Brazilian vs People in Brazil

[hirashin]

Dear native English speakers,
would you help me again?

I saw (a) in the English textbook for 7th graders.
(a) What language do people in Brazil speak?

Does it sound natural? And how about (b),(c), and (d)?
Do all of them sound natural?

(b) What language do Brazilian people speak?
(c) What language do Brazilians speak?
(d) What language do people speak in Brazil?
(e) What language do they speak in Brazil?

Thanks in advance.

Hirashin

 

[joadbres]

They all sound natural to me, although (e) is colloquial, and so would not be used in a textbook.

 

[hirashin]

Thanks for the help, joadbres. I asked this because English textbooks edited by Japanese often contain unnatural English.

 

[weiji2001]

They are all correct in form and register. (e) is not colloquial or informal. It just replaces the noun in (d) with a pronoun.

 

[Psea206]

I think (e) sounds way too dependent on antecedents / context to be a good exam question. The grammar is fine. It simply feels out of place unless the immediately previous questions were also about exactly the same people, and even then it feels casual.

From a broader perspective — keep in mind that many languages are spoken in Brazil, by Brazilians. The dominant one and official one is the Brazilian form(s) of Portuguese, which (like American English) has diverged from the “homeland” version somewhat. There are over a dozen pre-colonial languages in use as well. This question would be suited for younger kids getting a simplified version.