Class #2 with Alexia, July 22, 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

We started with the Live Class you joined, Pierre's story, and Brazil's relationship with Haiti, then went straight to the root of what you asked about: why words are masculine or feminine, and why that keeps tripping you up when your Portuguese is otherwise so quick. We reframed it as a mania de linguagem, a speech habit that has to be trained out through repetition rather than understood into place, and built a concrete plan around that. We also cleared up bom versus bem properly, since your internet cut out during that part of the Live Class, worked through the past tense of falar, and finished with a list of things to watch and listen to while you walk.

One thing worth repeating from the end of the class. Alexia froze in her own English exam years ago and failed it outright, despite studying at a British school three times a week. Foster passed his European Portuguese exam with a B after three weeks of studying, on grammar nobody actually speaks. Exams are their own strange game. Your Portuguese is communicating, and Alexia understood every word of the voice message you sent. That is the part that matters.

🌍 Pierre, o Haiti e a Live Class

Minha internet ficou ruim durante a aula — my internet went bad during the class (more natural than "minha internet quebrou")

Haiti — Haiti (Pierre is Haitian. He started learning Portuguese during Covid on a bet with his teenage son over who could learn a new language faster, and stayed with it. He isn't planning a trip to Brazil. He just loves the culture.)

Brazil and Haiti have a warm relationship. Brazil has sent civil protection support and the army after natural disasters, and Haitians hold Brazilians in real affection because of it.

Every Live Class is recorded, and the chat and resources are saved alongside it. If you miss something or your connection drops, it is all there waiting for you.

⏰ Tempo ≠ horário

This one caught you, and it catches everyone. Tempo does a lot of work in Portuguese.

O horário — the time, the scheduled hour (why the students in Asia can't make the Live Class: por causa do horário)

O tempo — the weather, and also time in the general sense

Não vou ter tempo de... — I'm not going to have time to... (Não vou ter tempo de almoçar hoje. Não vou ter tempo de finalizar a música hoje.)

Acho que vou ter tempo de... — I think I'll have time to...

Analisando — analyzing (exactly the word you were reaching for: "agora que eu estou analisando o meu português um pouco mais")

🗣️ De onde vem o português

O galego — Galician (Portuguese has its root in Galician, and a new language, European Portuguese, is still forming in Portugal today)

Um homem que era da Irlanda — a man who was from Ireland

E ele falou que tinha uma conexão entre o galego antigo... — and he said there was a connection with old Galician...

País de Gales — Wales

O portunhol — the Portuguese and Spanish blend spoken along the Portugal and Galicia border

On your Irish question: the link is indirect and very old. Galician is a Romance language from Latin, and Irish Gaelic is a Celtic language, so the two are not related linguistically. But Celtic peoples did live in Galicia, so there is a shared cultural inheritance underneath it. Territorial and cultural, not linguistic.

🔁 Mania de linguagem: masculino e feminino

This was the heart of the class.

Mania de linguagem — a speech habit, something you know is technically wrong but that has become part of how you talk

"Nós vamo" — very common in speech, grammatically wrong, everyone says it

"É mermo?" — Alexia's own habit, which slips out when she's talking fast or worked up about something during the World Cup

Gendering — there's no single word for it in Portuguese

A atribuição de gênero — gender assignment (the formal way to say it)

Com essa repetição de masculino e feminino — with this repetition of masculine and feminine

Your masculine and feminine mix-ups are not a knowledge gap. You know the rule. It has become a mania de linguagem, and the way out is the opposite of thinking harder: exposure and repetition until the correct form is the one that arrives first. What comes out of your mouth arrives very fast, faster than analysis, so the fix has to happen below the level of thinking.

Os artigos antes das palavras — the articles before the words (the thing English simply doesn't have)

Pão na chapa — grilled bread, a Rio café counter classic (and yes, you said it correctly)

The practice: take one phrase and repeat it out loud until it's automatic. O programa que eu assisti. O programa que eu assisti. In the shower, cooking, walking. Then build more: o sistema, o problema. These are exactly the ones that catch English and Spanish speakers, because they end in -a and are masculine anyway.

🎵 Decorar

Decorar — to decorate, and also to memorize (two completely different meanings, same verb)

Decorar uma casa / um apartamento / uma festa — to decorate a house / an apartment / a party

Decorar uma música — to learn a song by heart

Decorar uma letra de música — to memorize song lyrics

A letra da música — the lyrics (letra is singular in Portuguese where English uses the plural)

Digerir — to digest

Absorver — to absorb (the word you wanted for taking language in)

Não é permitido — it's not allowed (no lyric sheets on stage)

Explained — the Vox miniseries on Netflix. Episodes run around 20 to 30 minutes. The one on memory is worth watching: a world champion memorizer turns numbers into letters, then into objects, so 3-2-1 becomes a jacaré and 4-5-6 becomes chá, and she remembers an alligator drinking tea.

Fundamentos — the first course inside CC Club, built on exactly this principle of repetition

Your Joni Mitchell process is the model here. You learn lyrics by looking at the line, looking away, and letting it settle. Do that with gender.

⚖️ Bom x bem

The one you missed when your connection dropped in the Live Class. It's pure grammar underneath: bom is an adjective, bem is an adverb.

Bom / boa / bons / boas — good (describes things, people, situations, and changes for gender and number)

Bem — well (describes how something is done or how someone is, and never changes)

O meu celular é muito bom.

A minha garrafa é muito boa.

Essas frutas estão muito boas.

Eu li um livro muito bom outro dia.

Eu li um livro que não era muito bom. (a soft way to say it wasn't great)

Ela canta bem.

Nós estamos bem.

Tudo bem? — the standard greeting, and the answer is always estou bem, never estou bom

Tá tudo muito bem — you can turn the dial up when you want to

Tudo indo — everything's going (Alexia's own answer with friends. Not good, not bad, just going along with whatever is happening. Try it on your grandparents and watch them ask what went wrong.)

Não era um programa muito bom — it wasn't a very good show (you said this yourself, unprompted, and it was perfect. Parabéns.)

🕰️ Falando no passado

O passado — the past

Quando estou falando no passado — when I'm speaking in the past

Eu falei isso ontem.

Ele falou isso ontem.

Ela falou isso ontem.

Nós falamos isso ontem.

Eles falaram isso ontem.

Falei = eu. Falou = ele, ela, você. That pattern carries across regular -ar verbs, so once it's automatic you have a lot of verbs at once.

Also from the class:

Eu nunca fiz — I never did (fiz is eu, fez is ele/ela)

Meu pai também não fez — my dad didn't either

As pessoas da minha família jogavam — the people in my family used to play (jogavam, the imperfect, for repeated habits in the past)

Os brasileiros jogavam vôlei — the Brazilians played volleyball

Nessa lista — on this list

📺 O que assistir em português

Globo Play — Globo's streaming service, essentially their Netflix. Many CC students have it.

Os Normais — comedy series from the early 2000s

A Grande Família — a family sitcom running through the 2000s and into the 2010s

Sai de Baixo — late 90s into the early 2000s. Very funny, very much of its time, and full of jokes that would not survive today. Good listening practice as long as you know what you're getting into.

Students tend to fall into two camps on these three. Some find them slow, others want more of them. Either way, they say the shows help.

🛂 Exames, vistos e números

Quatro mil — 4,000 (4000 = 4 mil)

Quatrocentos — 400

Cem — 100

A carteira de motorista — driver's licence

IMT — the Portuguese authority that handles driving licences, the equivalent of the DMV

Language exams can run to two hundred euros depending on the level, and you pay whether or not you pass.

🏃 Rotina e esportes

Eu não faço exercício — I don't exercise

Eu não gosto de correr — I don't like running

Eu ando / eu caminho muito — I walk a lot

Você não pode correr com a bola — you can't run with the ball (netball, explained)

Professor / professora — teacher (the word you were reaching for)

Pilates clínico — clinical Pilates, closer to physiotherapy than to Reformer classes. Core, strength, flexibility, movement. Alexia did ballet her whole life, took a long break, and landed here.

📚 Homework

1. Your gender list

Write down every word you're unsure about, masculine or feminine, and send it to Alexia before you start drilling it. She'll check the list first so you're not repeating anything wrong into place.

2. Repetition while you walk

You walk about two hours a day, which is a lot of free practice. Build sentences in your head and say them out loud: o programa que eu assisti, o sistema político é horrível, o problema é esse. Repetition is the whole method here.

3. Bom vs bem

Go back over the section above until you can hear which one belongs. Bom describes a thing. Bem describes how.

4. Línguas da Nossa Língua (trailer)

The HBO Max documentary series on where Portuguese comes from and how it spread across Brazil, with carioquês, baianês and the rest. Caetano Veloso is in it. You may need your VPN. Even Alexia's father loved it, and he disagrees with half the people who appear in it.

5. Praia dos Ossos

Praia dos Ossos - Rádio Novelo

A história de uma mulher, da morte dela e de tudo que veio depois. Um podcast original da Rádio Novelo em 8 episódios.

radionovelo.com.br

A Rádio Novelo podcast about the 1976 killing of the socialite Ângela Diniz in Búzios, and the strange thing that happened in the three years between the crime and the trial. Alexia listened to the whole thing in one afternoon. Perfect for your walks, and there is no spoiler risk because it's a real case.

6. Ângela Diniz: Assassinada e Condenada

The HBO series based on the podcast. Impeccable. Do it alongside the podcast or after, either works.

7. Listen to voices that aren't Alexia's

Students get used to one teacher's intonation and then get lost the moment someone else speaks. The more different Brazilian voices you hear, in the Live Classes and in these resources, the more solid your Portuguese gets.

8. Bring one thing to the next class

Message Alexia and tell her what you watched or listened to, and what you want to talk about. That's where we'll start.

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