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ESL forum >
Ask for help > Teaching English to Brazilians - help.
Teaching English to Brazilians - help.
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jocado
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Teaching English to Brazilians - help.
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I �m teaching some Brazilian students at the moment - does anyone know of particular difficulties Brazilians have with English.
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28 Apr 2010
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yanogator
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I know of one pronunciation problem. They can confuse initial "r" and "h", because an initial "r" in Portuguese has a sound similar to English "h". Because of this, some will sometimes pronounce initial "h" as "r". A friend of mine from Brazil was going to New York City, and he was excited because he was "going to eat a rot dog on the street".
Bruce |
28 Apr 2010
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gloriawpai
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They also have difficulties with the -th sound as in three, thumb, etc..
and they say "hestaurant" instead of restaurant. Or "head beans "instead of red beans. Another one is that they don �t finish the word as in coffee, but instead, they say "cough". Or hap instead of happy, etc...
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29 Apr 2010
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zailda
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They also have difficulties with vowel sounds and say in the same way "man" and "men", "bad" and "bed", "cheap" and "chip".
They tend to add "a" before names, like if they were nouns: She is "a" Mary.
They mix he, she and it.
Words in Portuguese have "gender" so they think in Portuguese and refer to a table as "she" (because this work is feminine in Portuguese).
And everything is "your" (like in Portuguese). ("seu" means: your, her, his, its, their, yours, hers, theirs in Portuguese)
Besides sounds, students tend to mix English grammar with Portuguese (and they are not similar at all), they speak English while thinking in Portuguese. If you teach them how to think in English you �ll make it.
Hugs
Zailda
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29 Apr 2010
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douglas
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Very interesting observations everyone--quite enlightening. |
29 Apr 2010
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joy2bill
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I find they have difficulty with using "how"
"How do you call it" instead of "What do you call it."
They also have problems with the "ed" endings for the past simple. They pronounce the �ed � as an extra syllable and do not understand that many past simple words are spelt with �ed � but pronounced �t � and �d �.
Try them with the tongue twister: "Thirty three thieves think that Thursday is their birthday". It really does their heads in.
They have a problem with shushing up. They are delightful and they just loooove to talk. Never a dull classroom when you have Brazilians.
I love them!
Long may the Brazilians be part of my class!
Cheers Joy |
29 Apr 2010
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zailda
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...and Brazilians do love you, Joy!
You �re right, we �re very talkative... LOL You �ll never have problems in conversation classes, even with bad pronunciation or grammar mistakes, we do love to communicate.
Have a nice day!
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29 Apr 2010
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jocado
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Thank you everyone, all your answers have been really interesting and informative.
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29 Apr 2010
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