When I arrived in Brasil on a Sunday morning August 2008, I was totally lost at the GRU international airport. The driver sent by the company claimed that he did not see any Chinese at the arriving hall. I was left there and even the ladies at information desk did not speak English!
I had traveled to several countries, and with fluent English I never faced such difficulties, even in a small African country as Madagascar- a former French colony, I enjoyed my stay.
And as English is not my native language, after an over 4 years' stay in Brazil, due to lack of use, my English is degenerating, even my pronunciation is affected by the local language here. And sadly my Portuguese is still at beginner level, due to the endless overtime, I can not manage formal language education...
Anyone faced similar situation? How do you keep the English language skills?
How to avoid the degeneration of English in Brazil
Hi Enzo,
As a teacher with a career spanning twenty-five years I can tell you that the moment you stop using a language, you begin losing it. You are not dealing with your mother tongue here, it's an acquired language so it's never permanently recorded in your brain. You may even find you will need to get back to some kind of classroom study.
DVDs, music, English audio TV programs, all are great ways to expose yourself to listening to the spoken language. Watch a film at least twice, first with English audio only and no subtitles. The second time with English audio and English subtitles in order to catch any of the subtle conversations you may have missed or not understood. Never use subtitles in your native language or that destroys all the work you're doing.
Join chats like PalTalk (www.paltalk.com) that have audio chats which you can choose by region or language and then get online and practice. Another tip is to avoid speaking to people who have a level of fluency significantly lower than yours, always seek to have conversations with those more fluent since this will challenge you and help you grow in the language.
The same information also holds true for learning Portuguese. If you want to learn Portuguese classroom study is absolutely essential, you can't substitute anything else, they should only be adjuncts. I became fluent in Portuguese in 8 months prior to arrival in Brazil by taking two classes a week and using the above techniques to expand my education even further. It works, nowadays I not only make money doing translations but also teach Portuguese to English speakers.
Cheers,
William James Woodward - Brazil Animator, Expat-blog Team
Hi William, thanks for the suggestions.
I used to watch movies in English but with subtitles, now I am trying to get some ones without subtitles. Around 5 years ago, I was confident to walk into the cinema for any latest American movies without subtitles, but I could not understand well anymore nowadays.
I stopped chat rooms around 7 years ago when I joined the current company, I decided to try again also this option, it is hard though, I work too much.
As for Portuguese, I began to use more inside the company-- in my company we use Mandarin + Portuguese + English. And sadly even when there is a meeting involving Chinese and Brazilian, normally it ends up that Chinese talking to Chinese in Mandarin and Brazilian talking to Brazilian in Portuguese, like there are 2 meetings in the same meeting room, English also used but very little.
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