Internship in Rio

Hi Samydu31,

If you don't speak Portuguese then it is very unlikely you'd be able to find an internship in Brazil. Even in commerce English is not widely spoken, much less so Spanish and French. Even if you could find a position in which you'd use one of those languages a little bit, how in the world would you communicate with your co-workers?

  Cheers, 
  William James Woodward – Brazil Animator, Expat-blog Team

Hi mister Woodward,

Thanks for your reply.
I know that in commerce when a company works with foreign partners, English is the main language using by companies. If I find a company in rio which is doing business with Switzerland or Japan for example, contacts should be in English.
I have to do my internship in logistics import export, so for my internship I must be in contact with companies from others countries, so I think in my situation speaking English is the most important.
So I have to find a company which is doing business with European countries for example, and also I know that in South America the own country which is speaking Portuguese is Brazil, so I think I could integrate myself in a Brazilian company easily. But I don't have any idea about how business is working in rio, I only know that it is a very important business sector in the world, so I think speaking English could be enough....

Hi again Samydu31,

You are making a wild assumption when you say, "I know that in commerce when a company works with foreign partners, English is the main language using by companies." You obviously have never been to Brazil before or have never been inside any Brazilian workplaces.

I've been living here for over eleven years now and have been inside head offices of some of the largest companies and financial institutions in this country. I presently teach in the largest company in all of Brazil and they deal with people from all over the world. Even there very few people (less than 5%) speak English and usually not enough to carry on any kind of conversation. Here most business people have a very basic working knowledge of English in it's written form ONLY, due to exposure to the language on the internet, in e-mails.

I don't know if you've had any previous experience with France and the French, if so then you'd know how resistant they are to the English language. Brazilians are so resistant to English and Spanish they make the French look like rank amatures.

If you want to work at anything in this country, speaking Portuguese is an absolute must, trust me.

  Cheers, 
  William James Woodward – Brazil Animator, Expat-blog Team

You are absolutely correct when you say that, if a company has contacts with companies in Swizerland, these contacts are done in English. However, unless you speak Portuguese at least at an intermediate level, you simply won't find a job.

Hi again everybody, after 4 months of looking for an internship in Rio, i still didn't find anything....
If anybody think he may have any contact there, please help me.

Cordially.