English in Brazil

I´ve heard many travellers complain that nobody speaks English in Brazil and that you need to speak at least Spanish to get around. I thoughts so too... but actually, Brazilians do speak English, it´s just not so obvious ;-) For example, Brazilians use many English words - even if you won´t notice at first. Reason one - they change the spelling. Such as quiper, kitinete, beisebol, lanche... any idea what it means? Well, quiper is keaper (in football), kitinete is kitchenette, beisebol is an easy one and lanche, too. Reason two is the pronounciation. The first time I was in Brazil I asked someone about his favourite type of music and got the answer 'hockey'. Well, hockey is nice, but its a sport, right? It turned out that 'hockey' is actually 'rock'. Hip hop becomes hipi hopi and reggae heggi. Another great example is the famous fehiboutchi. Thomas warned me that if I wanted to take the ferry I had to ask for the fehiboutchi, otherwise nobody would understand. And, then there was Eeyore, the slightly depressed donkey friend of Winnie the Pooh (http://disney.go.com/pooh/html/meet/eeyore.html). I was talking to a guy in Salvador whose English was pretty good. He had this really strong American accent, he said he learned English from movies. I don't remember what we were talking about but suddenly he started mentioning Eeyore. Eeyore wanted this an that, and did this and that... I got slightly confused and tried to work out when the subject had changed to Winnie the Pooh and his friends. Well, it turned out Eeyore was not Eeyore but 'everybody'. The lethal combination of a thick Texan cowboy movie and Brazilian accent had transformed everybody into Eeyore. Another funny thing are T-shirts with English print in Brazil. When I was in Rio in July a friend's friend was sporting a shirt saying 'shameless'. When I was making a joke about it he didn't get it - it turned out he had no idea what it meant. But when I translated it he was really happy about it - guess he liked it! In Salvador I saw some other examples where I am pretty sure the person wearing it had no idea what it meant. Such as a really tiny old man wearing a red 'all night long' shirt, Big Mamas identical twin a 'shut up and kiss me again' shirt and some others I forgot... I am sure more will follow soon ;-) Anyhow, nothing of this rivals the sweet invitation of a French guy a long time ago on summer holidays in Argeles Plage, 'Do you want to exit with us?' (Tu veux sortir avec nous?). I am going to exit now ;-) Kisses!