Class #8 Juliet with Alexia - August 19, 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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Two weeks with no Portuguese at all and you still talked for the full hour, which Alexia said out loud at the end before you'd even asked: today covered the summer renovation at school and the art room that's currently just bagunça, the shepherd's hut that arrived last week and has no Portuguese name, the lobster curtains you made for it, the first rain in England in six weeks, Alexia's allergy and her air conditioning standoff with an Airbnb owner in Cyprus, your theory about how a Swiss person and a Cypriot mechanic each handle an instruction, the trip to the Brazilian consulate and the CPF you finally have, green and yellow bikinis, the suitcase telephone of thirty years ago, and your ambition to become a better-looking Yoda.

The real improvement was recovery. Almost every time Alexia handed you one missing word you rebuilt the whole sentence around it rather than nodding and moving on, and twice you caught yourself mid-word and fixed it, including orgulhoso to orgulhosa. The England obligation sentence is the clearest example: you got maior, then rebuilt both halves from the top and Alexia said perfeito twice. The one thing to carry into the next class is the subjunctive. It turned up four separate times in this hour, starting in your very first sentence of the day, and it's the single structure that would most change how your Portuguese sounds. All four are collected at the bottom of this page.

🏫 A escola, o verão e a bagunça

Uma sala para artes — an art room (sala is the room; quarto is specifically a bedroom, so an art quarto would put beds in it)

A sala de aula — the classroom

A bagunça — the mess (uma sala de bagunça)

O caos — the chaos (uma sala de caos, which is what you actually said, and it works)

As máquinas de costura — the sewing machines

A costura — sewing

O prédio — the building

Renovar — to renovate, to do up

Chegou na semana passada — it arrived last week

Durante o verão é o momento de renovar as coisas da escola. That's the sentence you built with Alexia, and the summer holidays being the window for all of it is a detail that translates across every school in the world.

🛖 A cabana e as cortinas de lagosta

This one defeated Portuguese entirely. There is no word for a shepherd's hut, because there are no shepherd's huts, and Alexia went looking for one for a good minute before landing on cabana.

A cabana — the hut, the cabin (the closest Portuguese gets)

A barraca — the tent, the stall (another near neighbour)

O bangalô — the bungalow

As cortinas — the curtains

O tecido — the fabric (not fábrica, which is a factory, and not matéria)

As lagostas — the lobsters

Com desenho de lagostas — with a lobster print (literally with a drawing of lobsters, which is how Portuguese describes patterned fabric)

Chamativo — eye-catching, loud (um verde mais chamativo)

Vibrante — vibrant

As cores pastéis — pastel colours (singular: a cor pastel)

Hortelã-pimenta — peppermint (the green Alexia had behind her, and she checked herself twice before committing to the word)

É uma casa de boneca — it's a doll's house

É como brincar — it's like playing

Todas as coisas são pequenas. É uma casa de boneca. You went looking for jogar here, which is the play of games and sport. The word you wanted is brincar, the play of children, and it's the right one: making tiny lobster curtains for a tiny building is technically work, but it isn't really, and you said so yourself.

🌧️ Aguentar, o calor e a obrigação do sol

Fanha — nasal-sounding (Alexia's word for her own voice, courtesy of the allergy; estou mais fanha do que o normal)

Estou com alergia — I have allergies (estar com, not ter, for a temporary condition)

Aguentar — to bear it, to put up with it, to cope

Não tem sistema imunológico que aguente — there's no immune system that can take it (Alexia on 38 degrees one day and 22 the next)

Eu não aguento aquela pessoa — I can't stand that person

Eu não aguento fazer as coisas chatas — I can't bear doing the boring things

Eu não aguento mais chuva — I can't take any more rain

Chato / chata — boring, annoying (one of the most-used adjectives in Brazilian Portuguese)

É o primeiro dia de chuva — it's the first day of rain

É a primeira vez que chove em seis semanas — it's the first time it's rained in six weeks

Estava quente — it was hot (the backdrop of a period, so estava rather than foi)

A obrigação — the obligation

O tempo é belíssimo — the weather is gorgeous

Você pode imaginar que na Inglaterra a obrigação é maior — you can imagine that in England the obligation is greater

Ninguém sabe quando o próximo dia de sol vai chegar — nobody knows when the next sunny day will arrive

The whole exchange about obligation was yours. Alexia described feeling for the first time this year that a sunny day in Porto has to be used, and you immediately extended it: in England the obligation is bigger, precisely because nobody knows when the next one is coming. That's a real idea, argued in Portuguese, and it's the kind of thing worth noticing that you can now do.

🚗 Chipre, os suíços e o ar condicionado

O Chipre — Cyprus (pronounced "SHI-pre"; the CH is always the English SH sound in Portuguese, never a K)

Cipriota — Cypriot

Os suíços — the Swiss (as suíças for the women)

Metódico — methodical

O espaço aéreo — the airspace (eles podiam fechar o espaço aéreo)

A guerra — the war

Você leva o seu carro para o mecânico — you take your car to the mechanic

Quero que você faça tal coisa — I want you to do such-and-such (and there's the subjunctive again: quero que forces faça, never faz)

Tal coisa — such-and-such, this or that (the placeholder Portuguese uses when the specific thing doesn't matter)

E depois você vai buscar o carro — and then you go and collect the car (buscar is to fetch or collect, not to look for, in this context)

Desligar — to switch off (ligar is to switch on)

O ar condicionado — the air conditioning

Maior — bigger (and never "mais grande", which is the Spanish construction and the single most common Spanish leak into Portuguese)

The observation here was entirely yours. You said a Swiss person receives an instruction and does exactly that, while a Cypriot mechanic does whatever he thinks is best for you, and Alexia's Airbnb story turned out to be the same pattern: the owner rang her to say the air conditioning should only go on at night, and set to room temperature, in 37 degree heat. Her version of your rule, which she wrote in the chat: se o dono do Airbnb acha que é melhor desligar o ar condicionado, é melhor fazer. Her verdict on Brazilians is that they're closer to the Cypriots than to the Swiss.

🪪 O CPF, o consulado e o subjuntivo

Eu estou orgulhosa — I am proud (orgulhoso for a man; you corrected yourself to the feminine mid-sentence)

O CPF — the Brazilian tax and identity number

O NIF — the Portuguese equivalent

O número da carteira de identidade brasileira — the Brazilian ID card number

Estavam — they were (they were something on that occasion; as pessoas estavam felizes)

Restrito — restrained, buttoned-up

Sério — serious

Uma procuração — a power of attorney

Não queria fazer algo errado — I didn't want to do anything wrong

Talvez porque eu seja estrangeira — maybe because I'm a foreigner

Three months from starting in Rio to a document in your hand, and no card, which is the part that puzzled you. The grammar came straight out of that puzzle. Talvez porque eu seja estrangeira takes the subjunctive, and the reason is precise: being a foreigner isn't the doubt, since that's simply true. The doubt is why you don't have the card. Talvez carries that doubt, and seja carries the talvez.

The consulate itself was the good story. You'd been to consulates before and never seen one with a party atmosphere, and Alexia's counter-example was renewing her Brazilian passport in Porto, being served entirely by Portuguese staff, one delightful and one robotic, and being told that a procuração wouldn't help because only Alexia herself could collect it. Her comment: como um suíço.

📱 Cafona: bandeira, biquíni e o celular de 2005

Cafona — tacky, naff, cheesy (Alexia's word, and one of the most useful adjectives she's given you)

A bandeira — the flag

Verde e amarelo — green and yellow

Ordem e Progresso — Order and Progress (what's written on the Brazilian flag)

Eu sou brasileira — I am Brazilian (where English says "I am Germany" on a shirt, Portuguese needs the nationality, not the country)

Trinta anos atrás — thirty years ago

As primeiras pessoas tinham — the first people had

O telefone — the telephone (te-le-FO-ne; the stress is on the third syllable, not the second)

O celular — the mobile phone

Estava dentro, como se fosse uma mala — it was inside, as if it were a suitcase (como se always takes fosse)

Levavam para todos os lugares — they took it everywhere

A mala significava status — the suitcase meant status

Dois mil e cinco — two thousand and five (years are read out in full in Portuguese, so 2005 is dois mil e cinco)

O som do celular — the ringtone

This section was almost entirely you. The green and yellow bikini as a reliable way to spot a Brazilian in Brighton, the brick phone that came in a case and was carried everywhere because the case itself was the status symbol, and the 2005 Prada phone whose ringtone announced Prada calling, which is a genuinely cafona detail. Alexia's contribution was her teenage Blackberry and her father's assessment of it: isso é o walkie talkie moderno.

🧘 Mulheres sábias e o Yoda mais bonita

Maduro / madura — mature

Consciente — aware, conscious

Sábio / sábia — wise

Uma pessoa sábia — a wise person

Profundo — profound, deep

A ambição — the ambition

A minha ambição é ser um Yoda mais bonita — my ambition is to be a better-looking Yoda

Nós somos mais maduras, mais conscientes. Somos mulheres sábias. The exchange got there through the tacky phones: everyone has done cafona things, and the only thing to do is be grateful for how far you've come. Alexia has never seen a Star Wars film, so the Yoda ambition needed explaining before she could agree with it. She agreed with it.

🗣️ Pronúncia e uma diferença que vale guardar

These were the words Alexia stopped you on today. None of them are difficult words; they're all words where the stress or a vowel goes somewhere English wouldn't put it.

Quente — hot

Outra — other, another

Diferença — difference

Ontem — yesterday

Três — three

Telefone — telephone

Chipre — Cyprus

And the pair worth keeping separate:

A cabana — the hut, the cabin (a small building you can walk into)

A cabine — the cabin, the booth (a cabine do avião, a cabine telefônica)

🎯 O subjuntivo, quatro vezes numa hora

Collected here because they came from four completely unrelated moments, which is exactly the point. This isn't an advanced structure you'll need one day. It's already inside the sentences you're building now.

Antes que os alunos cheguem — before the students arrive (antes que always takes the subjunctive; this was your first sentence of the day and you said chegam)

Não tem sistema imunológico que aguente — there's no immune system that can take it (the thing being described doesn't exist, so the verb goes subjunctive)

Quero que você faça tal coisa — I want you to do such-and-such (querer que, exactly like the quero que sentences from Class #6)

Talvez porque eu seja estrangeira — maybe because I'm a foreigner (talvez plus doubt)

📚 Homework

1. Sign up for Globoplay and find something you actually want to watch

This is the assignment Alexia set at the end, and it's the payoff for three months of CPF paperwork. Globoplay is the Brazilian Netflix, and the CPF is what lets you subscribe. Find programmes you like, watch some of them, and come to the next class ready to tell her how the experience was: what you chose, what you understood, what went completely over your head. If you want suggestions before you start, message and Alexia will send some.

2. Say the four subjunctive sentences out loud until they stop feeling like grammar

Antes que os alunos cheguem. Não tem sistema imunológico que aguente. Quero que você faça tal coisa. Talvez porque eu seja estrangeira. Four sentences, thirty seconds a day. You already know the rule; what's missing is the reflex, and the reflex only comes from your mouth, not from the page.

3. Drill the seven words Alexia stopped you on

Quente, outra, diferença, ontem, três, telefone, Chipre. Record yourself saying them if you can. Chipre is the one with a rule attached that pays off elsewhere: CH is always SH in Portuguese, so chegar, chuva, chato and chamativo all follow the same pattern.

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