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I Dare You to Join the Babel

The Babel is a publication for human stories about our experience with languages

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I have the heart of a language teacher and the soul of a linguist and literature researcher. 25 years ago, when I first set foot in the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Porto, I knew I had found my calling.

But my passion for languages and literature started well before then, possibly when I first learned to form sentences and explore my grandparents' bookshelves.

I taught myself to understand and speak English by watching TV.

English-language content, with subtitles, has traditionally dominated Portuguese television, including cartoons, series, and movies.

So by age ten, when I formally started learning English in school, I was already fluent in my second language.

When I was twelve, I started learning French.

When I was sixteen, it was Latin.

Nowadays, I teach Portuguese, English, French, and Latin. I also speak Spanish and Italian.