About English and Brazil.

One thing is a widespread knowledge around the world. Truly successful Brazilians are strongly respected as successful people due to the need of overcoming obstacles in every step of the way. The ability of doing well in a hard situation; besides, facing them filled with endurance, is a must have recognized skill of a successful Brazilian.

It has never been easy. Since the day we were born we had to face a series of obstacles in order to have a better future; the political chaos, a difficult economy, a bad education, the hard opinion of the ones that do not make it easy for a person to follow their dreams, and others. It is important to emphasize that, in addition to those issues, a Brazilian have always lived with the knowledge that the country was poor and full of dishonesty.

Although, on the other hand, there was always hope, for a special reason. Brazil has always been a new country; thus, a real opportunity for seekers of a better life and dreams. In the professional area, due to the gigantic need of skilled professionals, many of our fathers found, on graduation, the opportunity of growth and of a future. This continues to play a major role in our society, but many have seen that it is not enough.

We are not a technological country. Apple is American, Samsung is Korean, Nintendo is Japanese. Vale do Rio Doce is Brazilian and sells commodities. This means that in the industry, unfortunately, there are not enough positions available for skilled workers, especially in a moment of crises. Secondly, we have much more lawyers than we need, the statistics are clear. The question is about what is supposed to be done for real growth and development in a setting like that. Speaking of English is easy, people claim to speak English, but they do not. Nowadays we live in an international global society. Therefore, it is imperative that we master English as well as we can in order to operate really well in any specific area. It has been stated, by several sources, that about 5% of the Brazilians speak fluent English, imagine if we narrow it to specific types of English, like Business and Legal English, I believe that the rate will go down.

There are strong possibilities of development in a young country like Brazil. Of course, we should not act as our fathers, things are different now, and we must set our minds to our new reality. Although we have faced so many obstacles during the past years, we should have in mind that mastering English, technical English, and specific abilities, may grant the future of our young and problematic nation.