Re: New to group

["Jim" <alarminex@xxxxxxx>]

Robert L Bass wrote:
> > Just a quick pass through Rio. I have Brazilian
> > clients, a couple of friends (long time neighbors)
> > and have had Brazilian employees. You pick
> > up some of the normal conversational lingo over
> > time. I have a travel agency, as well, so you
> > can imagine we get alot of information from the
> > travel bureaus. They are in English, naturally,
> > but the destinations and local attractions have
> > the native language. I've picked up little bits of
> > different languages over the years, but far from
> > fluent in any of them.
>
> I'm nowhere near fluent in Portugues but I can understan most conversations and can make myself understood well enough to deal with
> government beauracrats, shop, dine and travel unimpeded.  When we go there we usually stay for several months so my language skills
> get better each time.  At home we speak about 50/50 Portuguese and English except when my American family are around.  Then we speak
> only English.  My sweetheart has learned more English than I have Portuguese, but she's been here much longer than I've spent in
> Brazil.
>
> I have a second home in Bahia, which is a state in the Northeast region.  We have family all over Brazil and we get lots of
> invitations to visit different places.  I spent a month in Rio de Janeiro state (mostly in the city of Rio) five years ago.  That's
> when I began to learn Portuguese.  The Cariocas (people from Rio) have an entirely different accent from the Nordestinos.  There are
> a few region specific phrases but the vocabulary is mostly universal.  Brazilian Portuguese is as different from European Portuguese
> as American English is from what you hear in the UK.
>
> BTW, I'm hoping to make a boat trip into the Amazon next year.
>

Don't forget to take a swim.
Next year is feed a Piranha year.