Magalhães: I think that there. . . well. Brazil. We have a lot of things, you know. It's a very. . . it's a young country, very young country, but I think because we have a lot of people there from a lot of countries, different countries, we have that special singular thing that we can find maybe just there. And one of these things is music. I think the Brazilian music is, I can, I can say that it's like the one, the most of interesting kind of music because it's a mixture of all influences, a lot of influences—African and European and Asian—a lot of mix can __. The Brazilian music, I can say that something unique. And here in Japan you can listen Brazilian music a lot. Maybe people, they don't know that's Brazilian but bossa nova and samba, they're the most famous. And of course you can learn about, a lot about Brazilian culture if you can understand __ lyrics. I think that the music is the thing that I think that's more interesting about my country, I think, culturally.

Okamoto: You've just talked about your stereotype about Japan. On my part I had my stereotype on Brazil, such as football and carnival. So, do you Brazilians love football and carnivals?

Magalhães: It's a difficult question but, well. . . . Talking about the big country is Brazil but, uh. . . . I think people, Brazilians like football, yeah. Brazilians really like football. It's a. . . I think it's. . . . When we have a World Cup, and I talk to my students, the country just stop to watch football. And this is a national, national feeling, I think. This kind of. . . . But carnival. . . carnival is I think. . . . For example, I don't like carnival. It's not too general, I think it's too. . . . Carnival is too stereotype because, of course, the carnival that everybody knows, just happen in one place in Brazil, that's Rio de Janeiro. The others carnival __ completely different in the south, south areas, it's completely different. That carnival doesn't happen in the others place of Brazil.

Okamoto: I see. I found your English is very good. So next I'd like to ask you about the situation of English language in Brazil. It is widely spoken in your country?

Magalhães: But, you know, I learned to speak English in Japan.

Okamoto: Ah, oh. That's surprising.

Magalhães: Yeah. I don't speak Japanese. I speak English because, you know, we learn English in Brazil. I think everybody who goes to university study English. But it's, I think it's like here. You don't have opportunity to practice and they. . . we think we know the language but we don't know when you try to speak. “Oh, the Brazilian accent.” It's really, really difficult to understand the English Brazilian accent. But people, they don't, Brazilians don't speak other language than Portuguese. But, you know, people, we know, I think, nowadays English because of the Internet and we have a lot of American. . . and music and movies there. I think English. . . people can understand, but they cannot communicate, you know, __ reading some words, you know. But they don't speak.

Okamoto: So they are reluctant to speak English.

Magalhães: I'm sorry?

Okamoto: Well, they don't. . . are they reluctant. . . ?

Magalhães: Ah. I think, you know, South America, we have, we are the only country who speak Portuguese. The others speak Spanish. I think it's Spanish for them. Brazilians, they are more interested in learning Spanish than English because of their, of course, its proximity. It's close, it's close the outros countries. Uh, it's not, I think it's a matter of education. We learn of course basic English at school. But if you want a real good level of English, you should pay a lot of money for that in the private schools. In some private schools. And of course we don't have opportunity to talk with them. Even in, it's funny, even some foreigners, when they visit Brazil, they try to speak Portuguese. They have the guide, open the book and try to speak some words and we communicate then just, you know. . . . We have a expression like that is very Brazilian __ is a Brazilian way of doing things. We can deal with my small English, it's OK, I can survive with that.

Okamoto: That is very cultural thing.

Magalhães: I think so. I think so.

Magalhães: I think Japan, especially here, as a foreigner I miss having more English information about everything. Especially here, foreigner studies before we don't have, you know, a lot of information of thing in English. There are. . . is a kind of complain. Myself, like. I always feel like “I cannot read,” yeah. I always ask other professors and you're bothering everybody to translate some information. This is quite. . . . Japanese is a difficult language, you know. Even if you can speak, for reading is quite difficult. And I think this is my complain. I'm sorry for complaining but I think because of English the wide-world language, maybe in Japanese universities they could make this __ include more foreigners.

Okamoto: Maybe, I hope this interview may contribute to change the situation.

Magalhães: I hope, too. I'd be very happy.

Okamoto: OK. Thank you for today.

Magalhães: Thank you. It was a pleasure.