Class #6 Juliet with Alexia - July, 29, 2026

note: this is a recording of your private coaching session with Alexia. No one will see it except you, Alexia, and Foster 🙏

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Session summary

This one was yours from start to finish. You arrived with a question you'd been working through with ChatGPT that morning ("a confiança vem antes ou depois de fazer algo?"), the six-step methodology you're building for the weekly class you've decided to teach next school year, and a story about a boy on a diving board who never jumps. Class #5's homework was to bring a story, and you brought one good enough that Alexia's only notes on it were pronunciation. Along the way we drilled the quero que / para que subjunctive that runs through nearly every sentence you need to describe your method, sorted out pôr vs. colocar, and went looking for the words Portuguese doesn't have for ownership and accountability. Your own verdict at the end: it's getting smoother. Alexia agreed, and said it's feeling more organic.

🤖 ChatGPT as a study partner, and where to be careful

precisamos ter cuidado — we need to be careful (you first reached for "caução," which is a security deposit; "cuidado" is care or caution)

as citações — the quotations, the citations (Alexia first heard "situações"; in fast speech they're close, so lean into the hard c)

as fontes — the sources

perigoso — dangerous (pe-ri-GO-so)

Algumas coisas não são corretas, mas se a gente sabe isso, funciona. É perigoso se a gente precisa escrever uma coisa para a faculdade. The instructions you gave it were the right ones: corrige a minha pronúncia, faz perguntas, começa fácil e aumenta a dificuldade. Alexia's version of the same story is her father arguing with ChatGPT in English and refusing to back down when she tells him it's wrong.

🧠 De cor and decorar

de cor — by heart (the same image as the English "off by heart")

decorar — to memorise (same root; it also means "to decorate," and context decides which)

Eu quero aprender essa história e falar de cor. Eu precisei decorar a história.

🎯 Quero que and para que: the subjunctive spine of your methodology

This was the real grammar work of the hour. Almost every sentence describing your method needs the subjunctive, because you're talking about what you want other people to do.

quero que os alunos aprendam — I want the students to learn (not "aprendem"; "quero que" forces the subjunctive)

quero que os alunos queiram participar — I want the students to want to participate (querer inside querer; queiram is the form worth memorising)

quero que os temas sejam profundos — I want the themes to be deep

quero que cada aula tenha seis passos — I want each class to have six steps

para que — so that (the "so that" you were reaching for, and it takes the subjunctive too)

The full sentence you built, cleaned up: Eu quero desenvolver uma metodologia para que os alunos pensem sobre uma ideia maior e aprendam oito palavras. E quero que cada aula tenha seis passos, para que eu não precise pensar cada semana.

Eu decidi — I decided (not "eu me decidi")

simultaneamente — simultaneously (no circumflex on the e; sim-ul-ta-ne-a-MEN-te)

Eu decidi ensinar uma vez por semana no próximo ano escolar. Quero que os alunos aprendam simultaneamente o vocabulário e que as histórias provoquem pensamentos.

🧾 A lousa, and everything on it

a lousa — the board (Alexia got goosebumps at this one; it's the word from her school days and she hadn't heard it in years)

a lousa branca — the whiteboard

a lousa preta — the blackboard

a caneta (para lousa) — the (whiteboard) marker

o giz — the chalk

preto — black

branco — white

Se for lousa branca, você usa a caneta. Se for lousa preta, você usa o giz. A Suécia parou de usar computadores e voltou para as lousas.

Your opening question, the one that goes on the board: A confiança vem antes ou depois de fazer algo? Alexia's answer, and yours: dependendo da situação, os dois.

🤸 Your trampoline story: pronunciation

Alexia's only corrections on the story itself were pronunciation, which is worth sitting with for a second.

o trampolim — the diving board (nasal ending: tram-po-LIM)

subiu — he climbed (force the u at the end: su-BIU)

pulou — he jumped (pu-LÔ)

ela passa por ele — she goes past him (passa, not "passar")

a menina — the girl (the Portuguese sound, not the Spanish one)

ninguém — nobody (nasal: nin-GUEIM)

pequeno — small (again, not the Spanish version)

fofa — cute (Alexia's verdict on the story: uma história muito fofa, mas que diz muito)

The line that landed: Ninguém se sente pronto. Alexia's expansion of it was that nobody feels ready to move country, to have a child, to get married, to do anything at all, until they do it. Her own tiny experiment this year was deciding to sell her ceramics without believing they were good enough. They sell.

🗣️ Pôr vs. colocar

pôr — to put, to place (shorter, and more common in simple spoken Portuguese)

colocar — to put, to place, to set (slightly more neutral or tidy-sounding)

They mean the same thing. Pôr is what you'll hear constantly in speech: Põe isso na mesa. Pus o livro na bolsa. Colocar is the safe, neutral option: Coloque isso na mesa. Vou colocar os meus fones. Vou colocar a minha blusa.

The catch is that pôr is irregular in the past: eu pus, você pôs, nós pusemos. Colocar is regular: eu coloquei, você colocou, nós colocamos. If you want a single rule that never fails you, use colocar.

👥 A gente always includes you

a gente — we (and you are always inside it, which is the whole point)

You said a gente compra about people buying Alexia's ceramics, which quietly put you among the buyers. The fix is as pessoas compram — people buy. This is exactly where Portuguese and German split: German "man" is impersonal, Portuguese "a gente" never is.

fora das aulas — outside of class (the opposite of dentro)

Posso fazer as coisas fora das aulas porque já tenho confiança que funciona. As aulas não são suficientes para aprender.

💪 Responsabilidade, and the words Portuguese doesn't have

a responsabilidade — responsibility (res-pon-sa-bi-li-DA-de; "sa" is the syllable that keeps escaping)

cobrar alguém — to hold someone accountable (the closest Portuguese gets; literally to charge, or to chase someone up)

Você precisa de alguém que cobre você do seu progresso.

There is no clean Portuguese word for either ownership or accountability, which is why Alexia uses the English ones with Foster. Her Portuguese version of the idea: é um problema de responsabilidade daquilo que você faz ou deixa de fazer durante o aprendizado.

o aprendizado — the learning, the learning process

Your read on it was that a missing word can be a reflection of the culture, and Alexia agreed: o brasileiro é sempre assim, "vai dar certo," "a gente vai dar um jeito," "não se preocupa."

🌍 Vergonha alheia, Schadenfreude, karma

alheio / alheia — belonging to someone else, none of your business

vergonha alheia — secondhand embarrassment (the Portuguese for German Fremdschämen; it exists, and it's exact)

coisa alheia — someone else's thing

vida alheia — other people's lives

assunto alheio — a matter that doesn't concern you

Schadenfreude has no Portuguese equivalent. The nearest moves are é karma when someone had it coming, and ficar feliz que não aconteceu comigo for the ordinary human version of relief. Being glad it happened to someone else is a different thing, and Portuguese leaves it unnamed.

🇸🇪 Suécia vs. Suíça

a Suécia — Sweden

a Suíça — Switzerland

Não é o mesmo país. — It's not the same country.

One letter apart in Portuguese, two very different places. This came out of Alexia's story about being introduced to an Ecuadorian woman at an American party on the theory that they'd get along, despite Alexia not speaking Spanish and never having been to Ecuador.

👰 Family vocabulary for the wedding

a sogra — mother-in-law

a cunhada — sister-in-law

a prima — cousin (female)

a noiva — the bride (here, Foster's younger cousin)

a tia — aunt

Somente para as mulheres. Mais quarenta mulheres. São mulheres demais.

as pessoas vão sorrir — people are going to smile

minha cara fica doendo — my face ends up hurting (from smiling when the smile isn't fully authentic; "fica doendo," not "adoente")

vocês duas — you two (vocês on its own is just plural "you"; duas is what makes it "you two")

🩺 Health vocabulary from Foster's family news

Alexia opened with an update on Foster's father, which brought a run of medical vocabulary.

uma doença autoimune — an autoimmune disease

uma doença rara — a rare disease (this one affects two in every hundred thousand people)

GPA, granulomatose com poliangiite — granulomatosis with polyangiitis (causes inflammation of the blood vessels, mainly in the nose, sinuses, lungs and kidneys)

a diverticulite — diverticulitis (an illness in the intestine)

o cólon — the colon

uma cirurgia — a surgery

estar em recuperação — to be recovering

Foster's father was diagnosed in May, then developed diverticulitis that reached the colon, and had surgery in June to remove part of it. He's recovering. Foster travels ahead; Alexia arrives on 9 September for his cousin's wedding.

✅ Small fixes worth keeping

Ajudou muito. — It helped a lot. (you reached for "foi ajudante"; the natural phrase is ajudou muito)

a coincidência — the coincidence

Que mudou. — That changed.

Era muito difícil aprender sozinho. — It was very hard to learn alone. (era for the backdrop, straight out of Class #5, and you produced it without help)

📚 Homework

1. Bring a new story for Friday

Alexia's assignment, straight from the end of the class: come to Friday's session with a new story and you'll work on it together. Today proved the format works. Preparing the story in advance gave you a topic you could actually speak from, which is exactly the confidence loop you were describing.

2. Say your methodology sentences out loud until they're automatic

Quero que os alunos aprendam. Quero que os alunos queiram participar. Quero que os temas sejam profundos. Quero que cada aula tenha seis passos. You will need these every single time you describe your teaching, so they're worth owning cold rather than rebuilding from scratch each time.

3. Keep going with ChatGPT, and keep the guardrail

Your prompts were good ones. Keep using them, and keep treating any citation, source, or book title it gives you as unverified until you've checked it yourself.

Want more homework or have any questions? Message us on WhatsApp anytime.