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Learn the lingo at source

Every summer hundreds of people from around the world descend on Portugal to enrol in language courses at Portuguese universities. Included are secondary school students from Macau, university students from Hong Kong, doctoral candidates from Japan, retirees from Western Europe and Americans of Portuguese heritage wanting to reconnect with their roots.

Take Nobuhiko Tazoe, a PhD candidate in linguistics at the University of Tokyo. He has spent the past year conducting research on the socio-linguistic situation in Macau at the University of Macau. He decided to spend last summer in Portugal to acquire a basic knowledge of Portuguese to facilitate his research on the influence that the Portuguese language has had on the way Cantonese is spoken in the former Portuguese enclave.

'I decided to do a summer course in Portugal because I like the country,' Mr Tazoe said. 'I travelled around the southern part of the country in 2003, and I liked it very much.'

With three sessions running for three consecutive months - July, August and September - the University of Lisbon's summer language programme is by far the largest. The programme at the University of the Algarve - situated in the heart of Portugal's premier tourist destination in the country's South - is popular with linguistically inclined travellers wanting to combine a summer at the beach with language studies.

Other universities offering such programmes include the universities of Porto, Minho, Aveiro, Tras-os-Montes and the Azores, among others. The oldest is offered by the University of Coimbra, which will hold its 84th annual summer Portuguese language programme this year.

Many students taking classes last summer were as upbeat about the extracurricular activities - many of which were organised by the students themselves - as with the classes themselves.

'I went to many cultural events - fado and folklore concerts, theatre and the Festa dos Tabuleiros in Tomar,' said Jarmila Svatosova, a high school teacher of French and German in the Czech Republic. She decided to study Portuguese so that she could read Portuguese literature in the original language.

'I travelled a lot all over Portugal - from the north to the south,' Ms Svatosova said. 'I met many people and talked to them, ate wonderful Portuguese food and stayed in a flat with a Portuguese girl. And now I have many new friends.'

One of the world's oldest institutions of higher learning, the University of Coimbra was founded in 1290. It was originally located in Lisbon and moved back and forth between that city and Coimbra until 1537, when it moved to its current location for good. It was ranked by the Times Higher Education Supplement in 2006 as the best university in the Portuguese-speaking world.

Most students studying at Coimbra last summer were able to find comfortable accommodation with shared kitchens and bathrooms for anything from Euro150 (HK$1,809) to Euro250 per month. Fees ranged from Euro455 to Euro555, depending on the nationality of students.

Other Portuguese universities will be offering summer language courses this summer, as well. Fees and living costs tend to be higher in the south and in larger cities and lower in the north, the interior, and the mid-Atlantic islands of the Azores and Madeira.

Students usually have to find their own housing off campus. It is a good idea to arrive a few days early, staying in a hotel or guest house for a few nights while looking for a suitable place to stay.

An exception would be the University of the Algarve, which allows students to stay in dormitories on campus.

Each university offers a different schedule, and there is still time to enrol. Courses generally run for four weeks, spanning July, August and/or September.

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