English in South/Central America?

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Mrs. Obama rules!

Apart from Belize, there is little English spoken in Central and South America. It is mainly the upper classes who speak English as there are several British/American schools in cities like Buenos Aires, Lima, Santiago, Montevideo, Rio, Costa Rica, Ecuador, etc. and those schools are expensive.
I worked in schools in Santiago, Buenos Aires, Lima and Montevideo (7years in total) and the average Joe (taxi drivers, supermarket cashiers, etc did not speak any english) and speaking spanish is a must if you want to understand people there and do the basics (supermarkets, shops, etc) Tour guides and people who live in touristical places (Cuzco, Machu Pichu, etc) speak the very basic english.
Buenos Aires is a great city but the average argentine does not speak english. Try and polish your spanish before going there, you know the basic stuff to get you around.English is not an official second language in Latin America, in places like Brazil, english is considered a third language after portuguese and Spanish.

traderbobhn

I can tell you about Honduras

In the major cities you may expect around 10 to 15 percent of people know some english and there are many english schools around so that number may be higher. If you go to the Roatan, english is widely spoke. Also Comayagua has many english speakers because of the nearby US Military Base.

Pinolera

Central America - Belize (which was colonized by the British up until 1986). Nicaragua the atlantic coast also Honduras.

Obama is a socialist

The launguage of Belize is English.

bonitaisabel19

Hi there - In, most major cities in central and south america, English is their second language and is taught in their schools as Spanish is taught in US schools, so it will be common for you to meet many people and be able to carry on a fairly good conversation as most of them do know English.

In Buenos Aires, I found almost everyone aside from taxi (remis) drivers knew English fairly well. Santiago and Panama also.

p.s. Words and accents used in those three countries are a bit different as their cultures are different, but it's so interesting to learn about and hear :)

Felipe M

Hello.
I'm chilean and I live here.
The best places for studying english in Santiago are 'Instituto Chileno Norteamericano de Cultura' and 'Instituto Chileno Britanico de Cultura'.
Here you can find students from countries where the english is spoken (they work here).
The websites are http://www.norteamericano.cl/ and http://www.britanico.cl/
Good luck and Welcome to Chile and Southamerica.

Linda (former Myrtle)

You'll be all right in Buenos Aires. Almost everyone learns at least some English in high school and a lot of people can speak it conversationally.

The "L" Word

Only two official English speaking nations in Central and South America are Belize and Guyana. English is also the official language of the disputed Falkland Islands (Las Malvinas). English is use widely in Panama and Suriname as a business language. There are also small English-speaking communities in Honduras (Bay Islands) and Costa Rica (Caribbean coast).

Rest of the Continent speaks Spanish, Portuguese (Brazil), Dutch and Sranan Tongo (Suriname), French (French Guiana) and indigenous languages such as Guarani (Paraguay), Quecha (Bolivia and Peru) and Aymara (Bolivia).

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