On Spending Two Months Lost in Translation

In the week since I left Middlebury’s Portuguese Language School (or “Portuguese Camp”, as we liked to call it), people have asked me two questions:
1. “Are you, like, totally fluent in Portuguese now?”; and
2. “So don’t you, like, start law school in, like, two days or something?”
My acquaintances say “like” a lot.

It can be tough to follow my life (a solid euphemism for stalking) when I am not blogging. I considered blogging in Portuguese, but I decided that it would not vale a pena because most of the people I know do not, in fact, read Portuguese. Besides, when I was considering writing in Portuguese, everyone else in Portuguese Camp was preparing to go to Middlebury’s only bar. In the end it was a relatively easy decision.

Let me begin the recounting of my adventures over the past two months by answering the only two questions anyone’s asking. No, I am not totally fluent in Portuguese now. I do speak, read, understand, and write it significantly better, and it’s probable that a native speaker could communicate with me. When I’m in a posh coffee shop that thinks it’s totally mod to play Brazilian samba I understand the words (and sometimes accidentally write people emails in Portuguese). But I do not sound like I’m straight off the boat from Brazil*.

And I decided to defer law school for a year or so. I’m applying to grad school. I would go into details on this decision but I think it would make my friends in law school sad about their lives, which they kind of already are, so I’ll just leave it at that.

Frequently during my two months in Portuguese Camp I thought, someone should write a story about this. – Or a movie, or even a soap opera – perhaps a soap opera would be best. But how do you write about what gets lost in translation in one language? How can you possibly convey the trials and triumphs of speaking in a language that is NOT English while writing in English? As of today I still have no answer to this problem. In English, Portuguese Camp was somewhat dull. The town of Middlebury has basically one bar and the school has another. There were fifty of us, and we lived in two dorms and ate in the same small room of the same cafeteria every day**. We had class from 9am until 12:40pm, then lunch at 1:30 and sports all afternoon. After supper (7:30-8:30) we did homework for a little while and then went to one of the two bars.

You’d be surprised at how much more difficult – and how funny – life is when you cannot speak your native language, even to try to get definitions. If you’re in the cafeteria and wonder whether they will be bringing out more spoons, for example, but you find you can’t remember the word for “spoon”, you spend five minutes trying to play charades with someone until they say “colher” and by then your ice cream has melted and you have to throw it out and start over. And don’t even try to ask directions – it’s faster to wander until you find your way. Then when you arrive thirty minutes late you can try to figure out how to say, “I got lost!” – and remember you need to conjugate for the past tense.

We spent a lot of time playing sports or music, even those who weren’t that talented in either area. For example, I played tennis, where I displayed my talents for swinging myself in a circle while trying to hit the ball. I also played various percussion instruments in a band for reasons unknown, as percussion is really one of the few musical areas I’d never previously attempted.

On the last day, when we could speak English, everyone burst into hysterics at my every word. Apparently no one thought that a girl from Georgia would say “y’all” and “supper” or have any sort of Southern accent. This struck me as a serious oversight by my new friends, and I told them such, which made them laugh louder. “What’d y’all think I would sound like?” I wondered, but they were gasping for air and unable to respond.

I guess after two months of being constantly lost in translation I had glorified English. I’ll rephrase: I’ve spent my life glorifying English, the language, without any instances of significant disappointment; now I was glorifying communication in English. It seems I remembered people understanding me when I spoke English. This, in fact, has rarely been the case, which I admitted to myself only recently during this past week. This is especially true when I quote Heller or Vonnegut to gas station attendants.

During my drive home – yes, I drove to and from Vermont – I had a particularly interesting run-in with a gas station attendant. To put the event in perspective, I drove six hours on Friday (to New York City), slept six hours, drove seven hours on Saturday (to DC – usually it’s only four hours, but I’m popular with traffic), slept two hours, and then began driving at about 4am on Sunday. By 6am I was pulling over for coffee (I drank two trinta lattes from Starbucks – they added trinta while I was away!). By 7am I was falling asleep. Yes, after two trinta lattes. Actually, by 7am I had needed to pee for thirty minutes, but was worried that said need was the only reason I was still awake, and by 7am I no longer had a choice.

I pulled over at a gas station in rural Virginia and, as I feared, almost fell asleep standing up at the register after relieving myself. I stared at the gas station lady, thinking, “If I don’t do something fast I’m just going to sleep on this floor, and that’s dirty.” And there on the counter I saw it, a thing of late-night commercials on crappy channels: 5-hour energy.

Intrigued, I took a bottle and began reading. The first thing that caught my eye was the warning: Do not drink more than two bottles per day***. “Two bottles equals ten hours, but one only equals five, and I have to drive seven more,” I mused. “How many energy bottles do I need?”

“I’m not selling you more than one,” the gas station lady said warily.

I tried to make my eyes focus so I could glare at her, but in the end I just paid and ambled outside.

I’m going to say it now: 5-hour energy is both disgusting and effective. If you’re drowsy at work like the people on the commercials, it is NOT worth it. I almost threw up because it tasted so bad. (Instead a dunked the empty bottle into the trash can outside the gas station and cheered.) However, if you are falling asleep in rural Virginia with seven hours left to drive and you want to know what it feels like to think your skin is on fire, 5-hour energy is the way to go. It’s probably best that gas station lady did not sell me two, because I imagine that after the second my face would have melted off. As it was I think I listened to Hootie and the Blowfish for five hours straight, which is particularly impressive since I only own six of their songs.

The next time I stopped for gas I quoted Vonnegut to the attendant. I was singing “Hold My Hand” and she bubbled, “I love Hootie and the Blowfish, too!”

“Welcome to my granfalloon,” I responded.

She laughed, which I’ve noticed is something people do a lot when they don’t understand what’s going on.

Now I’m in Spain, and it’s refreshing to pretend that people don’t understand me because I speak Spanish poorly.


*Fascinatingly, Brazil is the only country that speaks Portuguese that would not require a boat (or, in these modern times, plane) trip to the United States. As I am no longer in the United States it is unclear whether the metaphor applies, particularly since a boat from Brazil would most likely arrive in Portugal rather than Spain.
**Well, this is mostly true. We discovered about a month in that another cafeteria had better food. We were required to eat with the program for lunch and supper, but by the last week most of us were eating breakfast at the better cafeteria. They usually had bacon.
***After the second bottle they recommend that you switch directly to Crystal Meth or Speed, depending on your income. Cocaine is discouraged as one really needs to snort excessive amounts to attain the same energy level as 5-hour energy.