Kono: My name is Akira Kono. I'm a professor of Portuguese language and linguistics and I've been here for thirty years. And my major, I mean, my specialty is Portuguese linguistics. But the linguistics has a wide range of topics and lately I'm interested in the loanwords in Portuguese language. As you know the Portuguese people have emigrated to many European countries and the United States and Canada. So the language contact between Portuguese and English fascinated me. It's a very interesting topic. And since the 1990s, there appeared many Brazilians returning to their fatherlands. I mean, what we call dekasegi. They're working in the Japanese factories and they still keep on speaking Portuguese. But of course now that they are living in the Japanese society, the Portuguese they speak here in Japan have, has received many loanwords from the Japanese languages. For example, they work at the factory, so they use the words like hirukin, yakin—I mean night shift, day shift—zangyou, extra work, so that's very interesting. But essentially I'm a. . . I consider myself as a language teacher, so I teach Portuguese at this university on all levels from elementary to advanced course.

Interviewer: Thank you. So, many Brazilians working abroad are now returning to Brazil now?

Kono: Hmm, now we have some economic recessions and they're losing their jobs. So we have to see what will happen to them. But I haven't noticed any exodus for the time being. They keep on working here. But if they lose their jobs, they have to go back. But they're here with their families and even those kids who were born here can't get along in Brazil. So I think they will keep on staying in Japan. It's really a big social problem.

Kono: OK. Brazil is made of many immigrants from foreign countries, so you may think that Brazil is a multilingual country. But the linguistic situation in Brazil is quite different. Of course there are many native Brazilians, I mean that the Indians' languages still spoken. But it's in the backyard of Brazil. So usually, Brazil is the monolingual country: everybody speaks Portuguese. And the Brazilian Portuguese is quite different from the European Portuguese. I think the difference is bigger than the difference between American English and British English; maybe between Scottish English and American English. So essentially Brazil is the monolingual country: everybody speaks Portuguese and all the education at all levels are done in Portuguese. So that's why Brazilians are very eager to learn English. There are many language schools; there are many ads in the newspapers and TVs on the English conversation course just like in Japan. So English is, for the majority of Brazilians, essentially a school subject. And once I was visiting at a São Paulo's local language school and there appeared at my side a Brazilian young student saying that “I know English. I know grammar, English grammar, but I can't. . . . I went to the States, but I couldn't make myself understood. That's why I want to learn English conversation.” And, as you see, the situation is quite similar here in Japan.