On my way to Brazil in July

[pack]

... in response to What city?..., posted by HappyIdiot on May 24, 2001

hi happy, wow i better get out my map and look for that one Belem , im not familiar with it at all. i just recently bought a map of brazil at wide worlds of maps store. most the girls im corrosponding with in brazil are in sau paulo and one in rio . at present i am corrosponding both email and snailmail.all the girls have a computer except one and she uses a friends to email me. i have never been to brazil before so im really looking forward to the trip.how about you have you been there before? one big problem i speak cero portuguese. so far i have been lucky all these girls speak english , one girl even speaks 5 languages.

[HappyIdiot]

... in response to Re: What city?..., posted by pack on May 24, 2001

I found that the Insight Guide to Brazil is a very good read.  It is written by the people that do the Discovery Channel, and they carry it in Barnes and Noble.  I did pick up a language course for Brazilian style Portugese, by Living Language, but I haven't made much progress on it, because of time constraints.

[pack]

... in response to Nearly zero portuguese here too., posted by HappyIdiot on May 25, 2001

happy you have been there before , right? i assume there are translators around? how much do they charge?

[HappyIdiot]

... in response to Re: Nearly zero portuguese here too., posted by pack on May 25, 2001

I'm not sure about the costs, as I had not planned on hiring a tranlator.  Her english is quite good judging on phone conversations, and if things suddenly take a turn for the worse, I will probably do eco tourist stuff, which is available in the area.

I would also rather have the stress/difficulty of the language barrier with her now, to see how the reality sinks in with her about intercultural relationships.

I haven't been to Brazil before, so it will be a new experience for me.

[Ralph]

... in response to I'm not sure about the costs.  Maybe som..., posted by HappyIdiot on May 25, 2001

I found that they understand you if you speak Spanish, but I had trouble understanding Portugese. Portugese is sort of like Spanish, with a french accent.

Any words that start with R are pronounced with an H sound. They would be calling me  "halph" and fast is "hapido" rather than Rapido etc.

In Sao Paulo, you will not find very many cab drivers that speak ANY english. In Rio there are some. In fact I had one guy drive me a round ALL day, spoke pretty good english and charged $35! That was from maybe 2:00 in the aftrenoon, till 5:00 in the morning! Driving and translations included!

[Houndog]

... in response to I'm not sure about the costs.  Maybe som..., posted by HappyIdiot on May 25, 2001

***I would also rather have the stress/difficulty of the language barrier with her now, to see how the reality sinks in with her about intercultural relationships.***

IMO that's a very prudent line of reasoning. No matter how we try to help them, once they get here, it's SOOOOO HUGE, that THEY need real ability to soften 'their' transition.

Regards, HD