Portugal #6 – Talking to People

My last post gave you an overview of Albufeira and promised we would start to explore: before we get on our way we need to talk a bit about talking to people!

'Mother Church' in Albufeira with homeless man

First, talking to fellow tourists: as you will have gathered there are a lot of British tourists in Albufeira and the Algarve, but also many Irish, German, Dutch, and French, and lesser numbers from elsewhere in Europe. From an earlier post you will also know that there are numerous Canadians. Communicating is not an issue at all, because English is the language of most people you will run in to, and for other Europeans English is either their second language or they know enough to converse with you. So if you are language-challenged like I am (more on this later) you will be quite comfortable speaking to fellow tourists. One of the joys of travelling is to meet people, but when you are doing a long-stay there is also a practical side to this because people you meet become a tremendous source of information about things to do, restaurants, even finding better accommodation or a more efficient and/or less expensive way to travel to Portugal. So meet people, enjoy their company, and find out what they know about Portugal that you don’t!

Old Town, tile roof

Meeting people also applies to the Portuguese: in an earlier post I mentioned that most Portuguese in the Algarve speak English. For someone language-challenged like myself this is a very good thing! I just don’t have an ear for language, but generally I can get by if I stick to basics. Our young family first started travelling extensively when we lived in then-West Germany in the mid-1980s. I explained to them, more than once probably, that all we needed were a few simple phrases to find a bed for the night, order a meal, order a drink, get directions, and be polite to people. My 4-year old son was listening to this more than I thought because when he was taken for a haircut to the salon in our small German village, and my wife prompted him to thank the stylist for a candy she gave him, he responded ‘Zwei bier bitte’ – two beer please! Of course this caused immediate and very loud laughter among all the Germans in the salon! Thankfully his travel language skills are more developed now.

So if you have even minimal language skills you should be able to relate to the Portuguese in the Algarve. It can be a difficult language, for example it has masculine and feminine genders, and some pronunciations are different than what an English-speaker would expect. There are also regional words, phrases or inflections, and even an international dimension because the Portuguese spoken in Brazil (and I assume the other areas - the Discoveries - settled by Portuguese) can be quite different, just as there are numerous versions of English around the globe.

Be polite, and focus on basic phrases. Just say ‘bon dia’ (good day) and thank-you – males use the masculine form obrigado, females obrigada – though many younger people are abbreviating this to ‘brigad’, like we say ‘thanks’ instead of ‘thank you’. Just remember if you are outside the tourist area of the Algarve the Portuguese you meet won’t like ‘bon dia’ after 12:00 noon - it’s ‘boa tarde’ (good afternoon) or ‘boa noite’ (good evening). In the major cities, Lisbon and Porto, and in other tourist destinations like Sintra or Coimbra, your lack of language skills will not be a disadvantage, but heed this cautionary tale: a couple of years ago we took a major road trip through the interior, and well north, in a remote area, desperate for fuel and lunch, we ended up in a small village where no-one spoke English, not even the primary school teacher supervising her students at recess. That was an interesting stop, to be covered in more detail in a subsequent post! With this in mind, brightongreg’s Travel Rule #3: always carry a small, pocket-size phrase book, like the one produced by Lonely Planet, for those occasions when basic-traveller Portuguese will not suffice!

Old Town, Moorish chimneys and laundry

The worst mistake you can make in Portugal is to try to use what little Spanish you know. This is perfectly fine if you are in fact Spanish, but if like me you’re not the Portuguese take this as a serious insult, because the speaker doesn’t understand Portugal is a separate nation with its own language, culture, history, and so on. I get this because its exactly the reaction Canadians have travelling abroad when they are mistaken for Americans!

In my next post we’ll look at local transportation, embracing everything from walking to the blue tourist train!