Why We Are Here

J: So that concludes our section about the news and that brings us to our next section – ‘Why are we here?’  So Gee, tell me – why are you here? Why aren’t you in Britain?

G: Well, that’s quite a long story actually. Where would you like me to begin?

J: Well, tell me about the reason you are actually in Brazil right now? What brought you to Brazil?

G: Well, that side of things it’s always the same isn’t it? It’s always back down to a woman, at the end of the day.

J: Oh, those women!

G: So yes, I’m here because of a woman, albeit it’s a long time ago now.

J: Ok, but is-is that the same woman that you came here for originally?

G: Well we came together actually…

J: Er, ok.

G: …I actually met her in California.

J: You met her in California?

G: In California. I was there for two years, I was studying and I was living by the beach. We used to have a good life back then. Every Saturday, we used to have barbecues, we used to play a bit of volleyball, the house was right next to the beach.

J: And of course, that’s where you find Brazilians, is at the beach.

G: And as it turns out, that is where I did find a Brazilian, yes. And we met purely by chance, would you believe?

J: Oh, nice. And in LA they’ve got many beaches there. Did you find her at Redondo Beach or Malibu, or…?

G: We used to live in Manhattan Beach actually.

J: Manhattan Beach, in California?

G: In California, right next to Hermosa Beach.

J: Well, that’s odd. But ok anyway, how did you meet? You had a party, and then you met her or what happened?

G: We had a bit of a typical Saturday. We’d had our barbecue, we’d had our volleyball…it was getting towards the end of the day and then my Colombian friend and I, we decided we were going to hit the town. You know, we’d had a couple of margheritas already and we were ready to go and party.

J: Alright.

G: And we know of…

J: And California is great for that too, by the way.

G: Especially Manhattan Beach, actually it’s a real party town.

J: Nice.

G: So we were heading for a night-club and – would you believe – there were two girls that approached us on the street, and one of them asked us the directions to the same night-club that we were heading.

J: Well, now that’s just a fantastic coincidence!

G: And of course, you know, you would never believe when we tell them that actually we were heading to that night club of course. It sounds like a line.

J: Yeah, it does.

G: But as things happen, as they do…it, we discovered that one of the girls was Colombian too.

J: Nice.

G: So, once the two Colombians realized that they were both Colombian, they became an instant item and they were together and disappeared for the rest of the evening.

J: Oh so then you were, then you were with a Brazilian girl that...

G: So I was stuck with this, you know, this blonde, Brazilian girl who didn’t speak any English and it was…what is a guy to do? I can’t leave her there on her own, can I?

J: Yeah, I know, that’s just a terrible, terrible situation. The girl doesn’t speak any English…you have to communicate somehow…I mean, sure!

G: So obviously we resorted to the more traditional communication methods…which are non-verbal!

J: Ok, and the non-verbal communication obviously worked!

G: And that seemed to work, and uh, twenty-something years later we are still together, yes.

J: Very nice. Well, so that just goes to prove that you don’t actually have to speak English to go to the United States and have a good time!

G: Well, it actually proves that you’ve got to be careful because you might go to the United States looking for an American and end up with some stupid British guy!

J:  Yeah, that’s true. It could be very different than what you planned. Very nice. But tell me, where are you actually from in England?

G: Well I, I grew up, actually, close to Wales. And um…

J: Wales? So you are almost a Welshman?

G: Thankfully no! Um, but I grew up very close to the Welsh border in the South-West of England, in a place called Gloucestershire, and it’s, it’s kind of what they call ‘Middle England’, you know, cos especially back then…

J: Is that like Middle Earth from the Lord of the Rings?

G: Yeah, lots of Hobbits! Yeah, Hobbits and Orcs.

J: And the Hobbits live in Wales, maybe, I don’t know?

G: Well, I think the Orcs lived in Wales actually and the Hobbits lived in The Shire. That’s why it’s called The Shire, actually, cos it’s Gloucestershire and Wiltshire and…

J: That makes sense actually, I like that. That’s good.

G: So it’s kind of a traditional place, you know, back then, it was pretty conservative and um, it was very…

J: I mean, but is it still conservative today or have they changed?

G: It’s still conservative today…probably a little, it’s a little bit more multicultural these days. I mean Britain as a whole is a little bit more multicultural.

J: Ok, nice.

G: But back then it wasn’t.

J: So what did you do back there in Shire?

G: In The Shire I went to school and then I went to University and I did Psychology and Biology, and then I didn’t know what to do with my life, so I ended up in industry. I went to work for a factory in Wales, amongst the Orcs, and um…

J: That’s probably why you don’t like Wales so much!

G: They don’t like the English either, I have to say.

J: Er, ok.

G: And, um, I spent two years there and then I decided that it was a bit quiet there, so then I moved to London and got a job making beans. So, um, I did beans for six years.

J: So you made beans for six years? Well that’s interesting.

G: And you’d be amazed at the technology that goes into a bean actually.

J: I wouldn’t know. I really wouldn’t…no…but that…it’s…yeah…

G: Maybe we’ll have a whole separate pod just on how to make beans?

J: Ok, there you go. I like that.

G: And I’m sure that that’ll be very popular!

J: Hmm, but they know beans pretty well in Brazil as it is.

G: Well I guess they do, yeah.

J: So…yeah, I think so.

G: Then ultimately I did my…I went to do business in the US and I met my wife, as we’ve talked about already, and I went back to England and I worked in banking for a few years before coming to Brazil.

J: So, wait, let me just get this clear for everybody out there listening… You came from The Shire, then you worked in a factory making beans, then you traveled to the United States, you meet some blonde girl on a beach and then you come back and you go work for a bank. How do you go from beans to banking?

G: Well…

J: I mean that’s not really a common…that’s not a common thread, I mean...er…

G: I just like the B’s really – beans to banking to Brazil…that was just the way it went, I guess. Um…

J: You’ve got a bit of a B-thing going, haven’t you?

G: Actually the reason I went into banking was all about the location of the bank, cos we lived down in Brighton – another B – and Brighton is a lovely town and it was much easier for a young Brazilian lass to, um, to adapt, to a place like England where, you know, you’ve got a bit of a party atmosphere...

J: Ah, ok.

G: …you’ve got lots of bars and restaurants and young people and you’re close to London so you’ve got lots of access to good things.

J: So, so Brighton is a good place to go out? I mean if you are, like, college age or whatnot?

G: Brighton is a great place to go out, actually.

J: Aah, nice ok.

G: And we used to live right next to the sea again. We lived in the Marina so, you know, life was good.

J: Ah, nice.

G: Except for the job, which sucked! But we won’t talk about that.

J: Ok, but I don’t actually know a whole lot of bankers that really like their job.

G: No, possibly not. They’re not a happy bunch, really, except the rich ones.

J: Ok, so then you went to work in banking for a while and then how did you go from banking to Brazil?

G: So then, basically, it was all about, um, my wife. She kind of got homesick. She was turning grey in England, you know – the weather’s so grey every day that she actually started to look like the weather, so…

J: Oh, that’s depressing.

G: Ultimately, she just needed the sun, so we, we decided to give it a go here.

J:  So you left your banking job to go to Brazil?

G: I did.

J: And at that time, did you have any plan for Brazil - or of what you were going to do here?

G: I just had a plan to get away from my old boss, I think, that’s what it was! It’s amazing how much a bad boss can motivate you! But, no, I wanted to come to Brazil, I did.

J: Yeah…I can imagine.

G: But, er, yeah, that’s, that’s kind of another story. The time we came to Brazil, the economy was going through a difficult phase and it wasn’t easy to work in the same sort of background that I was already been working in previously, so…

J:  Yeah, I…I…I can kinda imagine because that if you’ve got on your resume, on your cv that you’ve got a beans and banking background, and then going to Brazil…I mean…yeah you could have some problems to find a job, I suppose, but…

G: Well the, the main issue was that I didn’t speak any Portuguese, you know, so who wants to hire a gringo who doesn’t speak any Portuguese? That’s another problem, no?

J: Yeah, so and then there’s the whole question of – ‘Is he a bean specialist or a banking specialist?’

G: Who needs bean specialists in Brazil? Anyway, enough about me. Let’s talk about you a little bit. Where are you from originally, Jay?

J: Well, I was born in Colorado, in the United States, which is in the middle…kind of in the middle of everything – lots of mountains there.

G: Oh, ok. Did you ski?

J: I did! In fact, going to, er, the school, to middle school, we had ten days per year that we could go ski-ing and we didn’t have to go to school, so they-they-there were special days that you could just…uh…elect. You would say that – ‘I want to go ski-ing on January 31st and then you went ski-ing and you didn’t go to school. You just jumped to the school bus…actually the school bus took us to the ski slopes and then we would ski, and we came home at the end of the day. It was great!

G: That sounds amazing!

J: It was fantastic.

G: It sounds a lot better than The Shire anyway!

J: I don’t know about The Shire but no, Colorado…growing up in Colorado was great. It was really nice. And then after Colorado, then I started to move because my dad got a job in a different state. So then I moved to close to Chicago and then after I started to move, I never really stopped. I just kept moving. I’ve been here in Brazil for quite a while but I think this is the longest stop on my moving journey that I’ve been through.

G: So you actually went to Europe for a bit from what you told me before, no?

J: Yeah, yeah I did. I went from the United States. Actually in the United States I went from Colorado to Illinois, then I went to Kansas which was…but there’s just nothing left to do in Kansas. It’s like Middle Earth, basically.

G: So then ‘Kansas went bye-bye.’

J: Kansas went bye-bye, and I went to Oregon. Oregon was great. I loved Oregon. And I went…at that time I was in the university, and I had to make a choice, because the university in the United States is quite expensive, and I was looking at the potential of graduating from the university and having a debt of about $120,000 that I had to pay back. So that-that’s a lot of money and so I decided to take a break and I went to Europe then for a while and the European experience was supposed to be just an exchange program for one year. And I went there and then I found out that I could study in Holland, and it was going to cost me €2000 per year.

G: Ok.

J: I mean to go either…

G: So that was quite cheap back then, I guess?

J: No, that’s very cheap. So my perspective was either to study in the United States for $120,000 or to go to go to Europe and study for 4 years and pay 8000.

G: Ok.

J: I mean that is a huge difference…

G: That was a ‘no-brainer’ then?

J: That was a no-brainer. The only thing I had to do then was learn the language, and that was a little bit complicated.

G: That part did require a brain!

J: Yeah, actually the first year in the university there – that was the most difficult, because I didn’t speak the language, and I remember quite well going to class, and I had no idea what the subject was. I mean, I knew I was studying architecture at that time, so I knew globally what they were talking about, but the specific words I had no idea. So I would write down everything that they wrote on the board, on the white-board, I would write down, and at night I would go home and look up the words in my dictionary to figure out, more or less, what they were talking about.

G: Ok.

J: So, you can imagine that was…it was a difficult first year.

G: Yeah, it sounds like it actually. But you battled through, though, cos you were working… What were you doing in Amsterdam at the time, then?

J: To pay for everything, I was working actually in manufacturing, also. I was making playground equipment.

G: Ok. Interesting.

J: And, that-that sounds kind of dull and boring, but it was actually quite nice, because I learned how to use a lot of machines to make different things. I made lots of…I made tables and cabinets and basically everything for the house. And at the same time I was learning architecture, so that kind of fit nicely together. And later I went back and I studied engineering there. Another four years, so, I actually had two different fields of study in Holland – Architecture and Engineering – and then I worked in engineering for a few years there.

G: So how did you end up in Brazil?

J: Well, that was kind of the same reason as what you had! There was a girl.

G: There’s always a woman behind it!

J: Yes, because I was in…ha ha…and the idea about turning grey I know quite well, because I was living in Holland and I think perhaps I was turning grey. And I met this Brazilian girl, and I thought that – oh – life is going to get good. So, I decided that it’s time to leave Amsterdam because it’s grey, grey, grey. It rains all the time. It’s cold. It’s windy. It’s terrible, terrible weather. And I…we left, and er, she had just gotten, she was transferred from Brazil to Holland, and then transferred again to Argentina. So I followed her to Argentina, and then when we got back to Brazil, which was a year later, we separated, because it just didn’t work out.

G: As it does.

J: Yeah, so, so then I was in a situation. I had left Holland. I had left the United States and I was in Brazil – in São Paulo. And then I had a big choice. Am I going to stay? Or do I leave? Kind of like The Clash – Do I - Should I Stay Or Should I Go now? And…

G: Which is better than Go Straight To Hell For This, no?

J: Well, yes, so…but I like Brazil, so then I decided to stay. And then…and then the best thing that happened after that was that I met another girl. And then it worked out.

G: Ok.

J: So…

G: If at first you don’t succeed…

J: …you can try, try again.

G: Very nice! And the rest is history, as they say.

J: And the rest is history! Yeah, and now I’m here doing podcasts!

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End of Part 2

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G: So that bring us to the final segment of our podcast, um, which we’re going to call English Guru.

J: But what about the American Guru?

G: Well I thought you guys spoke a version of English at least, even if it’s nothing we recognize.

J: We speak English, it’s just American English.

G: But the language is English. Hah!

J: Ok, ok, ok.

G: Know your place! Now, um, the idea is that each week we are going to share with you a tip, or two. It might be a grammar tip, it might be something about pronunciation. It might be something um, that you as a listener are curious to know. Um, so feel free to write in and ask us what you would like to have tips on. Um, and if you want more information, we’ve got an English Guru section on our website, which we cover a lot more stuff, so do check that out. So, um, for this week, it’s going to be very brief because we’ve already done quite a long podcast. Um, so I’m gonna begin with, um, a word that…

J: Airplane!

G: …quite a lot of people – another airplane – quite a lot of people have problems with, actually, and it’s the word world, Jay.

J: World.

G: Say world. How do the Americans pronounce world.

J: World!

G: World.

J: Like world domination.

G: Well, you know that context very well, exactly. But anyhow, world. How do we pronounce this word world and not make it sound like word? And…

J: Er, you have to get the ‘l’ in there. World.

G: You need the ‘l’ and that’s not easy actually.

J: You need the whirl.

G: I have a little trick you can try at home. Um, take the sentence – ‘they were old’.

J: They were old.

G: And then the ‘were old’ you just join together and say a little more quickly. Were old. Were-old. World.

J: They’re old.

G: World. Not they’re old, you douchebag!

J: Er, they world. No?

G: Just, just the world part.

J: Ah, just the world. Ok.

G: World. They were old. World.

J: World.

G: And you get the pronunciation.

J: Ah, by Jove that actually works, Gee! Good boy! That’s actually a tip that works.

* (Strange singing)

J: What the devil was that? It was somebody from the Peking Opera coming in to have a look!

G: You see a lot of those guys, actually.

J: Yes, you do. I tell you, they are all over the place. Anyway my tip is about pronunciation, but it’s about numbers. And, it’s a common mistake I hear a lot of people making. And, er, the-the issue is the difference between 4, 14 and 40. Or it could be 8, 18 and 80, but it’s basically the same problem. Um, what a lot of people will do, and it’s hard for native speakers sometimes to hear the difference when, er, Brazilians speak between forty and fourteen. So the tip that I always try to give everybody is that you really have to pronounce the last part, because the beginning is the same. The difference comes at the end. So fourteen and or forty. So be sure to enunciate properly and then you should hear it well. Do you have anything to add to that, Gee?

G: Well I think that’s amazing, actually. No I think that’s great. Forty. Fourteen and…what was the other one?

J: Four.

G: Four? Fore!

J: Yes.

G: That`s the golfing cry.

J: That’s the golfing cry.

G: Fore!

J: Ok. So, that wraps up this edition of the grammar…oh no, the English Guru.

G: The English Guru section, yes. So, that concludes the very first episode of The Samba Buzz podcast. Thank you very much for listening.

J: Thank you, everybody. Thanks for giving us part of your time.

G: Our intention is to produce a podcast every week. Um, and so keep your eyes out for that one. And next podcast we will be talking about, um, Brazilian expressions, and how we would say the same thing in English.

J: And now that’s going to be a big chance for everybody to have some fun, and kind of tease the poor gringos, because obviously we don’t speak very well.

G: Um, so, thanks again. Check out our website. It’s www.thesambabuzz.com. That’s B-U-Z-Z.

J: Yes, or buzz, like a buzz-feed.

G: Buzz-feed? What, like a bee? Bzzz.

J: Buzz.

G: And if you wish to get in touch, then our email address is mailbox, that’s M-A-I-L-B-O-X, at thesambabuzz.com.

J: Yes, so come and feel free to give your comments. Please, please write in and send tips, so then we can help to make this podcast something that really is for you, and that will really help our listeners. That’s our goal, and so we’re here for you, and hopefully we can help you along the way.

G: Thank you very much. See you next time. Cue the Samba music!

J: See you next week. Bye-bye and don’t worry about the Peking Opera!

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