When IT Decisions recently asked British expat and business English teacher in Rio de Janeiro Sam Watten to outline some of the difficulties English-speaking executives have when working in Brazil, his comments struck a nerve. His initial column last April received many hundreds of comments within a LinkedIn debate, so we asked Watten to tell us more…
It’s a Friday afternoon in 2008, I’m sitting on a busy Metro train on the way to visit a potential new student at his office in an area of Rio that I have never been to before. I’m not exactly sure where I am going or how long it will take to get there and I’m having one of those days where my brain just doesn’t want to wake up.
I’m feeling very tired and sorry for myself.
My self pity deepens when a grumpy looking woman with a bright pink hat stands up as if to get off the train but instead turns to me and rudely gatecrashes my personal space by barking something at me in Portuguese.
I do not understand what the lady has said to me in the slightest – but I immediately assume that I have done something to offend this woman.
“O quê?” I say politely, raising my eyebrows attempting a sorry I was miles away kind of tone rather than a I have no idea what you just said kind of tone.
She loudly repeats her sentence in an impatient, angry kind of tone.
Nope. Nothing.
This kind of thing happens to me occasionally. I’ve been working in Brazil for several months now and I am proud to say that my communication skills are pretty good. I push myself to practice Portuguese everyday by communicating with real people. Yet I have no idea what the rude, angry lady in the bright pink hat is saying to me, and unfortunately for me she is 100% real.
I’m also becoming aware of various other 100% real people’s faces turning in our direction which makes me feel more pressured to respond.
Why is she bothering me? I think to myself. I’m in a bad enough mood already and I’m not really appreciating this lady rudely staring at me like this.
Maybe I can ignore her I think, hopefully she will just get off the train before she misses her stop.
But neither the train doors nor the rude, angry lady in the bright pink hat move. She continues staring at me from under thin-rimmed glasses, impatiently expecting an apology or some kind of response.
We all have good days and bad days in every area of life, and for people learning Portuguese understanding and speaking this language is no exception. Today I am having a bad communication day…
*****
Days like the one I was having on this Friday in 2008 often happen when you are learning Brazilian Portuguese, you can occasionally lose your focus and you simply cannot understand what people are saying to you. Through lack of concentration you can also make silly, seemingly small mistakes when speaking. Unfortunately these smallest of mistakes can sometimes have big effects on the meaning of what you are saying.
For example, changing verbs depending on who we are talking about is not something we are used to doing in English. As anyone learning Brazilian Portuguese will know sometimes it really can be difficult to remember the correct verb ending when you are having a bad communication day. Unfortunately making a tiny mistake with a verb ending can change the entire meaning of a sentence.
Take the verb poder (can):
Posso (I can)
Pode (you can)
A native Brazilian would never get these mixed up (it would be like us mixing up “you” with “me”) but back in 2008 I still had to think about using the correct verb form when talking to people. I once cheerfully told my ex-boss “You can wake up early tomorrow and finish this student evaluation” when of course what I meant was “I can wake up early tomorrow and finish this student evaluation”.
Luckily my ex-boss was also a friend and he knows me well enough to realize I wasn’t trying to force my boring administration duties onto him and he pointed out my mistake.
However, it’s not hard to imagine how this “small” mistake could cause problems in the wrong situation. Imagine if I was having lunch with a prospective client and when the check arrives I confidently say “You can get this”.
It also works the other way too. Difficulties foreign executives have in Brazil do not just stem from speaking Portuguese. When living and working in Brazil you are likely to be speaking a combination of both English and Portuguese and it’s not just foreigners who have bad communication days. If a native Brazilian is feeling tired or distracted the small mistakes they make in English can also have big implications.
In Portuguese the word for “her” and “your” is the same. Commonly Brazilians forget that in English there is a difference. Some Brazilians (who usually speak English very well) could be having a bad communication day and may forget the word for “her” and just use “your” because this is natural when translating from Portuguese to English. You can imagine how, if you are not familiar with the Portuguese language that this can cause misunderstanding.
A Brazilian once said to me in English:
“Sofia is meeting your boyfriend after work”
I didn’t even realize I had a boyfriend I thought. And why is he seeing Sofia after work?
Is Sofia trying to steal my boyfriend?
Wait a minute, does my girlfriend know about my boyfriend?
Of course in reality I was familiar with this element of Portuguese and I understood what was meant – but imagine a foreign investor, straight off the plane, visiting Brazil for the first time being told something like this – Confusing to say the least!
When you’re having a bad day, communicating in Brazil can be confusing and difficult… This particular Friday on the metro back in 2008 was one of those days….
*****
The rude, angry lady in a bright pink hat on the Metro is still staring at me, eyebrows raised. I’m considering asking her to repeat but her stern, impatient expression gets to me and I decide that I’m not going to accept this rudeness right now.
So I maturely make the decision to bluff and pretend that I completely understand her but petulantly close my eyes, shake my head and slightly shrug my shoulders as if to say I understand you entirely but I am refusing to acknowledge your complaint.
The rude, angry lady in the bright pink hat seems to grudgingly accept this response and finally leaves the train and I relax slightly. I’m pleased with myself for handling the situation so well.
Everybody probably thinks I’m Brazilian I think to myself.
Hang on, Where is everybody? It then slowly dawns on me that there is no one else on the train and that I am sat on my own. Then, with a clunk, all the train lights go off.
Then a security guard gets on and politely tells me that this particular train stops here and I need to change.
I sheepishly step off the metro train and spend the next agonizing 7 minutes standing next to the lovely, helpful lady with a bright pink hat waiting for the transfer train. Thinking to myself I hope tomorrow is a good communication day.
Sam has since learnt to speak Brazilian Portuguese and has created Real Brazilian Portuguese a course that teaches non-Brazilians every day conversational skills. The course is ideal for people moving to Brazil or looking to make business relationships here. You can find more information, including three free lessons, here www.realbrazilianportuguese.com
Photo by Giovanni Novara licensed under Creative Commons
IT Decisions [historic site] 
Very cool text – I lol’d when I realized what that girl meant when she said “your boyfriend”. Most people will try to translate every single word when making a sentence in a foreign language. That’s a huge mistake.
Conjugaison issues (for English speakers) will occur not only with Brazilian Portuguese, but with every other Latin origined languages. I suppose it’s easier for a native Brazilian to learn Spanish, Italian or French rather than English. And I’m pretty sure it’s ALWAYS a pain for native English speakers to learn any of those mentioned languages…
Don’t give up! 🙂
“Sofia is meeting your boyfriend after work”, change “your” by “her” only…no big deal! You must be more smart as that….making a “storm in a cup” about a simple pronoun, come on!
We use to receive many visitors from the whole word, using to do plenty mistakes about languages, but the most important for us in making them confortable, asking for another words, and after, we use to say: – congratulation! You are doing well! Yes, we know that learn Portuguese is more difficult to strangers than Brazilians learn English, due to even for Brazilians, Portuguese language is not so easy to learn….
About your comments about Brazilian language skills, I am not proud to say that ONLY 2% of the 195.000.000 Brazilian’s citizens speack another language.
By the way, why other countries those you will deal with have to learn your language as an obligation? Why YOU did not learn foreigner countries language and characteristics BEFORE flight to make deals?
Concerning that “lady”, if she was an old one, could be that you was having a seat at the place reserved for old or ill people….thing about that…
I use to work with several different countries everyday….me and my foreign partners use to smile a lot about language mistakes, but we uses, at the same time, good humor to solve any odds or misunderstanding…..remember – ever – natives speak their own languages much more better than you and me are able to know.
Have a good life and maintain yourself in good health.
From a Brazilian women,
Loiva Leite
Thanks for your comment Loiva. I think one of the major problems is that English has become the default language for international business. I have worked for French, German, and Japanese companies myself and the standard language used was not the language used at their headquarters – it was always English. So English-speakers can be quite lazy about learning another language because it is always possible to use English for work… Obviously you cannot integrate into a society without learning the local language though!
Hi Loiva,
I actually agree with all of your comments but unfortunately some of them are slightly irrelevant. I’m sorry to say that you have completely misunderstood the tone of my post. It was intended as a (attempted) humorous look at the differences between the two languages.
Of course I agree with you when you say:
“why other countries those you will deal with have to learn your language as an obligation? Why YOU did not learn foreigner countries language and characteristics BEFORE flight to make deals?”
That’s why I have written this post to encourage foreigners to learn Brazilian portuguese using my course.
Also, you have misunderstood this section:
“Sofia is meeting your boyfriend after work”, change “your” by “her” only…no big deal! You must be more smart as that….making a “storm in a cup” about a simple pronoun, come on!
That was exactly the point – it IS no big deal when you actually know this (as I did). However if you do not know this (like a foreign executive visiting for the very first time) it would be confusing (and in my opinion amusing).
I’m actually very pleased you posted your comment because it has given me some extra things to think about. The tone was intended as just a light hearted example of language difficulties foreigners might face if they have to relocate to Brazil. I now realise that it’s not just the language that can be problematic but also the WAY that things are said or written that can be misunderstood.
I speak Brazilian Portuguese very well but I am now wondering if I myself would misunderstand a humorous Portuguese article and take it the wrong way.
Thanks for your comment – and just to repeat, I agree with you!
Best wishes,
Sam