Class #9 with Alexia, October 27, 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

A long break, the news from São Paulo that brought the motivation back, and a full hour in Portuguese: from whether you need to start again (you don't), to the wedding Alexia went to in South Carolina and what a Bible Belt wedding looks like from the inside, to the twenty-three churches you counted from an Uber in Nashville, to the homeschooling conference with nine hundred women and the first one who told you about God's plan, to how people in the American South describe each other and what that says, to Foster's mother and the gardener, to songwriters' houses, the Bluebird and the cowboy boots you didn't buy, and it finished with expectation against reality at the Mona Lisa, the Eiffel Tower and the Cristo Redentor.

What improved is that you're building on Alexia's frames now rather than just repeating them. She gave you deve ser and you went straight on to deve ser incrível. She gave you a expectativa não vai ser realizada and you added e a decepção é predestinada on your own. She said foi algo extremamente difícil de ser feito about the Cristo, and two minutes later you closed the class with foi algo extremamente impressionante. And cafona, from Class #8, came out of your own mouth when you were describing the boots. The one thing to work on before Thursday is the past tense, and it's collected in the second-to-last section: fui and foi, era and foi, and eu vi.

🔄 Recomeçar ou dar continuidade

Era verão — it was summer (you said estava verano. Verano is Spanish; Portuguese is verão, and to set the scene, era)

Primavera — spring

Dar continuidade — to carry on with something already started

You opened by saying you hadn't spoken Portuguese for weeks, maybe months. Spring was intense, all Brazil and all Portuguese, and afterwards you were tired, then it was summer and you did nothing. What brought the motivation back was last week's news that the students and partners from São Paulo arrive in January.

You asked whether you need to começar de novo. Alexia's answer was no: you've already started, so what you need is to dar continuidade. The other half of that exchange was yours: às vezes uma pausa é uma boa coisa. Alexia agreed. After a month in the United States, with the first few days of a family wedding and a room full of people she'd never met, she needed one too.

💒 Um casamento no Bible Belt

Impecável — impeccable (the accent sits on the á: im-pe-CÁ-vel)

Foi um casamento muito americano — it was a very American wedding (you said fui. Fui is I went or I was; foi is it was.)

Não foi cafona — it wasn't tacky (you recognised cafona straight away from Class #8)

As pessoas eram muito religiosas? — were the people very religious? (you said são. Describing how things were takes eram, and pessoas is feminine, so religiosas, even when half of them are men)

Um jantar sentado — a sit-down dinner

Eles são presbiterianos — they're Presbyterian

The wedding was Foster's cousin's, and Alexia's verdict was impecável: not the kind of wedding she'd have herself, but for anyone who wants big and beautiful, it was perfect, and it wasn't cafona. The ceremony took thirty minutes, family only, about fifty people in the church. A Catholic ceremony runs a lot longer, and Alexia's reaction to that is chega, pelo amor de Deus.

The part she told her father about was the food. Instead of um jantar sentado there were food and drink stations all around the reception, so there was never a queue, and nobody ended up with cold food because the kitchen couldn't plate for everyone at once. Your point was the social side: at a seated dinner you don't know everyone at your table.

Then religion. Foster's family says grace before every meal, at home, in restaurants, at the wedding, and Alexia follows the tradition happily. She's Catholic without being a churchgoer, and she likes visiting Catholic churches as historic monuments, which is hard in South Carolina because there are so few. The big, wealthy churches there are the Baptist and evangelical ones. Foster's family is presbiteriana, and the Presbyterian and Lutheran churches are the quieter ones. There's a Bible in the Uber and a Bible in the hotel, and church is also the social week: you see your friends there and go on to brunch.

⛪ Vinte e três igrejas em vinte minutos

Não longe — not far

Eu vi — I saw (you said eu visto. That's the Spanish he visto; Portuguese uses one word: eu vi)

As igrejas — churches (you said iglesias)

You asked about religion because of Nashville, where you didn't expect life to be quite so religious. On one Uber ride from the centre to somewhere about twenty minutes out, não longe, you counted twenty-three igrejas, and big ones. Alexia's take is that Nashville is still Music City, but the churches are everywhere.

🏡 Novecentas mulheres e o plano de Deus

Por exemplo — for example

Eu fui numa conferência para mulheres que fazem educação dentro de casa — I went to a conference for women who homeschool (Alexia says homeschooling in conversation too; this is the full Portuguese)

Novecentos — nine hundred

Novecentas mulheres — nine hundred women (the hundreds agree with the noun: novecentos homens, novecentas mulheres)

As pessoas que eu encontrei lá — the people I met there

São liberais demais — they're too liberal

Eu não sabia disso — I didn't know that

O plano de Deus — God's plan

Foram palestrantes — they were the speakers

O segundo dia — the second day

The women at the conference had chosen to educate their children at home because they think schools são liberais demais, and you said honestly that you hadn't known that before you went. The first woman you met told you she was having another child: it wasn't her plan, it was o plano de Deus. Alexia's reply: bem-vinda ao Bible Belt.

Of nine hundred women, three were Black, and all three were there as palestrantes, not as part of the community. On the first day you sensed something was different without knowing what. On o segundo dia it was clear: everyone was white. In England, you said, you don't think about it.

👩‍🦰 A mulher ruiva e a cor do cabelo

Estão surpreendidas — they're surprised (pessoas again, so feminine)

A mulher ruiva — the red-haired woman (you asked for with red hair)

Nós dizemos — we say

A cor do cabelo — hair colour

Superficial — superficial

Alexia's observation from South Carolina is about how people describe each other. Ask who served you at a restaurant and the answer comes with a description: that very nice black lady. A white waiter gets no description at all. She never describes anyone that way. She goes by hair: loira, morena, ruiva, cabelo enrolado, cabelo liso, cabelo pintado, or olhos azuis.

The theories were yours. Maybe people say it because they're surprised, or because they don't want to give an impression of racism. Then the sharper one: we say a cor do cabelo because we notice hair, and perhaps many white people there notice only the colour of the skin and assume everything else is the same. You added that racism which looks superficial often goes much deeper. Alexia's view is that it comes from the history of the region: the person speaking isn't trying to be racist, and it's still preconceituoso.

🌳 O jardineiro e "I just did a very bad thing"

O jardineiro — gardener

É vergonhoso — it's embarrassing, shameful

Tão mal — so bad (ela se sentiu tão mal)

Parece chinês — it sounds like Chinese to me (the Portuguese version of "it's all Greek to me")

Foster's mother has a Mexican jardineiro who comes with his team, and most of them don't speak much English. One of them was blond and light-eyed, so she went straight to him and started speaking English. He was Mexican too, and didn't speak English. She came running to Alexia: I just did a very bad thing. Alexia told her she hadn't meant any harm, and she felt tão mal that it became funny.

Tão mal was the phrase that lost you, because said quickly tão runs into one syllable and it sounds like tá o mal. You said it sounded like Chinese, and that's an idiom in its own right: parece chinês.

🎸 Nashville: compositores, o Bluebird e as botas

Longe — far

É longe — it's far (you said longo, which is long. Longe is far.)

As experiências de Airbnb — Airbnb experiences

A gente pode visitar casas de músicos — we can visit musicians' homes

E a gente pode escrever música — and we can write music

Eu tinha duas telas de computador — I had two computer screens

A tela — screen

Abre a venda dos bilhetes exatamente uma semana antes do evento — ticket sales open exactly one week before the event

Surrealista — surreal

A despedida de solteira — hen party

A despedida de solteiro — stag do

Eu não encontrei botas bonitas — I didn't find any nice boots

Ou que não eram cafonas — or any that weren't tacky

E um pouco feias — and a bit ugly

A fazenda — farm

Fomos fortes — we were strong (you said éramos. One moment of resisting is fomos.)

Por um lado é bom estar sozinha, por outro seria melhor estar com colegas — on one hand it's good to be on your own, on the other it would be better to be with colleagues (you said colégios. Colégio is a school; colega is a colleague.)

South Carolina isn't next door to Tennessee, é longe, though Foster went to university in Tennessee, at Sewanee, not far from Nashville.

Your trip was all the good parts of Nashville. You found an Airbnb experience where you visit a songwriter's house and write a song with them. For the Bluebird, where abre a venda dos bilhetes exatamente uma semana antes do evento, you set up two screens for one show and one for the other, and got tickets for both. Sitting there felt surrealista, because it's a place you'd only ever seen on television.

Alexia has been once, for the Americana festival, and loved the live music everywhere. She was shocked by the strip: cowboy boots, despedidas de solteira, party bikes, everyone drinking, and this from someone who's done a lot of carnaval. You agreed: horrível.

On the boots, cafona was your word, and Alexia's answer was boa. She'd tried some on in Nashville too, and Foster asked when she'd ever wear them. They're expensive, e um pouco feias, unless one day you move to a fazenda. You said é difícil resistir à tentação, a whole sentence of your own, and then fomos fortes.

🗼 A expectativa, a Torre Eiffel e o Cristo

Algumas coisas — some things (you reached for somethings)

A expectativa — expectation

A expectativa é tão grande que vai existir uma decepção — the expectation is so big there's bound to be a disappointment (decepção is disappointment, not deception)

A expectativa não vai ser realizada — the expectation won't be met (you were reaching for fulfil)

A Torre Eiffel — the Eiffel Tower

O Cristo Redentor — Christ the Redeemer

Deve ser — must be (you asked for must be)

Foi algo extremamente difícil de ser feito — it was something extremely difficult to do

Impressionante — impressive

You built the expectation idea in three steps, and the last step was yours. After a expectativa não vai ser realizada you added e a decepção é predestinada, which nobody gave you. Decepção is a false friend worth fixing now: it's disappointment, never deception.

Alexia's classic example is the Mona Lisa: small, crowded, and what for? For you the Eiffel Tower lived up to it. The Cristo is the one you haven't seen, and you went straight from deve ser to deve ser incrível.

Alexia's explanation of what the Cristo means is worth reading twice, partly because of the grammar inside it. For someone who lives in Rio, é como se a gente acordasse todos os dias e ele tá lá, olhando pra gente, blessing the city. That's como se with the subjunctive, the same structure as como se fosse uma mala from Class #8. The word for what that means was yours: proteção. Her conclusion: não existe o Rio de Janeiro sem o Cristo Redentor, e não existe o Cristo Redentor sem o Rio de Janeiro.

She described building it as algo extremamente difícil de ser feito, and two minutes later you used the same frame for your own sentence: foi algo extremamente impressionante.

🔁 Fui ou foi? O passado em sete frases

Era verão — it was summer (you said estava verano)

Foi um casamento muito americano — it was a very American wedding (you said fui)

As pessoas eram muito religiosas — the people were very religious (you said são)

Eu vi vinte e três igrejas — I saw twenty-three churches (you said eu visto)

Eu não sabia disso — I didn't know that

Eu tinha duas telas de computador — I had two computer screens (you said eu tenho)

Fomos fortes — we were strong (you said éramos)

You tell stories in the past all the time, so the past tense is where the most mistakes show up. Three choices cover nearly all of today's. Fui is me and foi is it, him or her. Era and tinha describe how things were (the season, the people, what you had on the desk), while foi and fomos are for one event that happened and finished. And the past of ver is a single word, eu vi. Read the seven sentences out loud before Thursday.

🗺️ Quando outra língua entra

Verão — summer (not verano)

Igrejas — churches (not iglesias)

Eu vi — I saw (not eu visto)

Bem-vinda — welcome (not benvenido)

Colegas — colleagues (not colégios)

Longe — far (not longo)

All of these came out of your mouth a breath before the Portuguese did. That's normal for someone with another Romance language, and the fix is just to notice them. Keep this list and add to it whenever you hear yourself do it.

📚 Homework

1. Seven sentences, out loud

Read the seven sentences from the past-tense section out loud, thirty seconds a day. The aim is to have foi, era and eu vi come out without stopping to choose.

2. The Bluebird story, ready for Thursday

Tell it to yourself once, start to finish, using eu tinha duas telas, abre a venda dos bilhetes and consegui comprar. Then open Thursday's class with it.

3. Globoplay, still open from Class #8

If you've signed up and started watching, bring one programme to Thursday and tell Alexia what you thought of it.

4. The words you handed to English today

Say each one out loud a few times, then put it in a sentence about your own week.

A mulher ruiva — the red-haired woman

Deve ser — must be

Realizada — fulfilled, met

Algumas coisas — some things

Por um lado, por outro — on one hand, on the other

A fazenda — farm

A despedida de solteira — hen party

A tela — screen

Primavera — spring

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