I began studying Portuguese at beginner level at Cardiff University in 2014. Since then, I have devoted myself to expanding my knowledge of the history and culture of the Portuguese-speaking world along with gaining proficiency in the Portuguese language. My semester in Portugal studying Estudos Culturais at the Universidade do Minho deepened my passion for all things Portuguese. As a lover of the arts, I was delighted to experience local festivals such as Festa das Cruzes and Braga Romana and became entranced by Fado, ensuring I attended several performances during my time abroad.

In my final year of university, I became fascinated with the study of Portuguese diaspora communities. I carried out a study on the Portuguese diaspora in France, producing a portfolio in which I analysed how this specific community is represented in both Ruben Alves’ film A Gaiola Dourada and Gerald Bloncourt’s photobook Por Uma Vida Melhor.

This July, I graduated from Cardiff University with First-Class Honours. I am eager to continue my studies in Portuguese later this month as part of Translation Studies (MA) to fulfil my ambition of becoming a Professional Translator.

In his first year exams, Dan was awarded an overall distinction for both the Spanish and Portuguese components of his degree, which only one or two students achieve each year. Particularly high marks in his two Portuguese language papers are clear indicators of his intellect and his dedication, especially given that he started Portuguese from scratch when he joined Oxford and was sitting the same paper as post-A-Level students. Since his first year, Dan’s college have awarded him a series of scholarships for sustained high performance based on glowing termly reports from all of those who have taught him.

Dan continued to show that he is a first-class student. In his second academic year, he was one of the finalists in Portuguese for translation classes (Portuguese into English) and, overall, was the highest-performing student, consistently gaining marks over 70 for his work. His translations were mature and dealt particularly well with register and humour in the passages set, demonstrating that he is a very careful reader and a stylish writer. In class, Dan raised the level of our discussions both with his own ideas and with his thoughtful responses to those proposed by his peers. His Portuguese language tutor and our Camões leitor, Rafael Esteves Martins, confirms that he is the best in a very bright group of students graduating this year.

Dan’s sensitivity to nuance and his attention to detail, so evident in his translation work, also shone through in his literature essays. He studied what is known as the Renaissance Prescribed Authors paper, which involves in-depth study of two Renaissance Portuguese writers, one explored in the second year and the other in the final year. Choosing this paper demonstrated Dan’s intellectual ambition and curiosity about the full range of writing from the Portuguese-speaking world, both chronologically and geographically, given that he covered modern Portuguese, Brazilian, and African literature in his second year. Dan dealt with the linguistic difficulties and cultural strangeness of Vicente’s plays with apparent ease, producing a set of insightful, carefully-argued, and well-researched essays. His close readings of individual passages and his ability to marshal a range of secondary criticism demonstrated a real ability to write about literature in a rigorous, yet imaginative way.