A1 Portuguese class
I'm in my online Portuguese class. I should be paying attention, but ADD.
So I'm typing this while "paying attention."

The class is only okay. It's week three and the teacher is still working off
her phone because her laptop has gone missing. She's dragging us through a
very basic textbook, and now that I know how the class goes I could work ahead
because it's very hard to do in class. 

There's one woman in the class who has been through the class before and
still doesn't know basic, day-one words like "bem" (good) and "quer" (what).
I don't hold out high hopes for her. 

I'm learning (again) the profound power of being able to do accents. Who
knew that a skill I started picking up when I was 13, doing stupid Monty
Python sketches in school, would help me now? I say I learned it again, 
becuase WAY back in 1987 on my honeymoon we went to Paris. We were trying
to ask a question about an "administration" building. They didn't know 
WHAT we were saying until I imitated Peter Sellers' bad French accent
and said "Buildeeeng du administraasion," and the person just turned and
pointed the right direction.

Likewise this class. I'm (also) listening to a Michel Thomas audio course
and when I speak Portuguese in class I imitate the Portuguese speaker from
that course. I am rarely corrected on my pronunciation in class. The actual
content may be entirely wrong, but I at least sound good.

I mention that because it's so very painful to listen to my classmates
slaughter these words. For example, a final 'm' on a word is nasalized
and nearly silent. Hence the word for yes, 'sim,' is pronounced exactly
like the Spanish 'si,' with a very slight nasal hum on the end. The
word "Berlin" translates to "Berlim" and sounds almost exactly like 
the English "Berlin."

Forget that. My colleagues are all "sim" as in "Sim-City" to different 
degrees and they try to different degrees. But I keep wanting to say
"Cop a Portuguese accent, imitate the teacher." It feels like they are
embarassed to try to make unfamiliar mouth-noises, but dang you GOTTA be
willing to make unfamiliar mouth-noises. And I've been making these noises
since I was a tween.

Which is not to say I'm any better at Portuguese than my classmates, but
I SOUND better. It's all about style!

Meanwhile I can't understand one word in a hundred spoken to me.