My true friends
(By Cláudio Moisés)

Languages have played a very important role in my life since they came to it.
I used to be a very shy lad and that went on until I was twenty-seven or thirty years old. Being a shy person avoids you from trying out new experiences out of home or even living your life properly. So I didn’t use to have friends or girlfriends to go out with – I couldn’t imagine myself holding a girl’s hand or kissing her in a very ordinary party where most of the teenagers or adults used to go to have a little bit of fun – The only thing left to me was to loose myself in books and magazines as much as I could.
Before being an adolescent I used to go to my grandmother’s farm and I really had very good times there – I used to go to the woods, lakes and climb trees or even lie around staring at the full stars night skies – by that time I began to notice I liked to pronounce weird words pretending I was speaking a different language.
Life went on.
But a really strong fact that would lead me to the fields of languages came up: in a Christmas Night Eve my mother invited all the family to sit down in front of our living room TV in order to watch the Mass the pope was going to celebrate and we did it. As the Mass went on something extremely awesome caught my attention: the pope sent out a Christmas message to all over the world in at least fifty-seven languages and I got petrified by that ability of his. I went to bed that night knowing what I would like to do for the rest of my life: study every language I would come across in my lifetime.
As a matter of fact English was the first language I decided to study. And that boiled down to a very simple fact: the self teaching English material was the only one available in my small town by that time so I got down to it.
As I mentioned before I used to be a very shy boy and English became my unique friend. Every time my classmates came by to invite me to go to the parties I would tell them I could not cause “I had to study”. But I really wanted to go out with them and have some fun. Poor me.
My English was getting stronger and stronger and my love for languages too.
My parents sent me to Sao Paulo in the beginning of the eighties and one can imagine how terrified I got: there was no way out of it – it was dad and mom’s dream.
I studied in a Hebrew High School where I could learn the basics of Hebrew as well. The teachers could hardly believe a guy from Bahia was able to speak and write their language so well: and I did it. Hebrew is written from right to left and it took me just a few months to master it properly. One day a teacher called Miriam assigned us a writing exercise to be done in the classroom right away and a few minutes later I managed to do it correctly. She told me: “you are unbelievable. It can’t be. Hebrew seems to be much easier in your hands.”
As I lived in Sao Paulo something funny came up: a cousin of mine made up his mind and filled in an enrolment form in order to study English at Senac, but he didn’t want to attend the classes eventually. He offered me what could be my first English course, but due to my strong shyness I turned it down.
After four years in Sao Paulo I came back to Bahia.
My father asked me to help him in his business and I unwillingly became a businessman. It lasted ten years. Meanwhile I studied Spanish, German, Italian, French, Esperanto, Swedish and little bits of Norwegian, Chinese, Hindi, Greek and Thai.
] Businesses broke up. There was nothing left but my old friends: languages.
An English School just right here in my small town invited me to have Spanish and English classes and I accepted it right away. I was doing what I had always wanted to do: speaking, living and teaching my loved languages.
Two years later I set up my own English-Spanish course in a small garage in my own house. A friend of mine who owned a small primary school gave me four wood desks as a gift and I bought a small chalk board which I put up on the wall. Students came in and my course began to be known in the whole town.
People always ask me how I learn languages. Well, it’s not that hard: the first thing you have to keep in mind is that you are supposed to love them. It’s the first step to “catch” them. Let me tell you a little bit how I managed to study some of them:
English was the first language I studied. As soon as got the first books I studied every single rule and paid attention to the pronunciation of the words as well. In the beginning I thought I couldn’t go any further, but I soon realized it wasn’t that difficult. I used to study English for at least twenty minutes a day at the same previous schedule that means I used to study today at the same time I did it yesterday. e.g.: yesterday 3 in the afternoon, today and tomorrow and on at 3 in the afternoon. I used to listen to the tapes again and again till the words and expressions could naturally come out of my mouth. I didn’t even lose the chance of getting new words from newspapers, ads, can labels at supermarket shelves, comic books, etc…
Let me tell you one thing: I shook like a jelly when I first met an American and spoke English with her: I couldn’t believe I was speaking and being understood. It was awesome.
As soon I came from Sao Paulo I decided to study Spanish and Italian. By that time Editora Globo issued a series of weekly books for self learners: Spanish, English, Italian, French and German. I bought all of them and enjoyed each one as much as I could. They were my dreams coming true.
Each collection was made up of eighteen books and tapes for the first level and nine books and tapes for the top level.
Some years later I managed to buy more extra materials such as: Bienvenue en France(French), Allles Gute(German),and lots of Italian novels and video tapes. Listening and singing some songs is a very good way to learn a language faster.

People could tell me I really didn’t want to study languages. Instead I was forced to do it by my shyness: there was no way out. I disagree because I could have done another thing but studying languages if I didn’t really liked them.

Diógenes, this is only a brief history of my relationship with languages. I surely can tell you more as soon as we have a get together.
Best regards.
Cláudio Moisés

In the beginning of the nineties I found out a new series of books for self learners: Teach Yourself Books from England. They have everything you can think of in the fields of foreign languages from Thai to Hindi. I was in heaven. I could not say I really speak lots of languages myself, but I know at least the basics of most of them. What I miss the most is a native speaker or even another person I could practice the languages with. People always ask me if there is a kind of magic or even a special ability to learn a foreign language and I tell them there are only two very important things one must keep in mind: love and dedication. If one follows my recipe properly one is going to learn every language eventually. There’s no better way than this.