Os filmes são melhores em outras línguas

This past week we had a few things take place. Sarah had asked Amber and I to translate the transcripts of students that will be going to Canada. Initially I thought this would be a simple task but I had forgotten how meticulous I can get. The whole of Wednesday was spent translating courses from Portuguese into English and double (triple) checking that everything is in order.

Official Mulheres Mil Meeting

Since Sarah will be in Brasilia for the whole of next week, we had an official Mulheres Mil meeting on Friday to discuss the plans for the up-coming weeks related to Mulheres Mil.In attendance were four IFCE professors who are dedicated to keep the Mulheres Mil program going. The other two interns from Montmorency College, Elisabeth and Denise were also in attendance. They have been here for about two weeks now and they seem cool. I envy them both in their knowledge of the Portuguese language. While Denise is a Brazilian-Canadian, Elisabeth has been studying Portuguese for the last 3 years. I hope one day to get on their level of Portuguese.

In terms of my language skills, I am always trying to continuously improve my Portuguese. Our roommate, Kevin from France, has “somewhat legally” downloaded Portuguese movies for us to watch. Some are Hollywood movies with Portuguese voiceovers while some are Brazilian movies. I prefer to watch the movies with Portuguese subtitles, this way if I hear and see a new word, I can easily write it down and look it up later. Watching these movies is helping me not only improve my pronunciation of words, but also realizing when to use certain phrases in a specific context or situation. Here are just some of the movies I’ve seen so far in Portuguese:

Thought I would throw in a random, somewhat funny, story of the week:

When Amber and I had initially landed in Fortaleza I had mentioned in a previous blog about the stares we constantly get when we are out in public. Amber and I have gotten used to ignoring the constant stares. Once, while waiting for the IFCE driver on the sidewalk with Sarah, our Mulheres Mil boss, she was astonished over the amounts of looks that Amber and I receive from people in vehicles driving by and people walking by. Apparently staring is something Brazilians don’t do to each other, just to foreigners.

On the topic of staring, yesterday while sitting on the bus there was a man standing and staring down at us for what seemed like forever. Assuming he had grown tired of looking at us, he eventually took a seat in front of us, while Amber and I shared a moment of “that was awkward.” However, he then proceeded to turn his head around to stare at us more. Not only has he chosen to sit in our line of vision, but he has no issue making it even more obvious that he’s looking. I must say, this was one of my main breaking points because I then shot him the look of death and shouted “What! Stop staring!” My only regret is that I was too annoyed to say it in Portuguese. However, I’m positive my reaction alone got the message across because he never turned his head around again.

Next mission: how to tell people, POLITELY, to stop staring in Portuguese. :)