Tuscani01
Senior Member
It's amazing how many Portuguese still don't speak English, despite being here for 40+ years in most cases.
Most of the ones here can speak english, they just choose not to. I didn't know my grandma could speak english until she passed away and some of her friends came to the funeral who weren't Portuguese. My mom said she purposely only spoke Portuguese to us so we would pick up some of the language. Plus it was a good way to ignore people in public when she didn't want to speak to a stranger.
For the ones who don't speak English at all, they were likely brought here from Portugal on work permits due to labour shortages and haven't been here long at all.