About The Coutry and People
THE COUNTRY: Brazil is a Federal Republic in South America, the Federative Republic of Brazil. The Country makes up nearly half the total area of South America. To the North West and South it borders every South American country except Chile and Equador. To the East it is blessed with 4,600 miles of unspoiled South Atlantic coastline including some of the most beautiful beaches in the World.
Brazil's land mass total is 3,285,632 square miles which is more than all the European countries combined or the continental United States.
It is the World's fifth-largest country whose population of 203 million inhabitants (2011) is bigger than Russia and whose industrial output surpasses China.
Brazil's productivity output and economy are much larger than Argentina and Mexico.
The Country is divided into 26 states and the Federal District of Brasilia which is the site of the nations capital.
As of 2012 Brazil is the fifth largest economy in the World, it has the fifth largest purchasing power behind only the United States, China, Japan and Germany, it is the seventh largest computer consumer in the World, is the eleventh largest manufacturer of vehicles and has the eight most amount of vehicles driving on its streets.
Brazil has a GPD (2010) of approximate $ 2,181 trillion dollars.
It is one of the 4 powerful emerging countries/markets in the World, with Russia, India and China forming the famous BRIC and Brazil represented roughly 40% of the 2005 Latin America IB fee pool.
The Country's sovereign credited is rated BB+ by Standard and Poors (August 2011), although premiums between US treasury and domestics bonds have been narrowing, Brazil's currency the Real has appreciated in the last 5 years from -4.00 Reais/USD to -2.1 Reais to -1,61 Reais (August 2011).
Brazil was the last country to enter the latest Recession and the first country to leave it, it is now poised to overtake Russia and Germany as the World's fifth largest economy.
It has the World's largest cattle industry and is the World's leading exporter of beef, chicken, orange juicy, sugar, coffee, tobacco, soy beans.
Brazil's aviation giant Embraer is the World's third largest aircraft manufacturer behind Boeing and Airbus and the main supplier of regional jets to the US market.
One-hundred-fifty miles of the coast lies what is believed to be the largest discovery of oil found anywhere in the World in the past 35 years.
Petrobras the state-owned oil company is preparing to drill 20.000 feet bellow the surface of the Atlantic Ocean to reach oil fields that sit underneath layers of salt beds.
This oil discovery is a trillion dollars business and will put Brazil's output in excess of 6 million barrels a day.
That kind of oil production should elevate Brazil to be the third or the fourth largest producer in the World.
THE PEOPLE: Brazil's population are descendants of several groups. The country has Portuguese colonizers mixed with native Indians, and African slaves (mostly of Yoruba and Quimbundu origin, corresponding to modern-day Nigeria/Benin and Angola) throughout the region. Dutch and French colonization also took place in the Northeast portion of the country. In the 19th century, German, Italian, Polish and Japanese immigrants added new elements to the mixture of colonization. Brazilians are perhaps one of the most diversely mixed inhabitants in the world. Brazilians are young and friendly people, eager to show visitors the beauty and rich heritage of their country.
THE LANGUAGE: What is Portuguese? Similar to English, Greek, Farsi and Sanskrit, Portuguese belongs to the Indo-European family of languages. A language family is a collective of languages with a common ancestor. Portuguese is part of one of the widely distributed branches of the Romance family of languages. This group of Indo-European languages was born from Latin (Roma, Romanus, hence Romance). Portuguese is therefore a Romance language spoken in Brazil, Portugal, Galicia(Spain), Mozambique, Cabo Verde, Guinea-Bissau, San Thome, Principe, Angola, Azores and Madeira, and is the language of some chief ports in the Orient, such as Macau in China and east Timor. Portuguese is most closely related to Galician, spoken in the northwest of Spain and finally Romanian, with wich it shares the lowest number of similarities among all its closest relatives.
LANGUAGE COMPARISONS: Over 200 million people around the world claim Portuguese as their native language. 120 million speak French, 120 million speak German, 130 million speak Japanese, 70 million speak Italian and approximately 508 million people speak English. Portuguese is the third most spoken language in Canada, just behind English and French.
SPEAKING "BRAZILIAN"? Portuguese is the national language of Brazil. It is also spoken in Portugal. Brazilian Portuguese is very different from Portugal Portuguese in some verbage and spoken and written accent. Some people suggest that Brazilians actually speak "Brazilian" much in the same way that Americans might be said to speak "American" rather than English.
