Back to school for Portuguese 2009 / 回到学校 2009
In the second half of 2009, I spent nearly half a year in a language school in Lisbon to learn Portuguese. I didn’t expect to be a linguist although I really wished to master a new language. In fact that was a need for life so I had to learn. All I would learn was just some basic Portuguese for daily life, with which I would be no more deaf in this Latin country.
Lisbon is a city built in mountains. And the school was on the top of a hill. It usually took me about 20 minutes on foot to go up to the school from my residence on foot of the hill. On my way to school, I would pass a slope road everyday. Summer and autumn in Lisbon were usually very hot. Temperature around 40 degree C was common there. Each time when I walked up from the slope road, I’d felt my heart beating fast and blood flowing quickly. I felt extremely hot then with all my clothes soaked by sweat thoroughly. In the first few days, when I arrived at the top of the hill each day, I’d felt myself like a fish thrown ashore, breathing hardly with a wide opened mouth. Thank god I did not vomit blood, otherwise I would fail to attend the class. After a few days there, I got more and more used to it. Walking had become easier for me. At days later I could even walk fast on that slope road.
Our teacher was a kind Portuguese lady named Helena Neto. Most of our students were immigrants from other countries. Among us there were several Indians, several businessmen from Zhejiang, China, a couple of Africans and a couple of Nepalese as well. There were always funs in our class time. Our teacher taught us in Portuguese. But since most of us did not understand Portuguese, sometimes she had to make explanations in English. But problem was that not all of the students understood English. Those from Africa could speak French while those from India and Nepal could speak English. But for those from China, they could only speak Chinese (sometimes they even spoke dialects of their hometown. I wondered if they were graduates from primary school although they were shrewd businessmen in fact. It seemed that their material wealth and their knowledge were not in a proper proportion). So at the beginning days, questions in English, French or even in some other languages were often raised up to our teacher, and that was really a big headache for her. She could neither understand the questions nor could make any replies or explanations accordingly. But she was very patient. She tried to explain the text in Portuguese carefully while using all kinds of body language that she knew. At that time we really felt like pupils in a nursery class. Each time when we managed to speak a complete sentence in Portuguese, we would become so excited that we would keep on repeating the sentence again and again till our teacher stopped us by shouting loudly.
In the months later, I was able to order dinners in Portuguese in small restaurants for myself. And I could even guide the way for others with this language. Sometimes I would go to the small bars nearby, and with a glass of beer in hand, I would hear the old men around talking and teasing each other, which often made me burst into laughter unconsciously. By then I had a sigh, that was no matter what age you were in and how much knowledge you’d had, you were always a piece of paper with blanks. You could write on it whenever you wished to, and the paper would never be filled full.
Waiting for the bus