Hello everybody!

[rodriluc]

Hi !

My name is Rodrigo, I?m 27 and I live in Brazil.

I would like to improve my english and make new friends here.

Rodrigo
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Rodrigo

[Torsten]

Hello Rodrigo,

Welcome aboard. Where in Brazil are you from? When and where did you learn English? What do you do? How did you find our website? Talk to you soon. Torsten
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Test Of English for International Communication
TOEIC Preparation & TOEIC Vocabulary

[rodriluc]

Hi Torsten,

I was born in Sao Paulo, and I live in Brasilia, with my wife and 2 children, the newest one is 4 month old (http://fotolog.terra.com.br/marianadl). I studied at Fisk School... 10 years ago. I graduated on Administration, by Universidade Paulista, from Sao Paulo. I work as a computers network analyst, at a public bank. I find this website by Google.

I hope this website can help me.

Thanks,

Rodrigo
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Rodrigo

[Torsten]

Hi again Rodrigo,

What is your daughter's name and how often does she watch TV ?
So, you work as network administrator at a bank. That's very interesting. What exactly does your job involve? How many people are there in your team? Do you work shifts?
Also, your English seems to be very good, how often do you communicate in English and whom with?
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Test Of English for International Communication
TOEIC Preparation & TOEIC Vocabulary

[rodriluc]

The children names are Mariana and Wendell... they watch TV everyday!

My job involves communication between "central office" computers and all agencies* and ATM?s equipments, using routers. There are about 20 analysts in my team, and we work at hollydays, weekend...

Everyday I need to read documents in english, and sometimes I have to call to vendor support team (at USA ou Australia). My english isn?t so good, I don?t understand everything on movies, CNN, BBC.......

Where are you from? What do you do?

* I don?t know if the word "agency" is correct. It?s the attendance point of the bank.
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Rodrigo

[Torsten]

Hi Rodrigo,

So you watch CNN every day with Mariana and Wendell - how many languages do they speak?

As for your job, your explanation makes perfect sense. You manage and maintain communications between the central office or headquarters and all bank branches or bank outlets. I take it ATM stands for Automatic Teller Machine?

You even work on holidays and weekends so you also have permanent access to the Internet, don't you?
What exactly do the 20 analysts in your team do? What kind of vendors do you have to deal with?

You say you don't understand everything when you watch CNN or a movie. Acutally, you do understand 100%: You receive the sound of the English words and you can repeat what you hear so you understand everything phonetically. Do you remember how you learned Portugese? You heard your mother tongue for several hours every day and you could understand the sounds. The meaning of the words and phrases came to much later after you had heard them hundreds of times.

So, when you learn a second language it is absolutely essential that you listen to authentic audio materials as much as possible. Do not worry if you don't know the meaning of a word. Your daughters hear you and your wife speak and they don't know the meanings of many words you and your wife use in your conversations. Are your daughters bothered because they don't know those words? Not in the slightest. They simply hear you and it is fun to them to repeat some of the phrases you say. You can do the same. Try to repeat some of the new words you hear on CNN. Next time you hear that word you might be able to find out its spelling and then you can look it up on the Internet to learn its meaning. Bottom line: you don't have to know the meaning each word you encounter for the first time.

Please, let me know what you think. Regards. Torsten
PS: Next time I'll tell you more about what we do here at english-test.net
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Test Of English for International Communication
TOEIC Preparation & TOEIC Vocabulary

[rodriluc]

Hi,

Very good idea! I?ll try to speak the words that I don?t know yet, like a child! I think it will help me!!!

Mariana is a baby, I speak with her all the time, and she pays attention on everything! Wendell is learning english.

Yes, ATM is Automatic Teller Machine. In Brazil, usually called as "24 hours bank", "Night and Day bank" ou "Eletronic Teller".

Our team works 24 hours, monitoring connections and equipments... if a problem occurs, we have to troubleshoot, and fix it, or call to a technician! We deal with communication equipment suppliers (firewall, load balance, IP phones, routers and switches).

I have permanent access to internet, here and at home!

Best regards,
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Rodrigo

[Torsten]

Rodrigo,

What is your typical working day like? I take it you work in some kind of office with lots of computers humming around? You certainly have a server room where the equipment including the rooters are stored? How many people are there in your office? Do you have to sit in front of computer screen or can you walk about? I take it your servers run on LINUX so the application surface is completely different from Windows environment most people use on their PC's?
You see, I'm asking all these questions because I want to know what it is like to administer the computer network of bank...
Thanks in advance.
Torsten
_________________
Test Of English for International Communication
TOEIC Preparation & TOEIC Vocabulary

[rodriluc]

Good morning!

We stay in a room with a lot of computers, the main equipments and servers are in the "safe room". I need to walk a lot, to go to the safe and techinical rooms. I don?t know how many people work here (Brasilia), it?s a 5 floors building. There are 3 headquarters: Brasilia, Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo.

The servers are running Windows 2000. There are some mainframes too, running its own operational system. We don?t use Linux yet.

I would like to know how "english-test.net" works!

Rodrigo
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Rodrigo

[Torsten]

Hello Rodrigo,

Good to hear from you again. So, your computers run on Windows 2000 - the same here with our machines. It seems that at this point Windows 2000 is both - easy to use and fairly reliable. I have a good friend of mine who says that LINUX is several times more robust than any of Microsoft's systems and he is probably right but for our purposes LINUX it would be too complicated to use LINUX.

So, what programs do you use? I take it your main responsibility is to make sure that the network is running smoothly and if one of the terminals or servers stops working you have to fix it. This is certainly a simplified definition of your job, isn't it?

As for english-test.net, it's a place where people improve their English grammar and vocabulary by taking interactive tests and in addition they meet with other people and share ideas and experiences.
_________________
Test Of English for International Communication
TOEIC Preparation & TOEIC Vocabulary

[rodriluc]

Hi!

It would be very complicated a migration to Linux, but the project team seems to migrate in a near future.

This is the exact definition of my job, but our responsibility is only the communication equipments (routers, switches...).

My team uses CiscoWorks and HP OpenView to monitore the network.

Next thursday, there will be a hollyday in Brazil ("Nossa Senhora de Aparecida?s day" and "Children?s day"), and I?m going to rest these days, including Monday .

Have a nice weekend!
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Rodrigo

[Torsten]

Hi Rodrigo,

What exactly is Nossa Senhore de Aparecida's Day all about? I've tried to get some information on this holiday at Google but so far haven't found anything in English. Do you have any plans as to how you will spend those days? Maybe, you'll watch TV with your daughters and wife?
Yes, you too have a relaxing weekend - if you like we can continue our conversation here on the forum.
_________________
Test Of English for International Communication
TOEIC Preparation & TOEIC Vocabulary

[rodriluc]

Hi Torsten,

Some information about "Nossa Senhora de Aparecida": http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/mary0005.htm

I?d like to stay at home on these days, but there is a problem on another customer network and I have to work.

Tomorrow we?ll go to the zoo.

Rodrigo
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Rodrigo

[rodriluc]

Hi,

How are you?

I?m back!

I didn?t go to the zoo, yesterday was a rainy day here!

Rodrigo
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Rodrigo

[thinker]