Living inside a new language: Portuguese

Over a year ago of June 2023, I sold my belongings in California and moved to Brazil, I fell passionately in love with this country when I first visited in 2008. If I were to describe Brazil in one word it would be “vibrant”, from the colors and sounds you experience on the streets, to the mixes of people coming from different backgrounds, to hearing Portuguese as I describe as a playground of words.

Once I moved to Brazil I had a basic foundation of the language with a dream to begin my days with bom dia and end my days with boa noite. Fast forward over a year later, my capability to speak Portuguese has progressed dramatically. I fluidly have conversations, even though I do miss some of the rules of conjugations, I am able to delve deeper into the Brazilian culture. And even learning their girias, meaning “slang”. By learning another language other than your own is fulfilling, as before the other language was just sounds with no meaning, to transforming to actual words.

With all this being said, as I have been “speaking” Portuguese for let’s say 17 months now I sometimes feel as if I am the same Lauryn, but different. There is another side of me, I am trying to navigate if this side of me is hiding my true-self. The question is:

Am I expressing how I truly feel on the day-to-day, have I really showed who Lauryn is?

Furthermore, the basics of my name, that in the United States my name is pronounced as “lor-in”, and in Brazil I pronounce my name as “low-rin”. If I were to pronounce my name as its originality, it is not clearly being understood by the receiver. Therefore, at times I grieve my name “lor-in”. I feel I have another identity; as if I am living within a language, a clone of myself. I walk the same, and I look the same… but am I the same? 

When traveling and understanding others and where they come from, are we bringing our true selves of who we are from where we came from? Or are we molding within the culture rather than adapting? I am fascinated to learn how humans of other parts of the world walk, talk, move, and breathe, and want to understand how life is being perceived through their lens. Therefore communication and learning another language allows us to get a deeper glance of another world other than our own. But within other worlds, if we observe at a different angle:

it is not only to see the performance of different cultures, but to see how the performance of the self changes within cultures that are different than our own.