Thanks so much for the warm invitation Sara.
That is wonderful that an International thread has been introduced.
I was also born in Lisbon, and grew up in the Borough of Sintra (17km) away from Lisbon in a little town which didn't have a building to be seen then as everyone lived off their land, and now the area is looking more like a city. I moved to London in the UK at 8 and a half, and have been here ever since.
I didn't speak a word of English beforehand, and I adapted well in school as had a separate teacher then, when in class. I also attended Portuguese schooling after English school, as my parents believed it was important to continue with it and keep my Portuguese language active. I have always spoken Portuguese with my parents.
As an adult sometimes I still find myself forgetting words, but it helps to be around Portuguese speaking people for the language to ignite. I even forget what some English words are sometimes, as I only know the basic English. I am fascinated and curious by words which I have never heard of and that tends to happen more in the English Language then the Portuguese.
As a youngster I loved writing in Portuguese, and later English peeked in and now I write all in English but I still love to read Portuguese, as I find the language moving and straight to the heart, which is my kind of writing.
My parents and I have always returned to Portugal every year for a month during the summer when I had holidays as a child. Originally we would fly there, and later as I got older (perhaps 10) we would take a car and drive to Portugal through France, Spain. It only took one night and one day but it was usually very tiring, and beautiful with the scenic routes.
I return on my own to Portugal every year, and when I can now either to visit the country or family. I feel appreciative of both countries as for me I am happy anywhere, and I enjoy discovering new ways of being and living.
Interestingly, the person I have been involved with 8 years now has always been fascinated by Portugal before they met me, and I taught them the basic Portuguese and they speak the basic well and understand the language. My partner's family is originally from Cyprus and so I started learning the basic Greek. They don't speak Greek themselves at home, but I always feel it's wonderful to understand the root of other cultures by learning their language.
It is wonderful to be on a multi-cultural forum, filled with such diversity and wide range of experiences.
I am Sara, born and raised in Lisbon, Portugal. The things I love the most about my country are the food, the wine, the people and the history. I've known a few people that have come to live here for a short time and could not leave. It's the cream pastries. They are addictive.
I write mostly in english because that's just how it comes out.
Small world, and it is amazing just to be born and grow up somewhere different.
Whereabouts in Lisbon did you grew up?
Sara, have you invited truelyana? She's Portuguese too...
Thank you Aruna.
I am here now.
We have a very big baking tradition. I know it's not very well known around the world and it's not like I've tried a lot of foreign baking, but there's no baking like ours.
History lesson: back in the middle ages, when the people donated foods to the gazzillion convents around the country, one of the foods the nuns received in excess was eggs. What better way to use them up than in baking? This explains a) why our baking is so rich - several convents came up with exclusive treats, b) why so many of our recipes use an absurd amount of eggs/yolks (one recipe calls for 30 yolks - and they are soooooo good) and c) why they are so yellow.
Pastéis de nata:
Tortas de Azeitão:
And my personal favorite - Dom Rodrigo:
I think I'm going to ask Mac for a drooling smilie.
Delicious cakes indeed! There is so much variety of cakes in Portugal, it is extremely mesmorising and they vary from area to area.
In the UK they call the 'pasteis de nata' custard cakes! It's amazing what the variations of translations are available. I'm more drawn to the 'bolo de arroz' also known as rice cake, or rice muffin;
I also enjoy cakes from the North of Portugal as my mum is originally from Geres, and although my dad lived most of his life in Lisbon he was also born in the same place my mum was.
We would travel to the North to see my grandparents and also had many cousins up there and enjoy the 'festas' (parties) in the parish towns with much festivities and food.
I like 'formigos' which translates ants. Not sure what it's called in English. It's made with bread, honey, cinammon, lemon peel, egg and other alternative ingredients if you wish. It's a matter of rolling up the bread with all the ingredients and then putting it in the fridge.
I also like 'rabanadas' which is made similar to American toast, with cinnamon and sugar sprinkled on top and the bread dipped in egg and milk, and then fried. Recently fried over 200 for a multicultural cooking event!
They are one of the Christmas deserts used by the Portuguese.
I also like this Cinnamon tube dessert with honey, quite popular again the Geres area. Forgotten what it's called, but it looks like a cigar with a white sugar coated cover. Very delicious! As you see there is a variety of desserts. I like much more, but this post is too long as it is. Just a snippet of more varieties of deserts, that Sara kindly started of with.
First of: great, big Muito Obrigado to Sara for the invite.
Next: Hi all!
Contrary to what's displayed on the left my name is Jos. (Griesmeel, Dutch for semolina, a nickname I got eating a plate of porridge, sort of rimes with my surname)
I was born and raised in the Netherlands (Hiya 10trackers!
) but have recently moved to Portugal (Hiya Sara!
) to move in with a wonderful Belarusian girlfriend in Lisbon.
I basically grew up with English on television, everything subtitled. Then in highschool the compulsory booklist for my English exams were so much more interesting than the Dutch one that I stuck with reading in English pretty much exclusively. Of my other language classes German sort of stuck but French never managed to get me interested.
Leaning Portuguese now is tricky, but I think I should just get out more.
I studied at a merchant marine academy when the Iron Curtain came down so, via some menial jobs, I ended up a server administrator. Last year, thoroughly fed up with office life and unable to get a job just yet, I moved and am now living of the sale of my house. Not entirely sure how my professional life will look in, say, three years but now I'm taking a serious swing at being a writer
Liking AW is easy, everything you ever wanted to know about writing and were not afraid to ask, and all that in good humour, pleasantly civilized.
How are you finding Lisbon?
Ditto, for enjoying AW. It's a very easy going place.
A question to all: Were you yourself raised bi-lingual? I find bi-lingualism of prime importance. People with two or more languages are the actual, and only, bridges between societies that speak different languages. They are the ones that draw communities together. It's so sad that in England today a second language is no longer compulsory in school.
As you know my story, Portuguese was my first language then gradually learnt English whilst in London. Spoke Portuguese with my parents, and with the students in Portuguese school even though they were more drawn to speaking English and spoke English in English school. Luckily had a variety of Portuguese, Spanish speaking friends as a youngster so used my Portuguese with them. I hadn't realized that a second language is no longer compulsory in English school. When did that come about? I learnt French whilst in Secondary school here in England, and it was compulsory and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
I was raised in portuguese only but when we moved to the US I had no choice but to learn english. The place we moved to was basically a community built around the university and many foreign students brought their families over. That meant a few foreign kids at school so every single public school there had a teacher whose sole purpose was to teach english to those kids.
Learning english for me was fairly easy. By Christmas I had grasped the basics and by Easter I was speaking well. I didn't need special classes any more after that one year. At home we always spoke in portuguese.
When we returned, I started two foreign languages in school, one being english (where I usually knew more than the teacher) and the other french. Two years later we only had to do one language. Even though english would be better for my average, I chose french; I ended up with a total of 4 years of french in high school. Reading my dad's huge franco-belgian comic book collection has been one way of not losing the language entirely.
Fast forward a bunch of years and now I have two kids. I try to do english at home but it's not easy. They always speak in portuguese and I forget to reply in english. My youngest specifically asks me not to speak in english. I have to make a very conscious effort to keep at it. My reasoning is that even though they don't really speak it, something stays in there and that is always a good thing.
I've heard/read that languages are easiest to learn when you're a kid, as that's when your brain is more permeable to that information. After adolescence, certain rewiring makes it harder to learn and it gets worse as you age. This is why those who have the opportunity to raise children in a bilingual environment should do so.
Griesmeel, I have met two moms raising children in trilingual environments: one was a hindi, english and portuguese combo, the other was a finnish, french and portuguese combo. These kids tend to learn to talk later than their peers but the end result is so very much worth it.
ETA: Forgot to add I write in english mainly because that's how it comes out. I think my muse is american.
That's a wonderful mix of Languages, and it's amazing how children grasp languages and what they would like to speak. Being open to learn and speak the language is always truly a worthwhile experience, even if there are difficulties throughout the course, that is still very much a part of the learning experience.
Diver, it's not uncommon for bilingual kids to mix up languages in the same sentence - they eventually sort things out.
I have done that in the past and still do sometimes, mix up words in the languages but that is because I forget the word and then I say it in English or the other way round in Portuguese. It's good, because then someone can correct me and I have a realization moment to help me dig deeper into that understanding of the word.
The joys of being a bi-lingual.
Wonderful eh!
