Translating English to English in Brazil

I spent 2 days in Sao Paulo Brazil translating English to English. That was not what I was supposed to be doing. I was there representing an American company as part of a 3-way deal between that company, a U.K company and a Brazilian firm. ?My job was to meet with the Brazilian bankers, set up a conference call with the U.K. owners and sign the final documents.

I was very worried about the trip. It is a 10-hour flight, and ?I don’t speak Portuguese. ?I ended up loving the city, the people and the whole trip. I did not have the same jet lag as a trip to Europe, since the time difference between New York and Sao Paulo is only 1 hour versus the 5 hours between New York and London.

When I arrived, I was amazed at the sheer size of Sao Paulo, how new all the buildings were and how wide all the streets were. The traffic was also incredible. I was not going to attempt to drive myself, so I took a taxi. I solved the language issue by having in writing the exact address of the bank where I was going and handing it to the taxi driver. I also followed the typical American routine of over-tipping. (I know this is gauche, but taxi drivers around the world love it.) I don’t know how anyone drives in Sao Paulo. There is heavy traffic 24 hours a day, with an incredible number of motorcycles and motor scooters. On the highway there are 3 lanes of cars, and in-between the lanes of cars there is a constant unending stream of fast-moving motorcycles and motor scooters. It is a miracle that cars can change lanes without hitting one of them. It turned out that my taxi driver spoke English, and he told me that on average one motorcyclist per day dies in a traffic accident in Sao Paulo.

I arrived safely at the bank and the high level of security was immediately evident. To get into any office building in Sao Paulo you have to have a prior appointment, show a passport, have your picture taken, and go through a metal detector. I know that a lot of office buildings in New York do the same thing, but in Sao Paolo, all the buildings do this.

The bank offices were beautiful and all of the bankers spoke English. The conference room was set up to connect to the company in the U.K. It was a small entrepreneurial company in Manchester and the people had opted to have a conference call (not a video conference) rather than go to the expense of a trip to Brazil. The American company, on the other hand, stressed that personal meetings were very important in the Brazilian culture and so they sent me.

We called the U.K. firm to get the meeting underway. The Brazilians gave their opening remarks, and then Nigel, the head of the U.K, firm started his presentation. As he spoke, the Brazilians all had puzzled expressions. The President of the Brazilian bank turned to me and seriously asked, “What language is that man speaking?” The bankers were used to hearing English; that is, American English or the type of English that is heard on the BBC news reports. However, the head of the U.K. firm was speaking working class Manchester English and the Brazilians could not understand a word of what he was saying.

I had to interrupt Nigel and explain the situation. He tried the usual solution of then speaking slower and louder. (I had thought only Americans did that). The bankers still could not understand Nigel, so he tried having his second in command speak instead.? That was even worse, since it just replaced a Manchester accent with a Burnley accent. Then they tried a woman from Northern Wales, also to no avail.

Finally, everyone agreed that I was going to have to translate. I have done a lot of business in Manchester, and I could understand Nigel just fine. For the rest of the meeting, Nigel or one of his assistants would say something in Manchester English, or Burnley English and I would repeat it in American English. Of course, this added a lot of extra time to the presentation, which is why the whole meeting ended up taking two days instead of one. The people in England also started playing games. They were kind of insulted at having to be translated, so they decided to test the limits of my comprehension. They started speaking faster and faster and using more and more local slang until eventually even I had to admit that even I could not understand what they were saying. After having a good laugh, the U.K. group went back to speaking at normal speed and without the slang.

With the day’s work done, the Brazilian bankers took me out to eat, which is a major event in Brazil. The meal consisted of meat, meat and more meat of all kinds. When I explained to them that my daughter is a vegetarian, they were incredulous. ?When we walked to the restaurant, the Brazilians gave me advice about safety, which every Brazilian told me as soon as they found out I was American. They said when you are on the sidewalk don’t walk too close to the street, hold your computer bag on the side away from the street and close to your body. This is because thieves on motorcycles are very common. Two men will be on a motorcycle. The driver rides the motorcycle up onto the sidewalk at high speed and the guy on the back of the motorcycle reaches over and grabs the computer bag. The motorcycle is then back in the road and speeding away before you even realize what happened. Apparently the thieves like computers even better than purses. Most Brazilians avoid taking their laptop computers outside whenever possible.

I was only in Brazil for a short period but I did get to meet with a lot of Brazilian business people. It was interesting the things they all wanted me to understand. Many of the business people had maps of the United States and Brazil on their office walls, set to the same scale. They would invariably point out to me how large Brazil is and that it is larger than the U.S. if Alaska and Hawaii are excluded. They would then grill me on why the United States did not do more business with Brazil, as if somehow I was personally responsible for American economic and foreign policy. I would politely respond that I would tell ever American businessperson I know how easy it is to transact business in Brazil and how eager Brazilians are to do more business with us. (See - with this post on LinkedIn I have kept my promise.)

At the end of two days I flew back to the U.S., exhausted but satisfied that the trip had been a success. I also now know that if Finance doesn’t work out I have a new potential career translating English into English.