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Oi, pessoal!
I had the pleasure of interviewing my student Eva Bándi Maťová for my YouTube channel, and I’m thrilled to share this interview with you.
Eva is a member of the Speaking Brazilian Academy, my program for intermediate and advanced students.
Besides Slovak (her native language), Eva speaks English, French, and Portuguese fluently. She also studies other languages, such as Hungarian, German, Russian, and Spanish.
Here are some takeaways from this interview:
1- What inspired you to learn Portuguese?
Eva said she decided to learn Portuguese because she fell in love with Brazilian music.
“Eu decidi aprender português por causa do amor, mas amor pela música brasileira, porque um dia eu ouvi uma música da banda Natiruts (…) uma banda de reggae brasileira. Eu me apaixonei pelo som da língua portuguesa.”
“I decided to learn Portuguese because of love, but it was love for Brazilian music because one day I heard a song by the band Natiruts (…) a Brazilian reggae band. I fell in love with the sound of the Portuguese language.”
2- Do you think that learning other languages before helped you to learn Portuguese?
Eva believes that all the languages she learned before helped her with her Portuguese, especially French.
“Eu já falava francês antes de começar a aprender português. E como as duas línguas são línguas românicas, elas vêm do latim, eu notei que tem muitas palavras similares e também tem algumas características gramaticais, podemos dizer, em comum.”
“I already spoke French before starting to learn Portuguese. And since both languages are Romance languages, they come from Latin, I noticed that they have a lot of similar words and also have some grammatical characteristics, we can say, in common.”
3- What have you been doing to develop your skills in Portuguese (speaking, listening, reading, and writing)?
Here’s how Eva develops her language skills in Portuguese:
- Ouvir (listening):
Eva likes to listen to travel podcasts and watch our Youtube channel. She believes that listening to different accents is really important to get used to the different ways people use the language.
- Ler (reading):
Eva reads books from Brazilian authors, such as Paulo Coelho, who is a famous Brazilian author.
- Falar (speaking):
Eva joined the Speaking Brazilian Academy to practice conversation every week with a Brazilian teacher and a group of students. She also likes to talk to herself in Portuguese.
- Escrever (writing):
Eva posts her written homework on the Speaking Brazilian Academy website to receive feedback from the teacher. She also likes to write a few sentences about her day in a journal.
4 – What tip would you give to those who want to learn or improve their Portuguese?
These are the tips Eva gave us to help you improve your Portuguese:
- Practice a little bit every day
“Para mim, é muito, muito importante estudar todos os dias, pelo menos, não sei… vinte minutos. Acho que todos podemos achar dez, vinte minutos para estudar se queremos. Acho que isso é melhor do que fazer duas horas só uma vez por semana.
“For me, it’s very, very important to study every day for at least twenty minutes. I think we can all find ten, twenty minutes to study if we want to. I think this is better than doing two hours just once a week.”
- Write sentences with the vocabulary that you have learned
Também diria evite memorizar todo o conteúdo, porque é muito fácil esquecer tudo, todas as regras gramaticais. (…) Em vez disso, eu diria, escreva frases usando a gramática que você aprendeu e o vocabulário que você aprendeu.
“I would also say avoid memorizing all the content because it is very easy to forget everything, all the grammar rules. (…) Instead, I would say, write sentences using the grammar you’ve learned and the vocabulary you’ve learned”
- Use social media to learn
“Se você gosta de usar as redes sociais, siga brasileiros, não só professores, outras pessoas também. Siga brasileiros nas redes sociais para consumir mais conteúdo em português e aprender sobre a cultura também.”
“If you like to use social media, follow Brazilians, not just teachers, but other people too. Follow Brazilians on social media to consume more content in Portuguese and learn about the culture.”
If you’re interested in learning more about Eva, follow her Instagram language learning account: @eva_learns_languages
I hope you enjoyed this interview as much as we did!
Até a próxima!
Speaking Brazilian School Team
Speaking Brazilian Academy
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