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Love your Podcast! So helpful. Question…. Sometimes when you talk about all the different tenses and things related to grammar, I find myself getting totally lost because I don’t even understand a lot of basic English grammar (and I’m a native English speaker). What advice do you have for someone like me? I’ve very motivated to learn Portuguese but learning a language has been such a struggle. I sometimes wonder if I’m just one of these people that just doesn’t have the brain for it. Also, how do I stop myself from analyzing everything I want to say in Portuguese before I say it? I find that when I speak in Portuguese, I end up speaking so slowly because I’m trying to translate what I want to say in my head from English to Portuguese. I’ve been told that this isn’t good to do. That you have to just have confidence and speak without thinking too much about making mistakes. But I fear if I do that no one will understand anything that I say! Keep up the great work, you guys! BTW – I’m also an Austin resident! 🙂
Hi MK, super question. To give the answer justice, I decided to respond to it by writing a post in my language learning blog. So, check out my blog for the full answer
https://orkelm.wordpress.com/2015/09/23/grammar-talk-how-much-do-i-need-it/
Gente, a recent listener asked me about the use of “tu gosta” instead of “tu gostas.” Sure enough, chances are that if you are speaking with someone from Portugal, “tu gosta” would sound pretty weird. In Brazil, however, there are a number of people, especially from the more southern part of that country, who regularly use “tu” as a pronoun, but still conjugate the verb as one would conjugate “você.” So, you will hear Brazilians say things like, tu quer, tu gosta, tu vai, tu tem, etc.
I was listening to this on my morning walk, looked up and saw an ad for a concert headlined by…Gilberto Gil! Couldn’t believe the coincidence so I took a pic: https://pasteboard.co/fMHR2IpVYq0P.jpg
2022 and still on point
Thanks for sharing Xiao. I once had the privilege of being invited to lunch with Gilberto Gil, while he was visiting here in Austin, Texas. It was pretty cool. Still, he’s at the top of my list of artists.
Abração, Orlando