What do Europeans have in common?

Erasmus Students in Lisbon have one thing in common: difficulties to learn the language.

“Pardal pardo, porque palras – Grey sparrow, why do you chatter away?”, Vanise Amaral reads out and looks expectantly at the faces of her students. “Pardal pardo, porgue palras”, they dutifully repeat the tongue twister. Vanise Amaral’s students however are not kindergarten kids but grown up students who decided to spend one or two Erasmus semesters in Lisbon.

In room F1 of the “Universidade Lusíada de Lisbon” about ten pairs of eyes look more or less attentively at Portuguese teacher Vanise Amaral.
“Yesterday I tried to speak Portuguese with a taxi driver. He did not really understand me and I did not really understand him, but nevertheless it was nice”, Smaranda Alexandrescu who was born in Romania, grew up in Luxembourg and now studies in Brussels says and laughs. Since all the university lectures of the 23year old student who speaks Romanian, French, German, English and Luxembourgish fluently, are held in Portuguese she is very confident that it will improve soon: “I just have to get through it.” Riina Kaartamo from Finland also believes that she will make progress. “I live together with a Portuguese woman. Until now we actually talk in English, but we will start to speak in Portuguese soon”, the 27year old student of psychology says.

All students of Vanise Amaral’s class agree that Portuguese is not an easy language to learn, their problems however are different. “For me the ‘sh, sh, sh’ is the most difficult”, says Elena Bartolozzo from Italy as she grimaces and makes sibilant sounds. Her neighbour Ewa Pol from Poland disagrees: “That is easy for me because we have that in Polish as well. I think it’s hard that one word can have so many meanings.”

Vanise Amaral has been teaching Portuguese to Erasmus students for twelve years and she knows that it is not easy to learn the language and also that there are differences concerning the nationality of the students. “In the beginning some students are always about to give up, but when the course is finished, they are able to say at least the most basic things”, the likeable elder lady says.

Many seats are empty in classroom 1F this Friday morning and the experienced teacher knows the reason. “In the first week, everybody –about 40 people - comes here at eight o’clock. Then they find friends and start to arrive at nine or ten, being very tired”, the woman who was born in Porto says and smiles indulgently.

“Portuguese people like when people speak their language ” says the teacher. For student Ewa Pol, there was no question that she would take Portugese classes: “ I am staying here for one year and for me it would be a shame, if I didn’t speak a word of Portuguese after that ”, the 23year old student of architecture says. Luong Phuoc Hung from Italy adds that he wanted to enlarge his knowledge of language. Marialisa Fontanabona had more emotional reasons to learn Portuguese. “I love the language, but I don’t know the language yet”, she laughs.

In her twelve years of teaching students from different European countries, Vanise Amaral has noticed that there are differences between different countries. “People from the North are often shyer than people from the South, Italians for example are more open”, she says. After all, no matter where the students come from, to learn Portuguese they all have to work hard. Asked for the secret of how to learn the language as fast as possible, the experienced language teacher says: “The best way is to try to speak to Portuguese, to try to communicate with people and read the news. But of course you have to learn the grammar”, she says almost a bit apologetically.

Text: Sabine Stang
Photo: Filip Jurzyk