EmmaVP

Hi,

We have been living in PT for about 2.5 years now. I still struggle with the language and find doc appointments and similar a nightmare, always leave feeling like the village idiot.
We have two children, our eldest was 2.5 when we moved here, he is now fluent in Portuguese and our youngest was born here.
We both work from home, so we don't get much "language" interaction during the day.
I attemted to go to an evening class that is offered in our area for free. But the times where a nightmare, if you have children to sort out in the evening. Have tried homestudy too, but I have too many distractions.

With no portuguese to talk about we are not making many friends, and this is getting us down and makes us feel lonely. So we want to try and fix it, as we love everything else about our lifestyle over here.

Any advice would be much appreciated.
Thanks.

Cleri

Where are you?

golf04

Geez that sounds really sad but it shouldnt be. The land of sun great food and friendly locals and expats abound. Tell us where you are and we will come a runnin in your direction

Cleri

Watch him Emma

Titleist

Hi Emma,
We are moving over on the 31st, to the Algarve.
If you are in our area, we will be happy to meet up with you

masterbaits

fotunately for us we ended up in the algarve , where most folk speak better english than i do , apart from our nieghbours whom area elderly farmer types.

Try buying rosetta stone , and killing the brit tv if you have it , get the kids to teach you , dont use english around the home for everyday things and youll find it easy.Learn three new words a day , give the kids a bank and every time you use an english word they tax you 10c if they hear it.

I suspect though that your perhaps not really happy , english speaking friends wont solve it , sure it will help with the psychology but it wont solve it unless the reason is to find english speakers is to learn portuguese from.

Supremegermalene

Hi Emma it would help to know where you are, there are usually mother and toddler groups you could go to, I presume if you work from home you can work that around things like that?

What do you generally do on weekends? Having young kids myself I know the easy option is to stay home and do the washing/cleaning but you have to force yourself to get out, and interact. Just sitting around Pt people you will pick things up, there must be cafe's/bars where you are as they are everywhere.

If you are in western algarve I can help introduce you to other mums but without knowing where you are it's difficult.

G

EmmaVP

Hi, we live on the Silvercoast. We spend the weekends on the beach or outdoors somewhere in the country side or in a park. We came for the outdoor lifestyle.
For the language, at home we only speak english as our children are young, and if we start to speak more PT at home they will forget about their English. Our five year old go full time to nursery, so he has no problem with his PT and our one year old goes part-time and is already saying both PT and english words.

Thank you all for advice and support.

Gina11

Hi
I'm sorry to hear that you are feeling so alone. It can be lonely in your own country working from home and having very young children so I can imagine how isolated you feel.
I would like to talk to you with regard to your language at home with your children.My work involves working with schools and early years settings who are catering for children newly arrived to the UK or that may have English as an additional language. Your children's language aquisition is still at a very fragile stage, evidence suggests that it is absoloutely vital to maintain the home language at home otherwise there is a danger that your children will fall between two languages. Your language at home will be vital to support your child's learning of Portuguese in fact that would be the real aid to their development of Portuguese. My husband and I are learning Portuguese in England as we have a home on the Algarve and I have to say it is hard. My advice to you is try not to follow language that isn't contextual. Listening in on conversations when you don't know what's being talked about will be frustrating and demoralising. The news and TV programmes are a good idea because you can mix the visual with the oral and that will help you pick up the general idea on what is being said. You need intial survival language first and then move on to tenses etc....... As for friends, you will have to be very proactive and put yourself out on a limb and possibly way out of your comfort zone.
Please give yourself a break and stop being hard on yourself, you have very young children you may be a bit deperssed you are in a different country where you are learning to integrate into a different culture and you struggle to communicate. That's a big hill to climb and you will get there. Your children will help you as their language skills in both English and Portuguese progress you will as well just not as quickly

EmmaVP

Hi Gina,
To keep English at home is very important to us, as we want a common language that we all can communicate well in, but also it is the Business language and we don't want our children to lose something they were "born" with, we feel very strongly about this.
English is my second language, so I was ignorante to believe i would pick up portuguese fairly quickly as I already know two languages fluently and a little bit of a few others.
I can more or less follow the subtitles in portuguese. But someone is talking and I have no idea of the subject I'm clueless, and this has given me many frustrating and demotivating moments at especially the health clinic. My 5 year old already translate for us, but it doesn't feel right of me to rely on him to help, he's only five!
I am sure it all works out in the end, I am a strong believer that things happens for a reason.

hurstc

Hello Emma , I hope that you have got some new contacts after your posting. We have just completed our purchase in Lourinha which we will be using for a few months at a time until my husband retires in 2012. Are you anywhere near Lourinha. I will be there on my own for all of April

carol from Bolton

camerashy

Hello Emma I am sincerely sorry that you are feeling lonely. I know you can be surrounded by beautiful countryside, a very pleasant way of life, your loved ones and still feel isolated. It is not unnatural.

It is not always easy to get to know people, especaily if you are working from home, and planning your schedule around the children and work must have its own dificulties. I have just spent an enjoyable couple of hours at the ladies coffee morning held at La Vickys in Caldas da Rainha. It is a mixed nationality and, perhaps more important to you, mixed age group where you just go along and have a coffee and a chat. As this starts at about 10.30am this may just fit in with the children's time for school and nursery. They meet on the 2nd and 4th Monday of each month.

EmmaVP

Hi, thanks. I have been to the coffemornings quite a few times and the ladies are very welcoming, but unfortunately it falls during my working hours. Managed to go quite a bit while still on maternity leave. I'm sure I will cheer up, might just be one of those depressed periods, after holidays and being surrounded by friends and family.

kyles Mummy

Hi emma

I would have loved to have come and seen you but with been based in silves in the central algarve so its quite a distance.

If anyone is in the central algarve and would like to start up an expat group that would be great

kind regards


sam
X

jaz1962

Hi Emma,

not sure where you are in pt, but we'er on our way out there in a few weeks to central pt. we will be near Pombal.
If thats near you we would be happy to meet up,

jaz