MY SPEECH

Aee. Cheguei de viagem. Fiquei o fim-de-semana fora, saímos na sexta e só voltamos hoje, no domingo. Fomos para Lake Tahoe, na divisa California/Nevada. Depois coloco mais detalhes e fotos.

Na próxima terça-feira é minha apresentação final no curso de Inglês. Preparei um texto sobre o Brasil e para fazer algo diferente, eu me reservei em não mencionar Pelé, samba e Carnaval. Sei lá, para tentar mudar um pouco essa imagem de Brasil que os estrangeiros têm. Fiz uma apresentação em PowerPoint bacaninha. Pena que só tem 5 minutos para falar tudo, então fiquei limitado.

Bom, já que eu sou uma pessoa legal, vou colocar aqui o texto, na integra para vocês verem se meu "ingrêis" tá melhorando.

The Federative Republic of Brazil (spelled "Brasil" in Portuguese) is the largest and most populous country in South America. The population today is around 180 million habitants and it is composed by people originally from different parts of the world, with different colors, religions and habits.
For this reason, it is not easy to describe the Brazilian culture in just a few words. The Brazilian culture has been influenced since the 16th century, at the beginning of the country when the first navigators from Portugal arrived, and keeps being influenced and changing until these days.
The original habitants of Brazil, the native Indians, have a strong and evident influence in the habit of using herbal medicine, the cults and tales and the music. Foods like tapioca and potatoes, drinks like mate and guarana are all usual in the Brazilian diet. Other Indian objects regularly in use include hammocks, canoes and many woven items.
The vast numbers of slaves shipped over from Africa, also left their mark. African cultural influence is most strongly seen in the Northeast, where food, music and religion all come from those originally brought over in the slave ships. These slaves also created a new type of martial art called Capoeira. When African slaves were in captivity, the slaves looking for a way to escape blended their combat moves with ritual dances adding the musical instruments. The slave masters would assume they were having a festival or a celebration. Slaves later used this dance-martial art to fight their oppressors and gain freedom. Capoeira is a unique art form not found in any other geographic region outside Brazil, including all of the African nations,
The Africans rapidly intermarried with the Native and the Portuguese, recreating customs, forms of expression and religious cults. Creoles and mestizos were becoming a larger population in Brazil, the basis of the Brazilian population. These culture mixes is strongly seen at the North, the Amazon rain-forest and Northeast.
In the late 19th, early 20th centuries, Brazil received an influx of over 5 million immigrants from Europe. The Germans was the first to come and they became the majority of the population in the southern states, where the weather is cooler like Europe. They brought their architecture and their folklore. They were followed by the Italians and Spanish that were pursuing the new opportunities at the coffee plantation and wine production.
These immigrants made their own mark on the cultural landscape in these regions, installing the work ethic, introducing a new cuisine (pizza, pastas, seafood, etc) and bringing to the Portuguese language new words and a peculiar, novel accent.
In addition, Brazil is the country that received more Japanese immigrants among all the Latin Countries. Today, close to 1,300,000 and 1,500,000 people of Japanese origin live there forming the largest Japanese ethnic group outside Japan.
In recent years immigration has become more diversified. Other ethnic groups have joined the early-comers, particularly from neighboring countries such as Argentina, Uruguay, Chile and Bolivia. They have crossed the border for either professional or political reasons. Koreans have also made their mark in the city of São Paulo, where they have engaged in textiles and the restaurant business.
In conclusion, because of its diversity, Brazil developed into a prosperous country, which is tolerant of different religious cults and ethnic groups. As a result of this cultural mix, Brazil's people are not only well-known for their friendliness, but are also seen to have countless regional differences and accents.

Será que vai dar tempo??