email to a friend - flávia - B1

Hi Elton,

What's up? I'm fine. This is my e-mail in English.

I have classes in Administration at FIEO and classes in English at USP. I love to study administration and English. I live with my husband, in an apartment, my address is 234, Fernando Pessoa Street, Osasco.
I have a sister and a brother, she's single, but my brother has a daugther, Harumi, who is 5 months. He's married to Yoshiko, but she's not from Japan, she's Brazilian. My Father is a business man and my mother is a homemaker.
On my holidays and my weekends I go to my mother's house.
Kisses, Flávia

Email to a friend - Edenise - B1

Hi my friends!
How are you? I'm Ok! Here´s an email in English. It´s very good pratice for you and me!

I´m studying English at IME Jr. English Course. In my class there are twelve students. They are all from São Paulo except me, I´m from Bahia. Our teacher´s name is Elton. He´s nice, funny and a good teacher.

I finished undergraduate nursing course. I´m studying for a selection masters. I' ve lived in São Paulo since March, but I know how to get around. I like São Paulo, it´s very exciting. I live with my fiancé in a small house. He´s a PhD student. He´s 27. We have six years dating, we want to marry next year.

My family lives in Jequié. My father is a bus driver and my mother is a teacher. I have two sisters. My oldest sister is a nurse and works in Family Health Program and in a hospital. She´s married. My younger sister is a high school student. I have two nieces, one is six years old and the other is two years old, they´re very beautiful. I love my family.

I´m very happy here, but I miss my family.

Have a nice holiday and a nice weekend!

Fondly!


Edenise.

Home sweet home - André -U1

My home is located in Freguesia do Ó, a neighborhood founded in 1580, being the third oldest neighborhood of São Paulo city. It's a neighborhood full of hills, in the Northeast part of the city, bordering the Tietê river. Due to the geography, my house is located on a hill, near Freguesia do Ó cemetery and Nossa Senhora da Expectação do Ó church, a very old church built in 1901 with a classical renaissance architecture.

My street is usually very quiet and peaceful, so we have a front gate that is just about 1 meter tall. We have a garden with a tangerine tree that is about 5 or 6 meters high, a very old grape tree and a lot of plants around the house. And talking about the house, there are two houses at the same building site. My aunt lives in the house to the front and my parents and I live in the other one at the back (the one I'll describe). It's a small two storey house, it has two bedrooms, 2 living rooms, 1 toilet, 1 bathroom and 1 kitchen. We also have a laundry, two garages and a small backyard.

It's a very comfortable home and it has its unique features... for example, we don't have doors inside the house except for the bathroom (for obvious reasons) and my parents bedroom (that is open almost all the time). It sounds like there's no privacy, but I like it because we don't have to bother opening and closing doors. It also feels like we are not alone (not talking about ghost stuff). Its second floor is well-lighted even during the night, because the street lights can be seen through the windows (and I like it). My house invites our guests to feel the house in a different way: There's a table in the wall and a "hole" connecting both the living room and the kitchen. And in the other living room you have to sit on the floor because there's no couch, just a carpet, pillows and a couple of mats. I love the way my house tries to be simple and functional. I feel strange when I see people bothering about having dinner in the dinning room and going to bed before they fall asleep and sleeping in a pitch-black noiseless room. So, that's why my home is special.

Email to a classmate - Ednei - B1

Hello, My friends Regiane, Edenise and Elton :D

How are you? I am very happy. Here's an email in English. It's good practice for you and me!

I have classes in English at the statistic and math institute. I am in a class with twelve students. They are all Brazilians , but from different towns. Our teacher's Mr. Furlanetto. He is very funny, crazy (sorry teacher :D) and a very good teacher.

I live far from my family, I live in São Paulo in the butantã district, my parents’ names are nelson and leonice. They are retired. My father has always dreamed of having a large family, so we are thirteen brothers and sisters . I have a big family. I'm the youngest with 25. My girlfriend’s name is Ana, she is 24, she's beautiful, she is a student of medicine at the Federal University of Bahia.

I love São Paulo, but the city is still too large. It is a place of happy people who like to work. I am very happy.


Email me soon!

Ednei

Email to a classmate - Rosa - B1

“Dear Yara,


How are you? I´m fine. Here´s an email in English, it good practice for you and me!
I have classes in English at the University of São Paulo. I´m in a class with twelve students. They´re all from countries of the same continent: Brazil and Peru. Our teacher´s name´s Elton. He´s very friendly and a very good teacher.
I live with my family in São Paulo in the city centre with my son André and my husband Lúcio.
I´m 46 years old and I´m a manicurist. I work with foreigners.
I want to learn English for my job.


Thanks!
See you Saturday!

Rosa.”

Email to a classmate - Solange - B1

Dear Eloni,

Are you ok? I’m fine.
Here’s an email in English. It’s very good practice for you and me!

I have English classes at IME/USP. It’s a Language School. I’m in a class with about twelve students. They are from Brazil, but Jelmar is from Peru. Our teacher’s name’s Elton. He’s very funny, friendly and a very good teacher.

I live with my family in a small town, Taboão da Serra. We live in a small house. My mother is a homemaker. My father is retired. My sister is a nurse. My sister’s name’s Elisange. She has a baby, but she isn’t married yet. She is twenty-five. She speaks Portuguese and a little English. I love them.

Taboão da Serra isn’t very exciting. I don’t like to live there. The restaurants and nightclubs are cheap, but they aren’t very good. I enjoy São Paulo. I like to go out with my boyfriend and we like to go to the movie. I like student bars and theater, too. I would like to live in São Paulo.

Email me soon!

Love, Sol.

MY HOME - Simone - U1

I live in Campinas and I have been living with my parents in a wonderful home. We have a two-storey house. It isn’t very modern in decoration but is spacious and comfortable. It has four bedrooms, three bathrooms, two living rooms, one kitchen and a backyard with a barbecue. It is located in a quiet neighborhood near the mall, bakery, drugstore and downtown. It was my father’s dream in building his own house. We’ve been living there since my twenties.
In my childhood, I lived in a country house. It was a modest house with a fantastic backyard, a green garden and a place to raise chickens. I loved its balcony where I used to play with my friends. Although it was an old house, I miss it. There, we didn’t have any type of security problem, we never had to get worried with locked doors or even locked gates. We had no electric fence or any house alarm. Unfortunately, nowadays we need to protect our home.
At the beginning of this year I was looking for a house to move to São Paulo because I’ve been working at USP. I’d like a place near my job where I could escape the traffic. However, I wasn’t lucky and I couldn’t find any good house. Most of them had cramped bedrooms and sometimes they were dark and cold. Besides, they were very expensive.
Thereafter, I decided to continue in my own home, my ideal place to live!!

An oasis in the middle of the city - Ana Paula - U1

Home is for me much more than a simple place. It’s a kind of temple.
Nowadays, people need a daily refuge to retire from the craziness of big cities.
I regard myself as one of them.

Therefore, sometimes I kidnap myself in order to stay alone, and home is elected as the best place for me to do this.
I love to decorate my home myself, ´cause I arrange the stuff the way I feel better.
Currently, my home is as much a comfortable as a beautiful place. It’s a pleasant spot to stay with the family and receive friends too.

The size is excellent. It’s neither big nor small. It’s enough for my family.
We’re just three: my little son, my husband and I. So, there are three rooms and three bathrooms and a good space to have barbecues on the weekends.
We love to invite friends to have barbecue with us! And pizza too!

We have been living here for the last five years, since my son was one year old. Before that, we lived in a small apartment in Vila Madalena, where there wasn’t
any grill to have barbecue, unfortunately.

Of course I prefer much more my present home!!
Besides being bigger than the other, it was projected, it’s modern, cozy and peaceful, with suitable space - there is even an area for leisure time - and it’s quite charming too.
Friends have a great time when they come here! (I hope…That’s my feeling).
And during the week, I really like arriving here and forgetting everything.

House - by Dayze - U1

Here in this text I intend to describe not only my house, but also my home. This means that I’d like to try to describe the structure and atmosphere of my house.
I live in a house big enough to accommodate my family with four persons: my parents, my brother and I. Each one has his own room and we have a living room, a kitchen with dining room, a balcony and a small garden.
On the ground floor and in all bathrooms we have ceramic floor, and upstairs, we have wood floors. In the walls and ceiling we have plaster texture, but not in the kitchen and bathrooms, where we have tile.
My house has furniture with a traditional style and cozy. There aren’t excessive decorative objects, but a lot of portraits, two paintings on the walls, flowers and some souvenirs, which we brought from each of our trips. Further, our house has a pattern of colors, with wooden furniture such as shelves and the kitchen table and decorative objects in shades of beige, like the sofa, curtain, carpet, and the color of the walls.
The whole house is inviting and relaxing; airy and bright. Our guests feel comfortable here and we always have a good cup of coffee with biscuits to offer them, an interesting film or simply a bed to sleep.
I have a very soft bed in my room with a good blanket, even when it isn´t too cold, and some pillows. There are also my computer, many books and a board with pictures of my friends and places that I knew. In my room I feel protected and comfortable; I could spend days here, especially on rainy days.
But if I could, I’d like to change my house to another neighborhood, because here the people don’t talk to each other and there is no shopping areas around, only a small supermarket, a hairdresser’s and a bakery. Because of this I would not like to live here when I get married, but in a central location, which is nevertheless calm.

My home is a safe harbour for me - Maristela - U1

Since I was born I’ve lived in three different neigbourhoods. I’ve always lived in São Paulo. When I was child I lived for 9 years in a rented house in a neighbourhood with an unusual name “Chora Menino”. This house brings me back the best memories of my childhood. It had a beautiful garden in the front and a great backyard with orange threes. I made friends in this neighbourhood but I have not met them ever since because I moved to another place.
This house looked unsightly but it was very cozy and comfortable inside. Every morning the sun light would come through a glass window and fill all of rooms with warmth. I could see the sunshine from the bay window in the afternoon.
The second place where I lived until I got married was Parada Inglesa, in a house. My parents had already lived there. This house was near my school. Every afternoon, mom observed us (my sister and me) going to or coming back from school from the bay window. Currently, my home is a three-bedroom apartment in Jabaquara, where I live with my my husband, a son, my mother-in law and a little pet, a dog called Shiro.
I think that ideal place to live is somewhere you feel safe, comfortable and happy. It isn’t necessary to be a huge house, but cozy with good vibrations. A house is a building, but home is somewhere to come back and share great moments with people that we get along with (family or friends).

Memories of a home in my life - Angelina - U1

My maternal grandfather was a poor Italian immigrant who, when their eight children were at the age of getting married, planned the construction of eight two-story houses in Pinheiros with his son’s financial help. The row houses were built in a closed street without asphalt in 1948.
They were eight very simple two-story houses of two bedrooms with a backyard with fruit trees and a small garden with palm trees.
I grew up there with my parents, uncles and many cousins. The dream of the family was get to educate their children and improve their standard of living. The life of the family was very simple at that time, without money but this union has made us happy. Games (for example: Jump Rope, Soccer, Handball, Red Hands, Hopscotch, Keep Away), birthday parties and also sad moments are until today unforgettable memories.
Several years ago the street changed, the street was opened by government and it has turned the street into an important commercial center. Some relatives have sold their two-story houses, others have reformed and have rented out theirs years ago. My grandfather had already died.
Five years ago, in 2005, I left my two-story house. I’m living in an apartment with four bedrooms in a Condominium in Pinheiros. The apartment is much larger and valuable than the old house. There is a pool, a beautiful and larger garden in the Condominium. This apartment is comfortable enough for us.
Nowadays there aren’t relatives living in those houses. Although the family is living in different places we are still very united. We are still the same people who built a lot in a lifetime in the row houses together. My grandfather managed to unite his family!

Living in a safe place - Irene - U1

I love the apartment where I ´ve been living since 1981, because it´s situated in a closed condominium, in front of the Sunset Square, in Alto de Pinheiros, surrounded by big trees. When my husband and I decided to buy that apartment, our three children were very small and due to the fact I worked at that time, the idea of living in a safe place was much more attractive than to live in a house. Until the day I got married I had lived in a comfortable house with my parents, my three brothers and a sister. It was situated in Agua Branca, in a small street where the neighbors were very close. There were four bedrooms, two bathrooms, a big room, a nice kitchen, a small garden and a big backyard. I miss that house because it reminds me of my childhood and the time I had a lot of friends to play in the street. In the backyard there was a big tree and a swing made of wood where I used to play with my friends, cousins and brothers. On the weekends my parents used to invite some uncles and aunts to have lunch, and the house was always crowded with people. Nowadays, even if I could buy a house like that one, I ´d prefer not to move and continue living in a condominium because of the security it offers. Besides, from the balcony I can admire a wonderful sunset almost every day.