Making friends in Portugal

Before you ask how hard it is to make friends, you have to put things into perspective right?!

I am a Brit. I previously lived in London for 5 years and have now lived in Lisbon for 3 years. I made friends in London with brazilians, polish, south africans, brits, french, cypriates, etc, bec for one thing, we all spoke the same language...English.

I knew I was going to eventually move to Portugal, and I began learing portuguese while in London. Now I am here, I studied further in the language. I thought all of this was the right thing to do.

Recently, I was having lunch with some portuguese friends and friends of theirs. I was asked by one of the portuguese guys if it was difficult to make friends with Portuguese, which I agreed it could be sometimes.

But we both whole heartedly agreed that Language was the made barrier to making friends!!! And second to that, if you (the brit) don't percevere in making the friendship stronger, at least to begin with, you will not keep those friendships.

We brits are the foreigners here in Portugal, and if we want to fit in, we are the ones who need to make the effort.

So my advice to Linda, is to make the effort...learn the language and make an effort to strengthen those friendships. Because then you will be introduced to many more people who will accept you as a friend more readily!

Daren 28 aug 2008, 02:54 - Rapporteer misbruik