Monday January 18th

Buried somewhere in my shipment there is an old school report of Steve's with a comment from his French teacher along the lines, "Stephen's accent is excruciating".

Well, let me tell you that his attempt at Portugese is not much better, but at least he is trying. He gets up early most working days and starts with 1 and a half hours of Portugese lessons. I resume mine next week. But for the moment there is a lot of arm waving, nodding and puzzled looks.

We have had several attempts at learning languages over the years.

In the Philippines, most people, and even those with relatively little education spoke English. But here is a funny thing. When ever you spoke to a maid, driver or shop assistant etc, they automatically replied "Yes Ma'am." We learned the hard way that, "yes ma'am," translates as " I may have heard you but I have absolutely no idea what you are actually saying." So in the Philippines everything you said had to be followed up to ensure that it had been understood and actually happened.

Turkish was very difficult and I soon leaned that the educated classes spoke really good English so it was just a question of communicating with the cleaner. More arm waving, pointing and nodding ensued. A pile of ironing and an ironing board gave a fairly good idea of what was required.

In Sweden, again I gave up, not just because the Swedes learn English almost from birth, but mainly because they make a funny sound that English speakers have great difficulty in replicating. It involves putting your tongue behind your lower front teeth, curling your tongue and whistling through the gap. Try as I might, I never mastered this sound and given that you need it to say the number 7 and my phone number consisted of at least 4 "7's" I figured I was never going to do it and may as well give up.

France was much easier, not least because I have 6 years of high school French under my belt. Even so, communicating with the plumber or the gardener requires a whole different vocabulary than tourist French.

Even in American, there is American English and UK English. To begin with I resisted the American version but quickly realised that we really are "two countries separated by a common language". When I was pulled over for speeding and the traffic cop asked for my driver's license (which I had left in the trunk,) I immediately said, "it's in the boot". He looked at me as if I was mad but then smiled and said how "he was a sucker for an English accent." Needless to say, he let me off the ticket.

So think of me next week as I wrestle with Portugese. Not the prettiest language there is, but for now very practical.

Obrigada