But there are many more activities you can undertake. They will bring instant results. You will be able to measure your progress in terms of achievement from one day to the next.
A vital section of your new vocabulary consists of numbers. If you do not believe this, consider an hour or two of the normal day. You will soon realise how often we use numbers and how vital it is to know them well.
We need number for time, for telephones, for money, for heating and cooking. We need number for dates, for appointments, for business calculations. We need to know and understand numbers for watching television, reading newspapers.
Every time you leave the house, you can be practising your numbers. At first, you will only use one digit numbers. But you will surprise yourself by how quickly you progress by using your Portuguese numbers every day.
As you walk along, you can recite "um, dois, um, dois." (This sounds like oong, doish and means one, two.) You can vary this with "direita, esquerda" (deerate-uh, eskerduh, meaning right, left), so adding directions to your vocabulary.
When you turn right or left, you can mutter "direita" or " esquerda" until the words are automatic.
As you drive along, note car numbers and try to translate them into Portuguese. Once you can do this easily in single digits, try pairing the numbers. Remember if you have difficulty with any particular teen or twenty. Check it out or revise it later at home.
Busy outdoor people could carry small cards each with a Portuguese word on one side and a drawing or native language equivalent on the other.An approximate pronunciation guide might be useful too.
If you are standing in a bus or travel queue, queueing at a checkout, even simply waiting to cross a road, take a card from your pocket. If you know it, replace it in a different pocket. Later you can replace all the cards you know with new ones.
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