The woman at the register is staring at me expectantly.
She’s asked me something in Portuguese.
It’s not about wanting a bag (saco) or how I want to pay (pagar).
Her words were so unfamiliar that they didn’t even register.
I shake my head no, hoping it’s the correct response to the question I failed to understand, and somehow manage to make my purchases and leave, blushing furiously.
***
For my first two years in Portugal, that was more or less my experience with the language.
A person would say something and my mind would be screaming, “I don’t understand Portuguese!” so loudly that – you guessed it – I couldn’t understand a word. Even the situational context couldn’t get through the racket in my head.
Then something shifted in January of this year.
I committed to really learning Portuguese.
Not five minutes a day of dabbling with apps and online lessons. Not an occasional tutoring session.
I was in for real.
It’s still taken a bit to carve out the time and identify the most effective studying pattern, but it’s happening.
The biggest change isn’t what I’m doing; it’s the fact that fear is no longer stopping up my ears.
And now I’m celebrating because…
…last night I had my first honest-to-goodness conversation in Portuguese.
Naturally, it happened in an Uber.
Uber drivers make excellent language-learning partners. A casual social interaction with a (sometimes willing and friendly) human. Low stakes. You’ll never see them again if you make an ass of yourself.
This particular driver was magnífico.
She spoke with extreme slowness, used simple words, and paused after each sentence to ask if I understood.
She remarked on the hot weather. She told me about how her Ukrainian husband learned Portuguese by sending messages. She complained about the English neighbor who’s lived in Portugal for twenty-five years and only knows how to say thank you, beer, and wine.
She told me Portuguese is difficult because there are so many words to describe the same thing, giving car (carro) as an example.
And she praised me for learning the language.
All in Portuguese.
I understood maybe 70% and was able to fill in the gaps, and even respond in simple Portuguese.
For someone who spent the last two years mentally stuffing cotton in my ears at the first sound of an unfamiliar sentence, this was huge.
It’s not that learning a language is suddenly easy. I simply stopped scaring myself out of trying.
It makes me wonder…where else in my life I might be limiting what’s possible because I’m simply afraid to try?
Life is remarkably responsive to willingness.
I was willing to listen, stumble, and sound imperfect, so life sent me a kind Uber driver and a real conversation.
I gave her an extra big tip for the lesson.
Yours in love and play,
Steph 🐲❤️
P.S. This Uber driver was an entirely different one from the driver who took eight days to return my lost keys to me.
P.P.S. Maybe I should write a book: Adventures of a Clueless American in Portugal with Uber.
