Out of the way

I started at the first presentation, somewhat uncertain if it would work or if I would be asked to slip back to english (which is more common here than speanish, it seems). And each day I'm still losing a couple more rogue spanish words that slip in, and speaking to people more in portuguese. Some of the talks this week I have understood all the questions too (although I am very happy to have Patrick there when I don't ). So I think it has been going pretty well.

Until today, when someone wrote in the presentation feedback that I should have spoke english. And for a little bit I felt very flat. Oddly enough, because I am pretty aware of the fact that my portugues is a long way from great - I would have described it as "functional, so long as the topic is web standards".

The question is interesting because on Friday, when presenting for the ]W3C Brazilian office, there will be a simultaneous translation available. Should I speak english, as I was originally planning? Or should I speak Portuguese, and use the translation for the questions, as I was planning on the weekend?

I don't know. It will depend somewhat on what happens tomorrow and how I feel at the end of the talk about my Portuguese, and how tired I am when the event starts on Friday. In the meantime, I will be trying to figure out some of the things that don't flow off the tip of my tongue yet...