Learning Portuguese (Part 3)

I am going to give you a few examples of those who moved to Portugal at around the same time as I did (2015) and they are now (2022) speaking Portuguese very fluently.

Colleague #1: He is smart enough to learn it on a street and even married a Portuguese.

Colleague #2: A single mom with three kids, she first landed a gig here in Portugal in 2015 without base pay. Starting in a new country is already tough, not to mention her very challenging circumstances. She lives in Cascais, and enrolled herself into this immersive short course at the ICLP which is part of the Faculdade de Letras (Universidade de Lisboa). She insisted her colleagues to speak Portuguese with her only, and shortly afterwards she was able to communicate swiftly with everyone. Not only so, but she's also doing a lot of business with Portuguese people! Impressive! Since then, she has also picked up Italian and now learning Dutch. Her native tongue is Latvian & Russian, she learned German in school and speaks perfect English. I can't keep track of how many languages she speaks now, but she's a true polyglot!

Friend #1: She arrived one year later than me but within 12 months, she's gotten so fluent in the language that she's able to have a big fight with her Portuguese husband. Not the nicest thing to watch - I was caught in between them, but that just shows me how well she has mastered her Portuguese. Her case was a bit different. She went to a polytechnic college in Setúbal to hone her physiotherapy skills, and prior to that, she had already reached Level A2 at a local school run by the government for immigrants. The entrance exam at the polytechnic was in multiple-choice format and she passed it out of pure luck. Upon the commencement of her physiotherapy class, she was totally stuck. For months she cried like a baby, but she was very determined to succeed and not let her much younger classmates laugh about her (My friend was in her late 30s at that time and most classmates were in their late teens and early 20s). She studied her books seriously and eventually she made it. Not the best example to give here, but it shows that with some courage and determination, things work.

Friend #2: Dutch engineer who arrived in Portugal some 20 years ago. He speaks Portuguese fluently and highly recommends the annual course run by the ICLP at the Faculdade de Letras (Universidade de Lisboa) In his own words, he described the experience like this:
You enter the school as deaf-muted and you come out as a bird.

Friend #3: I met this friend at work. One day he made a call to my office and my assistant transferred his call to me. Before connecting us, the assistant said to me, "Would you please help to answer this call? This gentleman speaks Portuguese but I believe he's a foreigner... because his accent is...". I met him in about 2019, and by then, he was already living in Portugal for more than a decade. Originally from Macau, he came to Portugal to study law. All international students enrolled at a Portuguese university must enroll themselves in an intensive one-year language course similar to this ICLP Annual Course. He recalled that in a year, he was able to understand 80% of what everybody is speaking. He jokingly mocked his thick accent, but he said it really doesn't matter. What matters is he speaks and understands Portuguese perfectly now. He said the real breakthrough for him was after months of spending an hour per day listening to the news on TV. Persistence is essential.

Others: I have met many others along the way who speak excellent Portuguese. Some even manage to attain a near-native fluency. But this particular group have one thing in common. They arrived here as university students and all enrolled themselves in this very magical course at the ICLP; studied there everyday from 4-5 hours everyday for one entire year. It's definitely not for the faint-hearted or lazy bones, but the effort is worth it if you're hardcore about learning things in the proper way.

Unlike these students, I'm time poor, and unlike those very talented friends, I ain't smart enough to learn on the streets. I admit I'm a bit of a lazy bone. In my first 4 years, I worked 16 hours a day and flew to Asia every fortnight. Unlike my Friend #2, I don't have her level of energy. Distance learning didn't work out for me either, so among the various options, I chose the course run by the Government for immigrants, known as PLA (Portuguese Host Language). Partially funded by EU, this initiative is to assist immigrants to adapt to their new home as quickly as possible. Normally the parishes where immigrants live have a higher concentration of schools for this purpose, so is the frequency of the courses. (Courses can be cancelled if there are not enough number of students, and the chances of cancellation is very high in those very local Portuguese neighbourhood) There are also some very affluent areas like Estoril and Cascais that have schools assigned for PLA courses because of a higher concentration of expats like the British. Most of the courses are free, but some are not. However, the tuition is rather symbolic. Some charge €10, and the one I have chosen was €34. That's the "tuition" for the entire year. It's also structured according to the levels set forth by European Framework, and each level lasts for half a school term; in other words, one full year of study will cover 2 levels (eg. A1 & A2). 

On the government website, you can find the full list of schools that provides PLA courses. Choose the one that is near to your home or office. Go to the school directly and check it out yourselves. Of course, you can give them a call or send them an email with the information provided on the website, but I doubt if you'll ever get a response. Responding time is very slow in Portugal, so it's better to just go to the school, talk to the staff members and also check out the school to see if you like it or not.

The school I enrolled myself in offers classes three times a week and each session lasts for two 45-minute sessions. I have completed one full year of study there before Covid hit and they moved everything online. The quality of the virtual classroom was horrible and I gave up my advanced course at Level B2. I'd say the quality of the PLA is not very bad either. It really depends on your luck whether or not you're being assigned to a good teacher. It's very similar to the kind of quality you get at a school run by the state. You have a huge class of students and the teacher can't dedicate much time and attention to you. There is also quite a lot of homework to do after classes, and classes are conducted in 100% Portuguese since day 1. Most of the PLA classes are aimed at working professionals so they're held at very late hours; I remember there was a school term when lessons began from 9pm-11pm. Although this course is suitable even for the faint-hearted, you also have to have enough energy physically to endure the night after a long day of work.

Sadly I have also forgotten a lot of things I learned at this school even though I scored a very high mark (96/100) in the final exam. But I'm not going to re-enroll myself in the same class and repeatedly study for Levels A1-B1! It's been a while since I've studied Portuguese seriously and I'm still looking for a solution that can fit my very busy work schedule and not deprive me too much of my rest.