What 60 Hours of a New Language Can Do for You

Since my twenties, I’ve had this low-grade, back-of-the-brain bucket list item: learn Portuguese. It started after work trips to Brazil. I fell in love with the cadence — soft, musical, sexy in a way English never manages.

But at 25, there’s always “later.” Four decades of “later” went by.

This summer in Lisbon, I decided “later” was over. Originally, I thought I’d write a second book (here’s a link to my first and only Metamorphosis in Stanzas) while sipping coffee in sunny squares. As if the first book is flying off the shelves and publishers are banging down my door for the sequel.

Instead, I signed up for Portuguese classes. Not because it was random or whimsical, but because that bucket list item had been sitting there, silently aging right alongside me, until it stopped waiting.

Learning Portuguese At 61 Means Being Wrong Out Loud:

Day one: I walked into class late, brain sweating before the rest of me caught up. Eight strangers. A gentle teacher named Mario. Four hours of “bom dia” and verb conjugations, and I left fried. The uphill climb home was the only thing that made sense.

By Friday, I’d gone from barely saying “I am” to stringing together Tarzan sentences. Half Spanish, half southern drawl. Nothing sounded right. Everything felt humiliating.

And here’s the thing: that humiliation was the point.

When was the last time you let yourself be wrong in front of people? Not “oops, typo in an email” wrong. I mean visibly, audibly wrong. I mean sitting in a classroom with sweat running down your back as you butcher a sentence about brushing your teeth.

At 61, I remembered what fear feels like. Not fear of looking stupid — fear that maybe I wasn’t as good as I thought I’d be. My Spanish was supposed to give me an edge. Instead, it tripped me every step. What I thought was an advantage became another layer of humiliation.

The 15-Minute Daily Routine That Felt Like an Eternity:

One morning, Mario made me tell him my daily routine. Sounds easy, right? Coffee, breakfast, class.

Fifteen minutes later, I was still Tarzaning my way through getting up, getting dressed, getting out the door. Time stopped. My back was soaked. I was convinced he was dragging me through hours of torture.

When it was over? Fifteen minutes. That’s it. I’d sweated like I was in a hostage situation.

And then it hit me: being wrong out loud doesn’t kill you. It just feels like it will.

When Humiliation Turns Into A Midlife Superpower:

Somewhere in the second week, Mario stopped speaking English. No warning. Just dove straight into Portuguese. And I understood him. Not perfectly, but enough to keep up.

That moment wasn’t magic. It was the result of humiliation stacked on humiliation until something cracked open.

By week three, Portuguese wasn’t a sexy background hum anymore. It was a grind. Nasal sounds my mouth hated. Articles breeding like rabbits. My Spanish accent bleeding through like a bad dye job.

But I kept showing up. Because humiliation, it turns out, is a muscle.

The Smack:

So, what do 60 hours of Portuguese buy you at 61?

Not fluency. Not elegance. Certainly not comedic timing in another language–I fancy myself funny and enjoy making people laugh with my wit. Sadly, the only chortles elicited during those hours of “only Portuguese spoken here” were those of shared embarrassment and acknowledgement of just how much it sucks to look silly.

What it buys is proof: if you’re willing to humiliate yourself, you’re still alive. Still learning. Still willing to start over, badly, while everyone’s watching.

Women over 50 spend too much time editing, polishing, filtering. Afraid to sound dumb, look off, take up space the “imperfect” way. But here’s the truth: the filter is the real humiliation.

The freedom is in f*cking it up out loud.

Special Note: If you are thinking: “Heck, I wanna learn Portuguese too.” May I suggest the Lusa Language School?

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