New Language

For the last couple of years I have been dealing with Spanish as the primary language, that changed this year. Not really because of the schools population, although, we do get foreign exchange students every year from different countries, but because the vocational tech college brought in a soccer program this year. With that they recruited some students/athletes from Brazil. Oh alright, South America that means they speak Spanish right? Wrong! In my narrow mind and that of many others may be how we think but in South America there are many languages spoken one of which is Portuguese. Of course there are some cognates between Portuguese and Spanish but not as many as one would think. As I get older I learn so much more than when I was a young adult. Maybe it is my willingness to realize I don't have all the answers. I have had an opportunity to work with some of these soccer players and I am very impressed with their willingness to learn and to work not to mention the courage it took to travel to another country to go to school. When I was growing up if you went to another state to go to school you were really reaching out there.