Posted by giveawayboy on March 06, 2001 at 16:02:17:
In Reply to: Re: the whole Português thing..... posted by John on March 05, 2001 at 08:06:35:
: Perhaps I do have some advice after all, actually it is from Tomomi in Japan, but he says you have to switch brains. Quit thinking in English and think in the other language. After some time you will be able to switch rapidly, or even use both, but when you are learning, you have to make a serious shift. Try NOT allowing English at all when you wish to speak Portuguese. This will stop the brain from dipping back to English, which if it hears will be the easier to handle, and will lose the Portuguese brain. Also, advice from Iako, Alisa's former roommate, speak out loud to yourself all the time, like "I am washing my hands. I am washing my hands to make them clean. I am using soap." And so forth, it helps to embed the phrases in your mind so they can spring out when needed. Hope that helps.
John! Wow! This helped alot! I was already doing some of these things. But the part about thinking in the other language really helped me. Also Iako's advice. It's so neat how we can learn from people we've never even met. I love that. If you ever talk to Iako, you must tell her I said "THANKS". O.K. Off to go think in Portuguese.
Bill