_00 8:36

It's going okay. I can identify words and and make out what sentences are saying. It's still a struggle to form the words to say back in response to things, though.

SPEAKER_02 8:47

Yeah. Um, but you've you're not even halfway through your class, right? You go all the way through the middle of August, so you've got time. I've got four more classes left in my B1.1 level, and I was feeling really good about myself. I was like, oh, you had to write it, you know, language teacher, you have to write a conversation and you had to write a conversation about you lose your identity documents and you need to get new ones. I'm like, this is a great applied real life scenario. I'm like, I've got this. And I was very proud of myself. I even sent it to my heart sister Jessie to say, hey, look what I did, because she has learned Portuguese, although be it Brazilian Portuguese, she thought it was brilliant. And then I was pissed, which was ironic, but why was I so upset?

SPEAKER_00 9:40

Uh you got it sent back to you by the instructor telling you that you were too Spanish.

SPEAKER_02 9:48

And I needed to make the corrections. Oh, and to Spanish means that I created very complex sentences that I didn't have to make creative complex sentences. There's nothing grammatically wrong with them. She just thought that it would be a better way to say it another way. If you're Portuguese, you would say it this way. Shock. I'm too Spanish. Hmm, it's never gonna change. At the same time, I just simplified things. I did the dumbed-down kind of letter conversation about these are the things that we've been up to. I had another writing assignment where I had to write 70 to 90 words about what things we've been doing in our life in Portugal. So I just talked about our travels and the things we've done and the things we've seen. And then I wound up writing like 150, 160 words. And so I took out of that 150, 160, 90 words and sent it to her, and then I sent the letter to my friend to say, hey, here's what's been going on. We'll see what happens when I get that one back.

SPEAKER_00 10:53

I think the main purpose of these classes for us is mainly to just get a little better, I guess. And well, I can't see his purpose. I can see you going on to to get a degree, uh and uh, you know, who knows, maybe more than just a a degree. But uh for me it's more being able to go into the grocery store on my own and not feel overwhelmed if or not have a panic attack when I drop you off at the dentist.

SPEAKER_02 11:24

Yeah, right. Say, I'm not going in, bye, I'm not I'm not holding your hand anymore.

SPEAKER_00 11:28

Luckily, the at least the administrative people at the dentist's office can speak sort of English. Sort of, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:36

Um, so I I did okay at the dentist's office, but Well, the things I've noticed and the most difficult things are there are prepositions and articles you've got to put everywhere. It's like, oh, you know, like let's just sprinkle these all over the place. I'm like, why? Why do you need all of those things? That makes no sense. Like, no other romance language I've learned needs as many articles and prepositions and pro I mean it's all over.

SPEAKER_00 12:02

Like if you say 152, it's 150 and 2, and there's no shortcut on that you have to say the entire thing.

SPEAKER_02 12:16

So, what I do love is that this is what they've taught us, and I know, I know they've taught us this because it is completely correct. That is the standard, the gold standard of what you're supposed to do. Not one local that I have met does this. So even at the grocery store, when I give like my NIF number, and I'm now into giving it in the hundreds instead of you know, in the I was first I started number by number, and then I moved up to like let's doing it in double digits. Now I'm into let's doing it three at a time. When they repeat it back to me, they never use ands everywhere, right? So it's one of those things that this is what you're supposed to do that no human being does, right? Right. I love it. So, but I'm just wondering, like, I mean, literally, I think that the prepositions and the articles are required for everything, so you can't just say my dog, right? You have to say the my dog. I'm like, okay, I can do that. But then if you say that you are buying something for the my dog, for and the connect and then create they create this contraction, and you've got to learn all of those. And it's like, whoa. I'm actually kind of having a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_00 13:36

I'm sure you are.

SPEAKER_02 13:39

Some of us are a little bit uh lower down the ladder, so it's I'm just a grammar geek, but I'm like, ooh, it's weird, but I forget them in places when I'm just and I also every single time I'm like we have these conversations, we do conversational speaking now for an hour of every one of my classes. I can never remember how to say one word in Portuguese every single time, and every time it's different, which I know is part of the language learning process, but this last time it was instead of tambem, I say también, which is Spanish, and then she'd correct me, and I'm like, okay, I'm trying so hard. Yeah, I know.

SPEAKER_00 14:24

I remember saying this in one of our recordings, it didn't get used, but people talk awfully fast.

SPEAKER_02 14:30

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:31

And I don't know, the the other day the repairman came to look at our air conditioner, and you were talking to it, but all I go wash shh khush shh khish shh. It's like, what on earth? If I had a remote control though, and could pause time, it's not so much pause to look at Google Translate, although that might be helpful, but it's like, okay, I could pick out some of the words that this person said, and based on the context, probably figure out what they're saying. The problem is that my mind is like 30 seconds in the past on the conversation.

SPEAKER_02 15:11

Well, and and that's that's completely normal. I mean, that is completely normal for where you are. You're just at the very beginning of learning, and you have to like it's training your brain. There's a reason why they're sending you all those listening activities to do, and you're like, oh hell if I know. And you have to listen to it over and over and over and over again to pick little things out. It's because you have to train your brain to listen to everything at the speed and the cadence. And so I've already trained my brain not just for Spanish, but also for French and then for Latin and for Catalan. And I so my brain has been trained really well, right? And so it's it's okay, it makes it easier. There are still some things I'll ask, wait a minute, what does this mean? Um, but I I think that that's that's a large piece of it. The thing we're learning now, and this makes me very happy. I mean, some of you who are my fanal grammar nerds are gonna think this is awesome. Um, well, I think it's awesome. So in Spanish, if you say it's impossible that you, like you say that it's impossible that you and I um that you and I learn Portuguese, right? You would say that, or it is possible. We'll we'll make a positive. It is possible that you and I learn Portuguese. Um in Portuguese, you actually say it is possible to learn we Portuguese. So you make an infinitive and you conjugate on the infinitive. So they have infinitives without conjugations, infinitives with conjugations, and then they have structures which actually move to what they call the conjunctive, which is their subjunctive tense, like we have in in Spanish or in French. And so I think that that's just fascinating because no other romance language has a conjugated infinitive. So gallego, which is is spoken in in um to Spain, just north of us, they have a conjugated infinitive, but it's because they kind of broke off, they said, um, this is what my teacher said. I'm like, though, they're really different languages, but that's okay. They share a conjugated infinitive.

SPEAKER_00 17:20

So when we were out for a walk, one of our first weekends or first days here, there was that lady, like an older retired lady walking up the hill better than better than us. Um and literally, I'm saying she's like 85, like a little old lady, wonderful. And she was able to speak to you in Spanish. I don't know if she was fluent in Spanish, but you could converse with her in Spanish. And a lot of like our landlord George, you could talk to him in Spanish.

SPEAKER_02 17:48

And he speaks Portuguese back. This is what I thought was interesting because in all of my years of Spanish study, I was told never ever, ever, ever do this. And I think that this is important to put in mind because yes, like we need to be respectful that Portuguese and Spanish are completely different languages and they are different cultures. And so there is this mistaken of, oh, you're Spanish. No, they are not Spanish, they are Portuguese. However, um, I worked really hard to try and not speak Spanish until um they're like, oh no, no, no, it's fine. I mean, and I think it's because we're in the north. I think it would be different if we were in the south, or if we were in Lisbon, or if we were closer to the Spanish border, um, not the northern border, but along um along the coast, like the coast, along the border between Spain and Portugal, like over by Caserish and you know, all of those places. Um, I think it would be different. And I think it's because that we are living in a part of Portugal where there are a lot of Spanish tourists, but it also used to be Spain. And so that, you know, historically, Portugal ended at the Douro River. So I was like, oh, I don't know, I speak like this mix, and they're like, Oh, you speak Portenol. I'm like, Yes, I speak Portenol. And they're like, No problem, it's totally fine, you know, but I never would have made that presumption because we were, you know, I that is not my experience having traveled in the south or having traveled um in the Lisbon area prior. It was just a very sticky topic.

SPEAKER_00 19:25

Well one of the topics on our list is where in the world are we? And that we won't talk about all of that here, but how close are we to the border with Spain? It's like 20 minutes, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 19:38

It depends on the direct it's I think it would be as the crow flies, but remember you've got to go through mountains. And so I think that's the bigger piece of it. So literally it's an hour north. We're an hour north, directly north, you are in Spain. Um, and which is wonderful, and I can hardly wait um to go and visit. You know, we're six hours from Seville, which is our very first priority in life. Yeah, the very first trip we're going to do, Sevilla. Vamos a Sevilla a disfrutar de la vida. Yeah, there's nothing better than a Sevilla night with a tinto de verano and all these other things. Um, but we're close to the border. We're also in a part of Portugal where there's a lot of um ecotourism, and ecotourism is really important, and getting outside in nature is part of the general Iberian philosophy of life. You need to be in nature to fulfill and refill your soul, and so there's a lot of that kind of let's just drive for the weekend and go and do this, like you know, let's just go back and forth. It's also like when I ask people, what do you do when you go to the Algarve? Are there things you need to see? And they're like, you lay on the beach or you lay on your patio. That's what you do, you don't go see things. I was like, okay, I can do that. So it's also very much of the mindfulness and being just present in nature is enough to like fill your soul up. So I'm convinced it's because there are so many Spaniards that are here all the time, and because this also used to be part of Spain. Um, and I would not be surprised if there are people who speak gallego um in parts of this area, particularly as you get closer, like in Caminha up in there, um, along the Camino as it crosses into Spain, I'm sure there's like a blurring of cultures.

SPEAKER_00 21:32

I can hardly wait to see so and usage of apps or ways of learning, I guess, before you without taking classes like we are now. I mean, Tyler and I have done Duolingo, and I kind of have a love-hate relationship with Duolingo. I keep doing it because I think I'm up to three hundred and some days of streak, and so you keep doing it to to maintain. The streak, but I'm not and Duolingo is good for like vocabulary words and to know that sort of stuff, and it maybe helps you with like menus and things, but uh you will not I anyway was not able to speak using Duolingo.

SPEAKER_02 22:22

No, I mean but okay, so caveat here Duolingo only has Brazilian Portuguese, and so that makes a big difference. True. So the listening and all the pronunciations and all of those things are Brazilian Portuguese, which is different. So for instance, something as simple as good day, right, in Portugal you say bombia, right? But in Brazilian Portuguese, it's bombia. So like it's just very different. Bom dia, and so it's very it's a different sound, and we're learning different words, right? So it talks about the dog all the time. I love this. Cachoro, um cachorro, um cachorro. Well, in Portugal, um a dog, a male dog is a cow.

SPEAKER_00 23:02

C-A-O.

SPEAKER_02 23:03

Yeah, cow, un cow, right? No e um cachorro, e um cow, right? Uma cadela is a female dog, right? Um, but if you ask for if you say you have a cachorro here, they're gonna get that it's a dog from context, but that's what you call a hot dog. You don't call an actual animal that. And so there's those things that I think that are important. Um, there are very few apps where you can actually learn Portugal Portuguese and do well, you know. Um, however, there are some great YouTube channels that you can watch that I found after we moved, which are not helpful before you move. Um, and and that's that actually is a pretty good resource. Tyler's been excellent at it though. Like, and I think there's there's something to be said for being that age, you know, being 11, almost 12, and doing language study. It's the same time that I started learning Spanish, and there's just it becomes like this superhero power. I tell him it's our superpower, right? So I think that helps. But yeah, Duolingo, you definitely keep going for the streak. Um, Tyler goes for the streak, he also goes to make sure that he stays in like the class because you can move into different classes with different trophies, and he also does it to finish the monthly challenge before anyone else. So he's very competitive when it comes to that. So he still does it. But he's also like I can tell that there are some things that were helpful. Conjugat verbs, that will be helpful, right? It's the same conjugations. Um, you don't use volse, right? Um you use two. Um, you can use volse, but it's like vulse would be like the plural instead of the two form. So I think that there's some similarities. I don't know. It's not easy though.

SPEAKER_00 25:02

No, it's not easy. We'll keep you posted on our adventures on learning the language and how we do with that.

SPEAKER_02 25:10

I think though that we might even have to record a few conversations with some of our friends in town when you start getting uh a little more confident.

SPEAKER_00 25:20

Um I tried to say something to the dentist in Portuguese and everybody just kind of laughed. So that's happened several times when I try to say something, they just kind of they smile.

SPEAKER_02 25:34

Well, that doesn't mean you were wrong. It just means that maybe they're you know, oh your pronunciation, your pronunciation or something. But we go to Cyber Cafe, so Cyber Cafe in town. Yeah, a senora, like we I don't even know her real name. We always just call her Bondi Asenora, a senora. Um, she's now making him do all of the orders, and you know, she's pretty impressed with how you're learning.

SPEAKER_00 26:00

I do okay with that.

SPEAKER_02 26:02

So I think that having more conversations with her would be good. There's some safe people. Check out Line at the grocery store. There are a couple of people we see there.

SPEAKER_00 26:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:10

So if it's not psychotic, we might be able to see how you do.

SPEAKER_00 26:14

I think it's interesting in the town that we live in, um, there are no English speakers. Like the fact that we're American is like we're the oddities.

SPEAKER_02 26:25

Um there's some British that come through, um, but they're not here necessarily all year round.

SPEAKER_00 26:31

So it's French, Brazilian. So the Brazilian lives here. Um French and Swiss and Swiss and some from Belgium vacation here. I know one of the attendants at the gas station said that they were appreciative that you didn't speak French because someone else before you had come in and only spoke French.

SPEAKER_02 26:55

And she's like, my French is like bonjour, and okay. Like that's about it. Like, bonjour, that's it. So we laughed about that and had the conversation. But I think that I mean, we are in an ecotourism area, so I think that that's a piece of it. Um, but learning the language is gonna take time.

SPEAKER_00 27:16

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 27:17

And to be fair, he's done it now for like two weeks, two weeks.

SPEAKER_00 27:22

Three or four. Three or four, actually.

SPEAKER_02 27:24

It hasn't been four. Four would put you in the middle of for a while.

SPEAKER_00 27:28

For a while. I've done it for a while.

SPEAKER_02 27:31

Alright, there you go. That's the idea. So he's working on it, and I think that's a good thing. After the time I'm done with his B1.1, my plan is to stop. But if they go on to B1.2, you know I'm gonna have to keep going because now we're into the grammar nerd things. I mean, relative pronouns and things. It's just so exciting. I love it. We've already done all of that. We're done the future, we've done the conditional. I'm like, let's get into the complicated. I'm a total nerd.

SPEAKER_00 28:02

You are.

SPEAKER_02 28:03

Sorry, honey. You married a language nerd.

SPEAKER_00 28:06

I knew that.

SPEAKER_02 28:07

Well, thank God.

SPEAKER_00 28:09

Alright, catch us again next time on another episode of As the Dinoson's Turn.

SPEAKER_02 28:13

Alright, next time we'll see if we can get him to uh at least say a few things in Portuguese for you.