Galp Energia CEO believes oil will improve geopolitical position of Portuguese

Publico has an interview with the CEO of Galp Energia, a Portuguese energy firm with about 7000 employees, who believes upcoming production of oil in Brazil and gas in Mozambique are a good sign for the geopolitical importance of the Portuguese language.

Taking a look at the firm's worldwide presence shows a large similarity to the Portuguese Empire. Where the company operates:

and the Portuguese Empire:

Much of the article is about the company itself and its partner Sinopec. Taking that out and condensing some of the more general parts the executive summary is:

The CEO of Galp Energia, Ferreira de Oliveira, believes that Brazilian oil and gas from Mozambique will change the perception the world has of the CPLP (Community of Portuguese Language Countries). Galp expects to produce 300,000 barrels of oil per day in 2020, 80% from Brazil. In the past year the company invested $600 million in oil exploration there. Most of the production is to take place in the Lula and Iara fields, and production will begin in 2017.

Q: Will Brazil continue to be the main priority for Galp Energia, or will it move to Angola, or more likely, to Mozambique?

A: "In the Lusophone countries, especially in Angola, Mozambique and Brazil, from 2006 to today, we have seen 26% of all new discoveries of oil and gas. If we count only deepwater discoveries, they make up 52%. The rate of growth here will be explosive. I have no doubt that this decade in which we are living will position the CPLP geopolitically in the world. Mozambique is now developing the largest gas project in the world, and Brazil the largest oil project in the world. Being in these two projects is an enormous privilege and a huge responsibility.

Read more...

Time to get out the Portuguese interpreters

With the World Cup less than a year away, it's time for TV stations to start using their Portuguese interpreters, not the most sought out language until recently. I think I've already found my favourite one:



Ronaldo is introduced as 축구공 호나우도 (Ronaldo the soccer ball instead of Ronaldo the soccer player), and she then follows up with a 플레코안녕~ (kind of like saying "ssup Fuleco") that the announcers found most entertaining, with a "우리 통역사가 참 귀엽죠?" (Our interpreter's so cute)

In related news, Portuguese is now one of the ten "languages for the future" as considered by the British Council. The other nine are: Spanish, Arabic, French, Mandarin, German, Italian, Russian, Turkish, and Japanese.

Read more...

700 students in Santa Cruz do Sul learn German

In case you were wondering how many students in Santa Cruz do Sul (a Brazilian city with a lot of German cultural influence) are learning German, apparently it's 700. The article is about the growing importance of German but we do not get the numbers for any previous years in comparison with the 700 learning German now. Total population of the city is 120,000, which would mean about 20,000 students.

Read more...

Link roundup, 29 June 2013

• Playing with papal tweets, and more playing with papal tweets.
• I think this is the first Esperanto-related job I've ever seen arrive in my email account.
• Esperanto in two weeks, by a 16-year-old guy who only knows English.
• Dallas Police Department to offer an all-Spanish police academy.
• Portuguese could be an Olympic working language.
• Dawn is now 52 million km away from Ceres. For comparison, Venus can get as close as 41 million km to Earth. Still quite a ways to go.
• A discussion on the language used in Brazil:

Read more...

Spanish ceding ground in Rio de Janeiro schools

From an article in Portuguese here:

Spanish with its multiple accents is heard daily on the streets and beaches of Rio de Janeiro, home to tourists and thousands of Ibero-american immigrants, but Spanish is ceding ground in schools in the city as of 2014 by a decision made by city hall.

The new educational plan makes Spanish no longer mandatory in primary schools, making it an optional subject outside of normal classes.

This measure will not affect private colleges or high schools which, along with the rest of Brazil, must offer Spanish as per a law passed in 2005 in order to strengthen ties with Latin American neighbors.

The rest of the article gets into the reaction to this: apparently the government does not believe it is possible to focus on both English and Spanish, and the Association of Spanish Language Teachers is not happy that this is happening now just before the World Cup and Olympic Games.

Read more...

Portuguese Language Museum in Sao Paulo to use revised orthography

While Brazil has put off adaptation of the Portuguese orthographic accord until 2016, the Museu da Língua Portuguesa in Sao Paulo will be using it starting next month, or at least in its permanent exhibition. Makes sense perhaps considering that it's the museum of the Portuguese language, not just the Brazilian version of it.

Read more...

Brazil delays Portuguese orthographic accord by three years, to January 2016

Brazil announced that it intended to do this a few weeks back, and now it's official: the Portuguese orthographic accord originally intended to go into force January 2013 has been delayed three more years to January 2016. The original decree was issued in 2008, giving the government over four years to prepare, so this is a bit under that. The new orthography is still optional and both it and previous Brazilian spelling can be used, but as of 2016 only one will be official...or so the plan goes. Many will be taking advantage of this to either promote changes to the accord, or (less likely) to attempt to scrap it altogether.

Read more...

Brazil may delay implementation of orthographic accord

From Público yesterday:

The Brazilian government is preparing a presidential decree to postpone the mandatory term of the orthographic accord to 31 December 2015. The extention of the accord, originally scheduled for January 2013, should be done by next Wednesday. The text of the presidential decree is ready at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and is waiting for the signatures of Antonio Patriota and Dilma Rousseff.

We're not in any condition to bring it in force on the first day. The accord is a 'patchwork quilt' and many teachers still don't know how to apply it, said senator Cyro Miranda to Lusa.

The postponement emerged from a public hearing with Portuguese language teachers who criticized the accord and made a petition with more than 20,000 signatures against it.

Besides the postponement, the senator said he believes the text of the accord will be revised:  "The orthographic accord is very confusing. I believe that both Portugal as well as Brazil will ask for it to be revised.“

I personally don't see a huge need for the spelling reform - while it is true that Spanish is written in one way worldwide and so is French, English has a number of differences from country to country that have not done a thing to impede its status as a world language...and the Portuguese accord wouldn't bring all written Portuguese in line anyway:

Na prática, o acordo estabelece uma unidade ortográfica de 98% das palavras, contra cerca de 96% na situação anterior.

By the way, I've seen a lot of these Telecurso Portuguese language lessons in my inbox lately and they're quite a lot of fun if Brazilian Portuguese is the kind you prefer:

Read more...

BBC Portuguese on increasing demand for Portuguese, largely thanks to Brazil

It's rare that one comes across an article of this type with too many numbers to reference in a single weekday post, though the second debate tonight (Joe Biden + Paul Ryan) may have something to do with that as well. The article begins with a comment about how (in Brazil) people wanting to learn Portuguese generally fell into one of two categories: either they had a friend/spouse/etc. who was Brazilian, or they simply loved Brazil as a country. However:

In recent years, universities and language schools in different countries have reported not just an increase in demand for courses for the language but also a chance in the profile of students.

"Knowing Portuguese today is good for one's CV", says the Brazilian Roberta Mallows, who set up a recently-launched course of Portuguese language and Brazilian culture at King's College London, and before that taught Portuguese courses in Switzerland. "There are many people trying to learn the language for pragmatic reasons, and especially to increase their opportunities in the workplace and carry out negotiations with Brazil."

Since 2008 Portuguese has been listed as one of the priority languages in the survey made by the Confederation of British Industry, Britain's largest business lobby.

And for the rest of it, Google Translate seems to have done a good enough job, albeit awkward (title: "Brazil boosts high in teaching Portuguese in the world"). The only part that didn't make that much sense is:

Among the schools that were enthusiastic about the new demand in Britain, are the United International College London, where Claudia works. The school opened a Portuguese course a year ago and has already enrolled 86 students, according to Javier Zamudio area director of foreign languages. "Among them, there are many European countries and some Latin Americans," Zamudio says, estimating that "about 95% of the students" are interested in Portuguese "Brazil."

What it means to say: about 95% of the students are interested in Brazilian Portuguese. Sounds about right.

Near the end there is also some ruminating about creating a Brazilian version of the Instituto Camões, since Brazil is large enough to do so and yet does not have such a worldwide institution. Possible names suggested: 'Instituto Jorge Amado', 'Instituto Machado de Assis'.

Read more...

Billy the scarf, can't live without Brazil, Latin in Germany

--- A good example of how good language learning materials have become lately, for the largest languages at least.

--- It's impossible to live without Brazil: an article in Portuguese on the role of Brazil in the Lusophone world, vis-à-vis China in particular.

--- I recently mentioned that Latin is undergoing a boom in Germany; now Deutsche Welle has written an English article on the subject.

Read more...

Link roundup: 29 July 2012

-- Let's begin with an Italian article on the city of Serafina Correa in Brazil, where the two official languages (either permanently or for a week-long festival in the summer, not sure which) are Portuguese and Venetian. The original decree from 1988 on making the language official for that week is here as a pdf.

-- A reminder that there is an astronaut running for Congress this November.

-- Trips to the Gaeltacht are declining, from 28,000 in 2008 to 24,000 this year. Economic conditions are to blame here, and there is no reason to doubt the claim: when times are tough, 750 to 900 euros for a three-week course is probably one of the first items that one would cut from one's household budget.

-- On the Alqueva Dark Sky Reserve, in Portuguese and in English.

-- Evidence for Titan's large underground ocean: its 'squishiness' involving its shape changing by 10 metres due to Saturn's gravitational pull, which is best explained by such an ocean. Here we see one of the benefits of the long-term observation of the moon Cassini has and is continuing to carry out.

-- Why Enceladus is thought by many to be the best destination for finding life. Not that other destinations such as Europa could not have life as well, but Enceladus is the only such destination that constantly sprays these samples out onto the surface like a geyser.

Read more...

Languages Brazilians use in job interviews

An article here in Portuguese references a study by a job posting site on when Brazilians end up doing job interviews in other languages and which languages they are when they do:

A survey done by Catho Online, a company that publishes resumes and job openings on the internet, indicates that 5.3% of Brazilians have had a job interview in another language in the selection process for their current job. Of these, 80% were done in English, 13% in Spanish and 7% in other languages.

Read more...

On learning Chinese (and Spanish and English) in Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil, for the 2014 World Cup

This article in Portuguese goes over some of the linguistic preparations taking place in Manaus, Amozonas, Brazil, where one of the stadiums being constructed for the 2014 World Cup is located. The article cites the 'complexity' of the language as one reason why municipal workers will only be learning the basics of Mandarin, but it's more unfamiliarity than complexity. A short-term intensive Chinese course given to Japanese, Korean or Vietnamese people for example could focus entirely on how to pronounce terminology shared with Chinese (and a few basics of grammar and word order) and end up with a vocabulary of a thousand or more words by the end of a few weeks. For example:

--- Do you use denwa (電話) in Chinese? Yes, it's diànhuà. Mainlanders simplify it as 电话.
--- Can you use 行 (iku) to mean go in Chinese? No, in Chinese this character means okay (xíng) - to go you use the character for saru (to leave, 去る) and pronounce it qù (instead of kyo).
--- Can you use the word hikooki (飛行機 ) in Chinese to mean airplane? Almost - take out the middle character  (and simplify the hanzi for mainlanders) and you have 飞机 (fēijī).
--- Can you use the word tenki (天気) in Chinese? Just about - simplify it (天气) and pronounce it as tiānqì and you're good.

Anyway, to the article:

The increase of Chinese companies with a presence in Manaus, along with the growing number of tourists leaving China to meet the Amazon, has led to growth in the provision of Mandarin language courses. Still available only in a small number of institutions, the learning of the language is also motivated by the World Cup in 2014 in the city.

Mindful of this, muncipal agent Elom de Oliveira began studying Mandarin last week...in the second semester of study Elom will resume a Spanish course that was interrupted...To begin studying the Chinese language, he and 46 others enrolled in the first basic Mandarin course sponsored by the Fundação Escola de Serviço Público Municipal (FESPM).

The free course is part of the "Training Program for the 2014 World Cup" (Programa de Capacitação para a Copa 2014)...besides Mandarin, the program also offers classes in English and Spanish in four levels.

The director of FESPM (Angelo Bulbol) explained that the classes had a duration of 78 hours. "We cannot ignore China's growth. It is imperative that professionals consolidate their careers by mastering Mandarin, which since 2009 is among the most requested by municipal employees."

She admitted that due to the complexity of the language, over the three months the classes will be focused on a general knowledge of culture, such as greetings and manners, weather conditions, tourist spots in the country, ethics, money and principal verbs.

She said that it is possible that the Foundation will offer intermediate and advanced Mandarin courses, but it will depend on the performance of current students in the class.

Data from Amazonastur shows that Chinese tourists to Amazonas grew by 6.1% in 2011 compared to the year before (10.6 million in 2010, 11.3 million in 2011).

Read more...

Brazil to send young diplomats to China for six months to learn Mandarin

From here in Spanish:

Five young recently assigned diplomats will be sent to study at the Beijing University of Language and Culture for six months. According to a report published by the national Brazilian news agency, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Brazil is developing a Chinese language training plan for its diplomats.

According to the report, relations between Brazil and China are becoming closer all the time in the economic, political, diplomatic and cultural sphere. In 2009 China became Brazil's largest trading partner. Last year bilateral trade reached $84.5 billion, 32.5% more than in 2010.

Brazilians here encounter two large difficulties: one is the language barrier, since there are few Brazilians who can speak or read books in Mandarin. The second is that there is little knowledge of Chinese culture.

It then ends by saying that the Minister of Foreign Affairs (Antonio de Aguiar Patriota) can read and speak Mandarin due to having been the Brazilian Ambassador in China before.

Read more...

Russian Alliance of Higher Education interviewing Brazilian medical students for the University of Kursk

From here in Portuguese:

The Russian Alliance of Higher Education has begun interviews with candidates for medical school at the State University of Kursk, considered to be one of the best in Russia. The candidate must be up to 25 years old, and students that are not fluent in English have the option of attending preparatory school, where a student is given three months to prepare, and three months on top of this if necessary.

Medical courses in Russia are in high demand by Brazilians because of the incentives the Russian government gives to foreign students. Each student on average spends 7000 reals ($3500 USD) per year with travel expenses and housing, which represents an amount much smaller than private universities in Brazil. The university is located in Kursk, which has a low cost of living. Currently there are about 250 Brazilian students studying medicine in Russia.

Those who know the Russian language can enroll in post-graduate and doctorate courses. In these, students that are up to 36 years of age can stay in preparatory school for nine months to learn the language, and then enter the chosen course.

View Larger Map

Read more...

Small link roundup: Vesta, Chinese in Brazil, François Hollande, Russian in the EU, Korean language students doubled in four years

--- Let's begin with a virtual flight over Vesta taken by Dawn and made recently (a week ago) using that footage:



Quite amazing when you think that just a year and a bit ago our best image of the protoplanet was this:

--- Next is another "Chinese is super useful and more and more people are learning it" article here in Portuguese. Two numbers worth noting: a Chinese continuing ed class in Unesp de Rio Preto with 30 classes in 2010 grew to 40 the next year, and the cost is 200 real ($100) per semester at 3 hours per week (two 1.5-hour classes).

--- This article states that François Hollande says he speaks better English than Sarkozy, but that the President of France should use French.

--- This article from Voice of Russia says that a group in France called France-Ural wants to make Russian an official language of the EU, a popular refrain on Voice of Russia. Just checked out their homepage and it's very hard on the eyes. Haven't seen a spinning graphic and frames in a website for quite some time.

--- This article in English says that about double the number of people were in Korea on student visas to learn the language in 2010 compared to 2006, now reaching 17 880.

Read more...

Confucius Institute to open in Porto Alegre

From here in Portuguese:

On Wednesday Porto Alegre will open its first Confucius Institute. It will be located on the Vale campus of the UFRGS (Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul) and is a partnership between the university and the Communication University of China (CUC).

The institute will have classrooms and short-duration courses. The professor and writer Jane Tutikian will be the Brazilian director of the site - a Chinese director must be appointed by July. Two more Chinese teachers will be selected to give lessons to the Brazilians.

There are around 300 Confucius Institutes around the world, with only four in Brazil.

View Larger Map

Read more...

More on the 70 East Timorese going to study in Brazil

This article in Portuguese is the last of the few I had to write about on East Timor and the Portuguese language. I did have another but it was more or less a duplicate of another one; this one touches on a subject mentioned in the last post but has more information.

A group of 70 students from East Timor will go to Brazil in March to study at the Universidade Federal da Integração Luso-Afro-Brasileira (Federal Lusa-Afro-Brazilian University of Integration) in Ceará. Brazilian Ambassador in Dili Edson Monteiro told the Lusa news agency that: "After a process of selection, in which we were aided by the Universidade Nacional de Timor-Leste (National University of East Timor, or UNTL), the first group of 70 East Timorese students will leave for Brazil in March."

According to the ambassador, the students will be in Brazil for a period of three years, returning after that to East Timor to finish their last year at the UNTL.

Edson Monteiro also said that 30 university teachers were to soon arrive in Dili to give lessons in all the faculties of the UNTL.

"It's the first time that something of this dimension is being done, and coincides with the first year where UNTL will give courses in Portuguese. In the next year it will have two classrooms to study Portuguese and in four years it will be the language of use of the university, as the law of education in East Timor requires", he said.

Read more...

Radio Vatican: Portuguese language is gaining ground in East Timor

From here (Brazilian Portuguese version of Radio Vatican) in Portuguese yesterday. I have a few more Portuguese-related articles to write about in the next few days too.

Prohibited for nearly 25 years in East Timor, Portuguese has been gaining ground. By means of crossword puzzles, word searches and colouring pages for children, Brazil has been encouraging the dissemination of the language in the Asian country, which became independent from Indonesia ten years ago. Until then Indonesian was the official language of the country, now the official languages are Tetum and Portuguese. Because of this vacuum, there is a "repressed desire" for the Timorese to learn the language, according to the Brazilian ambassador in Dili, Edson Monteiro.

He says that in a book fair in 2010, all copies in Portuguese were sold on the first morning of the event. After that, the embassy contacted Brazilian publishers to partner with them. One of these donated 80,000 Portuguese titles.

In March, about 70 East Timorese will go to Brazil to learn Portuguese and attend college, according to Folhapress.

Barazilian TV is also seen in East Timor: programs such as "A Grande Família" (The Large Family) and "A Diarista" (The Diarist) have been broadcast on RTTL (Rede de Televisão do Timor-Leste - East Timor Television Channel).

"The Timorese identify with the scenario and Brazilian stories, in particular those that come from a rural environment. The film "Dois Filhos de Francisco" (Francisco's Two Sons) has had the most success here", said the ambassador.

After that follows a general introduction to Portuguese and the countries that speak it, information that can easily be obtained on Wikipedia or elsewhere.

Read more...

Interest in Chinese increasing among businesspeople in Portugal

From here in Portuguese a week ago:

Interest in the Chinese language and culture is greatly increasing in Portugal, particularly among businesspeople, said the dean of the University of Lisbon (António Sampaio da Nóvoa) to the Lusa news agency.

"We are opening intensive courses for businesspeople [because] the demand is impressive." he said when asked about the activity of the Confucius Institute at the UL, established four years ago in partnership with the Tianjin Institute of Foreign Studies.

The Confucius Institute at the UL is the second of its kind in Portugal, after the one established at the University of Minho, in Braga.

About 300 students now attend the Confucius Institute at the UL.

António Sampaio da Nóvoa began on Wednesday a one-week visit to China, accompanied by officials from the UL and the Macau Polytechnic Institute.

The visit coincides with the rapid growth of Portuguese courses in the Chinese continent, a phenomenon associated with the development of economic and commercial relations between China and Portuguese-language countries, particularly Angola and Brazil.

Not counting Macau, a decade ago the who of China only had two universities with degrees in Portuguese; today there are five in Beijing alone.

I would add Portugal to Angola and Brazil now, considering the amount of Chinese investment pouring in at the moment. For example from here:

The acquisition of 21.5 percent of power company Energias de Portugal (EdP) by China Three Gorges (CTG), at the end of last year, was a special moment for business relations and may be followed by the State Grid Corporation of China (SGCC) taking a static in Portugal’s national power grid, Redes Energéticas Nacionais (REN).

Also this and this article on more or less the same subject.

Read more...