Foreign Students ‘Learn More’ In Sidney

Americans have a tendency to talk too fast. We also have accents. Further complicating our language is our use of contractions to shorten words, which allows us to talk even faster. Any linguist will tell you that English is one of the hardest languages to learn, but 22-year-old Brazilian college student Rafael Zanini is a fast learner.

“You arrive in a country that you have never been in before, and at the beginning you’re a little nervous,” Zanini said in an interview with The Sidney Sun-Telegraph on Monday. “The people speak so fast. Not now, now is okay. Now I can understand, but in the beginning it was so difficult to understand.”

Zanini said his native tongue, Portuguese, is more complicated to learn than English. However, his experience in our country has given him a better grasp of the English language, which was one of the reasons that compelled him to visit in the first place.

“It’s different,” he said. “You learn English in Brazil, and you learn English here. I learned more here in two months than study one year in Brazil. Here, I need to think in English, I need to live English.”

Another difference – small town living. Where Zanini hails from, it’s a large, metropolitan city with  700,000 population. Sidney’s more than 6,000 population pales in comparison, however, both have their benefits, Zanini said.

“I like it here,” he said. “The people are so friendly here. It’s different from Brazil because the people are not so friendly because it is a big city. Sidney is good.”

Zanini has visited many large American cities including New York, Denver, Dallas and Miami, however, he has injected some small-town America into his travels by visiting Ogallala, Sterling, Colo., and Chappell.

In fact, his girlfriend, Josie, whom he has dated for a month, hails from Chappell.

“She is going to Brazil in July,” Zanini said. “She stayed there two months two years ago. She learned Portuguese and she speaks Portuguese and English like me. She is going in July because July is my small vacation, like three or four weeks.”

Although romance found him in a foreign land, Zanini admits there are several cultural differences between here and home. For starters, there’s a difference in the way we greet each other.

“In Brazil, friends will greet with a hug,” he said. “A woman and a man would kiss the cheek. Here, it is just ‘hi.’”

Other differences include home size, he said. In Brazil, house walls are made of a different material, and homes typically are single floor residences, whereas in Sidney and indeed throughout America, it’s common to see homes with a couple of floors.

The weather was a pretty big shocker too. The temperature in Brazil for this time of year is 92 degrees. It was about 12 degrees Monday morning when Zanini visited the Sun-Telegraph’s office.

“It is cold,” he said with a slight shiver. “It is cold for all of us students.”

The cultural – and weather – differences were not so different as to keep the young Brazilian from enjoying the area. He plans to return after another year of college. According to Zanini, he’s the first of his family to travel to another country. He even tells his parents of the good time he’s having.

“They like it,” he said. “The international experience is good for me. It is good for my career. It is good for my life.”

The international experience includes working, which Zanini has done as an employee of McDonald’s since his arrival in December. Zanini works the drive-thru and front counter along with seven other students, who also are his roommates. Zanini is among four Brazilians and four Peruvians visiting America. His roommates include Alan, Ramon and Evelyn from Brazil and Rebekan, Roger, Alan and John from Peru. At least three of the students are looking forward to visiting again, he said.

All students are part of a work program available to college students targeted specifically toward visiting America, Zanini said. The schooling system of the two countries are quite different, however, Zanini’s goal career is to become a mechatronics engineer. A mechatronics engineer unites the principle of mechanics, electronics and computing to make a generation of simpler, more economical and more reliable systems.