Class #1 with Alexia, July 15, 2026
note: this is a recording of your private coaching session with Alexia. No one will see it except you, Alexia, and Foster 🙏
Zoom Highlight Video
Video Recording
Audio
Chat & additional resources 📚
🎸 How you found music
Meu pai tocava violão e me ensinou — My dad played guitar and taught me (violão is an acoustic/classical guitar; an electric guitar is a guitarra)
A Escola do Rock — School of Rock (the summer holiday program in London where you started)
Férias de verão — summer holidays
Comecei uma banda com as minhas amigas — I started a band with my friends (amigas, feminine, because it was you and three other girls)
Gravadora — record label (in the music world, label is gravadora. Not to be confused with livraria, bookshop, further down)
Eles assinaram com a gente — they signed with us (a gente is the everyday spoken way to say "us / we" in Brazil)
Música tipo rock — rock-style music, loud music
🩹 Stepping back from loud music
Eu nasci com um problema no ouvido — I was born with a problem in my ear
Machucar — to hurt / to damage (you didn't want to machucar your hearing further)
Música mais acústica — more acoustic music (the calmer direction you moved toward)
🎓 Leaving school and studying archaeology
Eu saí da escola um ano antes de me formar — I left school a year before graduating (me formar, to graduate)
Minha mãe estava brava com isso — my mom was angry about it (brava is the common Brazilian word for angry/upset)
Agora dá para perceber que foi a melhor decisão — now you can see it was the best decision (dá para is a very useful spoken structure meaning "it's possible to / you can")
Matéria — subject (matéria de faculdade, a university subject. Your matéria was completely disconnected from music: archaeology)
É uma montanha russa — it's a roller coaster (literally "Russian mountain." You used this for how unpredictable the money was in music)
Mais estável — more stable (what you wanted at 25)
🌊 The Thames and low tide
Maré — tide
Maré alta — high tide
Maré baixa — low tide
Quando a maré está baixa — when the tide is low (you and your dad would walk the banks of the Thames and look at very old things left behind)
🏛️ Museums and old technology
Eu sei que tem um museu — I know there's a museum (the Childhood Museum near you)
De certa forma — in a way (de certa forma faz sentido, in a way it makes sense)
As coisas mudam muito rápido hoje em dia — things change very fast these days
Sessenta — sixty (the average age in that village near Oxford)
🤖 AI, learning, and using tools
Descobrir — to discover
Absorver informação — to absorb information (you were describing people who use AI well, who actually absorb what they're learning)
Usando — using / wearing (pronunciation: say oo-ZAN-doo, not like the English "using." Note usar also means to wear: eu estou usando um vestido, I'm wearing a dress)
Com o design — with the design (your mum uses it to help with her stained-glass designs)
Talvez por eu ser mais jovem, eu consiga enxergar o bom e o mau que isso pode fazer — maybe because I'm younger, I can see the good and the bad it can do
Resistir — to resist (once people discover these tools, it's hard to resistir)
Todos os alunos também usam — all the students use it too
📚 A book "written by a human"
Livraria — bookshop (a false friend for Spanish speakers: librería in Spanish is a bookshop, but in Portuguese a library is a biblioteca)
Estava escrito — it was written (no sticker estava escrito "100% escrito por humano")
Humano — human (pronunciation: the h is silent, oo-MAH-noo)
Autor / autora — author
Eu estava curiosa — I was curious
Polônia — Poland (the author Olga Tokarczuk is famosa, famous)
Cantor-compositor — singer-songwriter (cantor, singer; compositor, composer. You noticed this one is a bit of a tongue twister)
Artista completo — a complete artist (Alexia's easier way to say the same idea)
🔮 Jinxing, luck, and translation
Não vou contar para não dar azar — I won't tell so as not to jinx it
Azar — bad luck (má sorte is another way to say it)
Traduzir — to translate (some phrases you use with your Brazilian family don't quite traduzir, they work in English but you wouldn't really say them in Portuguese)
Frustrado — frustrated
🇬🇷 Greek roots and mixing languages
Ela tentou me ensinar grego quando eu era bem pequena — she tried to teach me Greek when I was very little (your mum; the different alphabet made it hard, and you already had Portuguese and English)
Características — features / characteristics
Atenas — Athens
A pele mais morena — darker/olive skin (in Portuguese you describe someone as having pele morena. "Olive skin" doesn't translate directly)
Azeite — olive oil (and azeitona is the olive itself)
Ondulado — wavy (hair)
Cacheado — curly (hair)
💧 Water and hair, city by city
Cloro — chlorine (the Rio water plus the sun gave Alexia natural highlights)
Mechas — highlights / streaks of hair
Eu não me toquei — I didn't realize / it didn't click (a lovely, very natural Brazilian phrase. Eu não realizei also works)
Calcário — limestone (hard water, like in Porto and London)
Torneira — tap (a água não fica na torneira, the water doesn't stay cold in the tap)
Geladeira — fridge (you keep filtered water dentro da geladeira)
Additional resources
Your vocabulary is genuinely strong, so the work now is confidence and putting it into sentences without stopping to check. Here's the plan Alexia set.
Practice about 20 minutes a day in Portuguese. Little and often beats one long session.
Send Alexia short WhatsApp messages. After a podcast, a reading, or anything you did, send two or three sentences about it. Don't aim for perfect. The goal is to build the muscle of speaking and writing without hesitation.
Lean on these sentence starters:
Eu aprendi... — I learned...
Eu visitei... — I visited...
Eu fui... — I went...
Eu toquei... — I played...
Eu tinha [X] anos quando... — I was [X] years old when...
For example: "Eu ouvi um podcast sobre IA e aprendi que..." or "Eu visitei a minha mãe na Grécia ano passado."
Any questions between now and the next class, just message us on WhatsApp.