Despite not being included among the countries that attract more foreign students, as the United States, France, Britain, Germany and others, Brazil has a tradition of receiving students from other countries interested in training and in touch with our culture.

For those interested in learning more opportunities, especially in the area of education, of our country, the universe Brazil prepared this special, which brings tips on exchange programs, grants, or even simple studies of opportunities offered by institutions of higher education Brazilian.

PEC (Programa Estudante-Convênio)

The main program to encourage the students interested in studying in Brazil is sponsored by the federal government, from the organization MFA (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) and its diplomatic missions overseas. The program is called PEC (Programa Estudante-Convênio), designed for graduate students (PEC-G) and pos-graduate students (PEC-PG).

The PEC-G was designed for students convened from countries of Latin America, the Caribbean and Africa interested in study in one of the 70 institutions of higher education in Brazil- the vast majority of them in federal or state universities. The PEC-PG which includes granting of scholarships was designed to the formation of masters and doctors in national institutions. Besides the three regions included in the PEC-G, the PEC-PG also includes developing countries in Asia and Oceania.

CAPES / CNPq

In addition to the PEC, the CAPES (Coordination of Improvement of Higher Education) also maintains a series of initiatives to encourage the coming of foreigners to the country from partnership with international organizations and institutions, such as, DAAD, Probal and Unibral (Germany), FIPSE (USA) and COFECUB and Brafitec (France).

The CNPq (National Council for Scientific and Technological Development), which also operates the PCE, has other programs designed for foreigners, but that in general, are granted from professionals from outside the country done by national institutions.

There are also agencies to promote the research and training of each foreign country, providing scholarships to people interested in coming to Brazil to develop their projects.

Brazilian universities

A good part of Brazilian universities maintain exchange agreements with foreign institutions of education. The majority foresee exchange of students between institutions.
Remember also that foreign students interested in studying in Brazil and having knowledge of Portuguese may compete for vacancies of graduate and postgraduate studies in the country from selective processes, such as written tests.

Portuguese language

It is important that who is interested in studying in Brazil knows that, in general, the Brazilian institutions of education demand proficiency in Portuguese language of the candidates. There are some exceptions to this rule, as in the case of countries agreed with the PEC-G have no representatives to apply the test of proficiency CELPE-Bras. In this case, students can benefit from a year Portuguese course in the receiving institution, for example.

We will focus on the importance of learning languages for travelling. You are the one and only responsible for determining how you will spend your time abroad and how much you will make the most of it. If you plan to visit a foreign country where a different language is spoken, you need to have an ace up your sleeve: knowledge of the local language. Being able to understand signs and menus, and engage in conversations with locals will give you the freedom you need, making you feel that you are really understanding and experiencing the culture. Tourists’ knowledge of the place they are visiting is generally limited to what tour guides say, the places where they can go are not more than those where bus tours stop, and the prices they pay are those offered to them as tourists. In other words, they will always feel like fish out of water, and never really plunge into the local culture, which is the most fulfilling feeling of travelling. To avoid this from happening, the Brazilians take English lessons in Sao Paulo, or as they call them Aulas de inglês em São Paulo, before travelling to any English speaking country. However, the advantage of English over other languages is that it works as a culture chain link. Wherever you are travelling to, you will find English speakers, whether native or foreign. The fact that English is so universal makes it crucial to us, and the Brazilians couldn’t agree more when they take an English course in Porto Alegre, which by the way, translates as Curso de inglês em Porto Alegre in Portuguese, a language that you should also consider to learn for travelling to the beautiful country of Brazil, where a 35% of the total population speak English as a second language.

On the whole, English is a language that you should learn for many reasons including travelling. It won’t only be useful in English speaking countries, but also in countries with a high percentage of English-as-a-second-tongue speakers like Brazil. Of course, the more the languages you know, the better your travelling experiences will be. In the meantime, we recommend that before travelling, you remember to carry your passport, pack a sweater and a jacket in case it gets cold (you just never know with global warming!) and book a language course.

Since I moved to U.S. 4 years ago this is the first time I feel my English is getting bad. When I got in here I went to school for 9 months to learn English then I took two more different courses to get better. After all these stuff I thought I still was not ready to talk to people.

After I leave school my grammar was very good however I wasn’t able to talk to people, that probably happened because I’m shy and I didn’t want to fail. I didn’t want to look bad in front of people I didn’t know.

Most of the time my brain created the right sentence but when I spoke the words kind of changed the order and the people I was speaking to got totally confused.

Then one day I read an article that said “Speak Up! Lose your fear of speak to people”, in that article the writer explained how to talk to people even though you don’t know all the words. He said that if you wait until you master the grammar to talk to someone you’ll die and this time will never come. He also gives advice on how useful can be watch TV News and TV series to learn words and slang.

After I read that article I realized that I was wasting my time in books and I had to go out and speak to people. It was not an easy task but I did. It helped me a lot to improve my English. I still have to improve a lot.

Another barrier I had when I was trying to learn was that in my first two years in U.S. I mostly worked with people that speak Portuguese and Spanish. I learned Spanish first than I learned English. The only good thing about it was that I was able to pick up girls who speak Spanish, other than that Spanish didn’t help me at all.

In one hand It’s so comfortable to speak our native language(Portuguese in my case) in a foreign country, on the other hand if you do that very often you won’t be able to learn and master the foreign language and it’ll be a big barrier to be a successful person.

If you are learning a new language never give up. Remember that everything takes time and a lot of hard work.

The Days of the Week (Os Dias da Semana)

Monday – Segunda-feira
Tuesday – Terça-feira
Wednesday – Quarta-feira
Thursday – Quinta-feira
Friday – Sexta-feira
Saturday – Sábado
Sunday – Domingo

The Months of the Year (Os Meses do Ano)

January – Janeiro
February – Fevereiro
March – Março
April – Abril
May – Maio
June – Junho
July – Julho
August – Agosto
September – Setembro
October – Outubro
November – Novembro
December – Dezembro

Reading long dates

The year is given as a complete number in Portuguese. So for example, 1999 is given as ‘one thousand nine hundred and ninety nine’ rather than ‘nineteen ninety nine’. The day of the year is given as the cardinal number rather than ordinal, (for example, they say the equivalent of ‘day 4’ rather than ‘the fourth’) – except for the first, which is normally ordinal (‘primeiro’).
21st February 1763 – 21 de Fevereiro de 1763 (Dia vinte e um de fevereiro, de mil setecentos e sessenta e três)
19th July 1974 – 19 de Julho de 1974 (Dia dezanove de julho, de mil novecentos e setenta e quatro)
1st May 2002 – 1 de Maio de 2002 (Primeiro de maio, de dois mil e dois)

Roman numbers

Going back further into history, you may need to refer to dates as ‘AEC’ or ‘EC’ – that is ‘antes era comum’ (before our common era), or ‘era comum’ (of our common era). You will probably also come across the less accurate but more common ‘AC’ (antes [de] cristo) which means ‘BC’ or ‘Before Christ’, and ‘DC’ (depois [de] cristo] – which means ‘AD’ (anno domini – the year of our lord). Whereas in English we tend to just say the letters (eg. ‘B.C.E.’), in Portuguese you have to say the full words (eg. ‘antes era comum’). Also, the implied words ‘de’ and ‘nossa’ (‘of’ and ‘our’) are usually omitted, or sometimes contracted to ‘da’.

537 BCE – 537 AEC (Quinhentos e trinta e sete antes era comum)

33 CE – 33 EC (Trinta e três era comum)

1336 BC – 1336 AC (Mil trezentos e trinta e seis antes [de] cristo)

305 AD – 305 DC (Trezentos e cinco depois [de] cristo)

The Seasons (As Estações)

Spring – Primavera
Summer – Verão
Autumn – Outono
Winter – Inverno

The Time (A Hora)

1 O’Clock uma hora
2 O’Clock duas horas
3 O’Clock três horas
midday meio-dia
midnight meia-noite
half past one uma e meia
half past two duas e meia
quarter past one uma e um quarto (quarters are not used in Brazil)
quarter past two duas e um quarto
quarter to one uma menos um quarto
quarter to two duas menos um quarto
five past one uma e cinco
five past two duas e cinco
ten to one dez para uma
ten to two dez para duas

Conclusion

These should help you understand not only what to say but why it is said. It should help you get around, telling people when and where and understanding when people tell you when and where.

In the last article about how to learn Portuguese we learned the Portuguese alphabet. To learn a new language takes time and I’ll break this article in 10 weeks, in every article 10 verbs will be cover.

1. agree means concordar
   e.g.: Eu concordo com todos os termos e condições.
   I agree with all the terms and conditions.
   .
2. do means fazer
   e.g.: Eu não vou fazer nada amanhã.
   I won’t do anything tomorrow.
   .
3. know means saber
   e.g.: Nós devemos saber da verdade
   We must know the truth
   .
4. read means ler
   e.g.: Eu aprendi a ler quando tinha 4 anos de idade.
   I learned how to read when I was 4 years old.
   .
5. suggest means sugerir
   e.g.: O que você sugere que eu faça?
   What do you suggest I do?
   .
6. allow means permitir
   e.g.: Eu não posso permitir sua entrada.
   I can’t allow you to get inside.
   .
7. eat means comer
   e.g.: Eu estou cansado de comer banana todo dia.
   I’m tired of eat banana everyday.
   .
8. learn means aprender
   E.g: Eu quero aprender a falar português.
   I want to learn how to speak Portuguese.
   .
9. remember means lembrar
   e.g.: Eu não consigo lembrar o seu nome.
   I can’t remember your name.
   .
10. take means tomar
    e.g.: Você poderia tormar a bola do cachorro?
    Could you take the ball from the dog?

In the next article I’ll cover 10 more verbs and some methods and programs used to learn a new language. For the people who is going to Brazil this year should check this article about how to start a conversation in Portuguese.

This phenomenon happens all the time. The human being’s brain is always trying to process more than one type of information at the same time. Read this conversation and understand the process:

- Your friend call you and ask you to do him a favor

- You answer him that you’re sick and you can’t do this time.

- It was like if he wasn’t listening to you and say don’t worry this task is gonna take you just a little bit.

- You get back at him and say “I’d do if I weren’t sick” and for some reason his brain is blocked and don’t understand the message.

- Then he ask you one more time, “hey can you do the favor or not”?

- You just say “NO” and he gets mad because in his opinion you don’t want to help him.

The brain is so focused in achieve the goal that sometimes it blocks information not related to the main goal.

There are many people who want to learn a new language to improve their life but many of them don’t achieve this goal. I have many friends who want to learn English, but they never have the compromise to reserve time for that matter.

It’s good to keep in mind that time flies, no matter what. My conception is the quicker you get it over with, the quicker you’re free to do whatever you please. For example, when moving to a foreign country, the very first thing to do is to learn the language spoke in the country, without which you’re life can become rather difficult.

I’ve been a U.S. resident for the past 4 years. And that was my first goal to accomplish in here. And so I did. One week after my arrival in the states, I signed up for English classes. It is certainly far from perfect, but allows me to communicate very well. I still have an accent, but that’s just something I need to work on.
I know it’s a lot easier said than done and many people choose not to follow it. Many come to U.S. looking for better lives and often forget the need to adapt into the countries culture in order to be successful. And of course there are people who built an empire without even knowing how to speak a little English. There’s an exception to every rule.

Anything is possible if you’re dedicated and hard-worker, as well as organized, which is very important for someone learning a new language. Only 30 minutes a day in a year can lead one to great improvement. Maybe a little less TV and a little more reading.

Next article on how to learn a new language, we’ll talk about some very interesting audio lessons for those who lack the time to go to school.

The Portuguese alphabet consists of 23 letters (18 consonants and 5 vowels).

The letters K, W and Y do not belong to the Portuguese alphabet, but they can be used in names (Wagner/Wilson/Yara/Amaury) or with international terms (kg/km/watt, etc.).

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Remark: It is important to know how to pronounce the alphabet as sometimes you have to spell your name or ask people to spell something for you.

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x

2. Pronunciation Guide

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The comparison with English words should help you pronounce the words correctly in Portuguese. Please note that not every sound can be reproduced in written form.

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Remark: The letter x has several different pronunciations.

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3. Regional Pronunciations

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For the letters r/s/x/z there are two big regional differences in pronunciation between São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. Both pronunciations are correct.

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Tip: Be aware that there is this difference. Learn to distinguish between them and choose one of the easiest for you.

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This is a conversation between an American man and Brazilian woman, the conversation takes place in Brazil.

Bom dia senhor means Good morning sir
[bõd'ia] [señ'or] – phonetic for the text above

Como você está ? means How are you?
[k'omu] [vos'e] ['Ɛstə] – phonetic for the text above

Muito bem, obrigado means I’m good, thanks
[m'ujtu] [b'ẽj], [obrig'adu] – phonetic for the text above

Você fala português? means Do you speak Portuguese?
[vos'e] [f'alə] [portug'es]? – phonetic for the text above

Um pouco, eu ainda estou aprendendo means A little, I’m still learning
['u] [p'owku], ['ew] [a'ĩdə] [estow] [aprẽdẽdu] – phonetic for the text above

Voce é americano? means Are you american?
[vos'e] [Ɛ] [amerik'ʌnu] – phonetic for the text above

Sim means Yes
[s'ĩ] – phonetic for the text above

Você fala muito bem o português means You speak portuguese very well
[vos'e] [f'alə] [m'ujtu] [b'ẽj] [ɔ] [portug'es] – phonetic for the text above

Obrigado means Thanks
[obrig'adu] – phonetic for the text above

Hope everybody understood the lesson, wait for more next week.