Version 2.006

"Bicabornato de sódio." When I read it I thought that it could not be right, "sódio" doesn't seem right. Isn't it baking soda in English? Maybe it should be "bicabornato de soda" or "sodo"? "Sodo" is definitely not right. But there's "sodium," so maybe "sódio" is indeed right... I cannot tell how many times I go through conversations like this on my head. I am one of those people who constantly has an on-going dialog in her head.

Many months ago, I was reading Nicholas Kristof in the NYT and he said that the easiest way to know if someone is proficient in a foreign language is to ask them to say the words to door knob, clothes hanger, and electrical outlet. OK, how do you say those in Portuguese, I asked myself. For several minutes, I had no idea. Well -- I was beginning to resign myself to being ignorant --, when in doubt, one can always revert to calling something "coiso" or "coisa." But even as I write "coisa," it looks foreign. Not foreign in the sense of a foreign language, but foreign as is alien.

When I was in 12th grade, we did not have a textbook for English. Instead, we would read articles from Time magazine or Newsweek. I subscribed to Newsweek for a while, then. If you were learning Portuguese, what newspaper or magazine would you subscribe to? Which one would improve your chances of becoming fluent in the language?

I do not have any subscriptions to a Portuguese news outlet. In the U.S., I subscribe to the NYT, Bloomberg, and the WashPost; but sometimes, I also donate to NPR, in fact, I used to contribute to MPB, which is an affiliate of NPR. MPB stands for Mississippi Public Radio and they are located in Oxford, MS, where there is a Portuguese bakery, called Lusa. No, I've never lived in MS, but they're poor, so I figured they could use some of my money.

I visited Lusa once, when I lived in Memphis the first time. The drive is very boring, but it is rather worth it, even though I've only been there once. (It's hard to go places when you have a dog, you always feel super-guilty about leaving them behind; at least I do...)

Ah, but this to say that I spend over $700/year on American media and I spend nothing on Portuguese media. I get depressed reading Portuguese news. It is such poor quality and it requires that I stop thinking, plus I don't understand the language. I barely speak it these days.