Let us be honest. Not too many people in Santa Catarina command the English language to any greater extent, and of those who speak some English, most are younger. However, there is an increasing number of Americans living in Santa Catarina, and many of the tourists that come here speak English.

Those who know to speak Spanish will get around easily, and even German is still spoken by many.

So, anyone who is interested in living in Santa Catarina ought to learn a few words of the language. And this can be done simply by being here, even if a couple of hours of Portuguese courses per week would help a lot. And the satisfaction is so much greater when the result comes and you are able to speak some meanings.

Portuguese in Brazil is simpler and easier to learn than in Portugal. People speak slower in Brazil, and the grammar has been simplified over the years.

The Portuguese alphabet is somewhat different from the Spanish and we have exclusively used normal letter even if they do not indicate a proper pronunciation. But we have made one exception for the letter Ç, which pronounces as an S.