Learning a new language: Navigating Porto Alegre as an English-speaking Summer Intern
Portuguese isn’t an easy language to learn — as a summer intern from the United States, I came to Poatek knowing very little Portuguese. Although I’m not fluent, I’ve learned a lot of essential phrases and vocabulary that help me navigate Porto Alegre.
For context, Porto Alegre has very few tourists. The central tourist locations in Brazil are São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. It’s easier to get around these cities without speaking Portuguese because many people can speak English. Because of the larger concentration of tourists, a lot of the restaurants, museums, and other locations around the city have English translations. In Porto Alegre, you might not find many people outside Poatek who understand or speak English.
Without understanding the language, body language helps a lot. This includes having people point in specific directions and use their hands to indicate yes, no, somewhat, and other answers to interrogative statements. I also learned some Spanish in high school, which helped me understand a bit more Portuguese since both languages have some similarities in their verb structure.
However, you need to understand some basics of Portuguese to order in restaurants, greet others, and ask basic questions. Throughout my time in Porto Alegre, I was able to learn basic phrases to order food, learn how to help an Uber driver navigate somewhere, and greet others. I would often have to use Google Translate to help me complete my sentences or say more difficult phrases.
Numbers are also extremely important to understand how much money you are spending on food, clothing, or other important items. And with spending, you’ll need to tell the cashier if you have a credit (crédito) or debit (débito) card. Knowing some Spanish, and understanding numbers came a lot quicker to me, and it was very helpful to know how much I’m spending on items.
If I were able to go back in time, I would have definitely spent more time in the coming months to learn more Portuguese. Through my time at Poatek, I’ve had the opportunity to gain lots of soft skills in communication and adaptation to new environments.
