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Are all Brazilians learning English? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| tommus Senior Member CanadaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5867 days ago 979 posts - 1688 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Dutch, French, Esperanto, German, Spanish | Message 1 of 22 23 January 2012 at 5:40am | IP Logged | ||
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I do quite a few English submissions reviews on LiveMocha. Almost every one is from Brazil? I'm not registered as learning Portuguese. Anyone know why there seems to be so much interest in learning English in Brazil?
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| nway Senior Member United States youtube.com/user/Vic Joined 5416 days ago 574 posts - 1707 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean | Message 2 of 22 23 January 2012 at 7:52am | IP Logged | ||
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The obvious answer to your thread's title is no. I don't think anyone equates Brazil with the likes of Northern Europe, India, or the Anglophone Malay Archipelago, with respect to widespread studying of English.
According to Alexa, LiveMocha ranks 880 in Brazil, meaning it hardly represents the entire population. Brazil just happens to be a big country with a nearly unsurpassed interest in this particular site (again, it achieves this with 779 sites still surpassing it), meaning Brazil is bound to be overrepresented on this site, and it happens to be an English-language website, so there ya go. There are certainly a lot of people in Brazil learning English—but there are also 192 million people in the country. You seem to have discovered that Brazil has a lot of people and is a significant audience for LiveMocha, not that "all Brazilians are learning English". That said, it may be possible that most Brazilian students are required to study some English. But the same is true of most places in the world. 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| fabriciocarraro Hexaglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Brazil russoparabrasileirosRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4716 days ago 989 posts - 1454 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, EnglishB2, Italian, Spanish, Russian, French Studies: Dutch, German, Japanese | Message 3 of 22 23 January 2012 at 12:23pm | IP Logged | ||
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Well, we have English at school for at least 7 years, but the teachers (and the students) usually don't give it much importance. I had it for 11 years at school, but what they really do is teaching the verb "to be", the past simple and some vocabulary all over again, so it's very hard to see a person that really learns it. Those who REALLY want to learn it (or whose parents oblige them to learn it) go and take a language course. There are MANY English language courses here, and they're usually very rich.
To give you my experience, (I'm 23) I took an English course for 4,5 years and I consider myself somewhere between B2 and C1. My friends from university (the 2nd best in the country) all speak at least some English, from A2 to C2. However, among my old school friends, I'm almost the only one that can speak English in a comfortable way. Most of them can read it well but can't speak it, others can do neither. Also, most of them are between A1 and B1. The ones that can speak it nicely are the ones who took an English course at some moment. English is becoming more and more important here nowadays, but not everyone can afford an English course, so for them, Livemocha is a fine way to try and improve it. Edited by fabriciocarraro on 23 January 2012 at 12:25pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Chevalier Diglot Groupie Brazil Joined 4708 days ago 53 posts - 104 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, English | Message 4 of 22 23 January 2012 at 2:56pm | IP Logged | ||
It's exactly the way he said, in my family, incluiding cousins, uncles, grandparents, I'm the only one who can 'communicate' in English. Many of us are not interested in language learning. Those who happen to have enough money to go to a course study English, since it's the language of international business and they want to have it under their belt. Spanish is understood by almost everyone (I mean, we understand, but that does not mean that we speak!), so just a few people actually pay to learn it. We also have Spanish at school, but most of us don't like learning it because it's just too similar. Just to give an example, in my first Spanish lesson, we were given a text in Spanish, and everyone could read it and understand more than 90% without any previous study. I learned to read in English because I used to play MMORPG, so I had to communicate with people. Also, video-games, I don't like them now, but 95% of it is only in English. Also, American music is really popular here. The average Brazilian can't speak English and is not learning English, school students, rich ones and a few who can learn by themselves are, but many can't speak it. A very rich friend of mine completed an English course (his father wanted him to) and he can't speak it, just read. If you ask Brazilians, many of them will say that they're learning because it's important, some because of songs/video-games and some who want to live abroad. Apart from video-games, we have everything else we need in our language. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| FireViN Diglot Senior Member Brazil missaoitaliano.wordpRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5230 days ago 196 posts - 292 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, EnglishC2 Studies: Italian | Message 5 of 22 23 January 2012 at 4:01pm | IP Logged | ||
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It's not THAT common to have Spanish at school. I had 7 years of English (the 'to be' repetition fabriciocarraro said) but never had Spanish classes. Just pointing it out.
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| fabriciocarraro Hexaglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Brazil russoparabrasileirosRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4716 days ago 989 posts - 1454 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, EnglishB2, Italian, Spanish, Russian, French Studies: Dutch, German, Japanese | Message 6 of 22 23 January 2012 at 4:36pm | IP Logged | ||
I totally agree! Years before going to an English course, I learned my basic English not at school, but at home playing Final Fantasy 7 non-stop. =P The same way, I learned how to read in the Japanese 'katakana' alphabet to be able to translate the players' names in Winning Eleven 2000. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tommus Senior Member CanadaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5867 days ago 979 posts - 1688 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Dutch, French, Esperanto, German, Spanish | Message 7 of 22 23 January 2012 at 6:28pm | IP Logged | ||
I didn't expect anyone to take that title literally. My obvious question was why the overwhelming majority of requests for submissions review for me on LiveMocha has come from Brazil. Yes, Brazil has a large population, but it is relatively small compared with the rest of the world where people are obviously learning English. In any case, many Brazilians on LiveMocha are working hard on their English and want their submissions reviewed. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| nway Senior Member United States youtube.com/user/Vic Joined 5416 days ago 574 posts - 1707 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean | Message 8 of 22 23 January 2012 at 6:37pm | IP Logged | ||
The only country supplying more visitors to the website is already English-speaking, and the next country after Brazil supplies just over half as many visitors, which each following country supplying even less. Brazil is simply disproportionately represented on that particular website. Perhaps Brazilians also have a stronger culture of engaging with others and wanting feedback, whereas some of the other most-represented countries might be more timid about submitting their work for review. Edited by nway on 23 January 2012 at 6:40pm 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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