Olá!

You clicked here because you may want to know a little about me.

I will tell you about how I became passionate about languages, my own experience, as well as the research and study I did to prove that learning a language is fun, pleasant, rewarding and achievable. In short, great!

Well, O meu nome é Rafa... OK, OK, my name is Rafael Tavares. Known as Rafa!

I was born in South America – Venezuela – a Spanish speaking country. My parents are Portuguese and they had lived there for quite a while when I was born.

So I grew up bilingual – Portuguese (at home) and Spanish (in the streets and at school).

I therefore ‘learnt’ how to speak Portuguese and Spanish as a child – acquiring the language that could satisfy my needs.

I lived in Venezuela up to the age of 10 and then moved to Portugal, with my parents where I lived for 17 more years. I also spent a lot of time of my childhood in Brazil where I also have family.

It was in Portugal where I completed my first degree in Teaching and Education. I specialised in the field of Language Acquisition and Development.

In the year 2000, for professional reasons, I moved to London UK. I didn’t know how to speak English at all, because I had studied French and Latin, but not English.

When I landed in London, English was a completely different language, with a completely different structure and I felt really lost.

I lost the job I was supposed to be doing, obviously because I couldn’t speak the language.

The degree I had helped me to find a solution. So, I started giving Portuguese classes to English speakers to survive but, even so, I needed to know how to speak English to communicate with my students. It was hard, I can tell you!

I suddenly realised that if I used a method, I could learn English quickly. I knew a lot about acquiring a language as a child, but I didn’t know much about how to learn a language as an adult.

So I created my own method of learning a language, and I learnt how to speak with it!

I became so passionate and amazed with my accomplishments, that I couldn’t resist learning more and more about how to learn a foreign language.

I kept on studying and trying to understand the intricacies of the English language, as well as understand the way I was learning English, always comparing and contrasting it with the way I expressed myself in Portuguese.

I managed to build and learn a reasonable amount of words, sentences and structures to survive in a great number of day-to-day situations.

So, 3 years later, I decided to go further. I went to one of the best universities in London and I did a Master’s degree in Modern Foreign Languages Education.

What I realised with surprise when I was studying in London was that countless people already had profoundly researched about how to learn a language. The more I studied, the more I came to the conclusion that what I had used as a method for learning a foreign language was right!

The experts had discovered great techniques and great thoughts about it but they expressed it in a language that only academic people could understand – the academic language.

It seemed to me that they all were there in their ivory towers talking about things – extremely important indeed – but with little chance to be understood and accessible by "normal people", people like you and me.

So I concluded that this was knowledge with little chance to be transferred to the practical world. I understood it like knowledge kept in a box to which not everybody could have access to.

So, I decided to take all that knowledge out of the box and develop a website and master a method that everyone could use in the practical world.

I decided to collect all that information and create a method that puts all the research done so far into something real.

And here I am.

Here I am to put that knowledge into practice for you!

This is my passion, as I said, and that’s why I want to tell you what nobody told me when I needed help.

But to end my story, by using all this knowledge and by creating my own method, I reached a point where can speak English confidently to anyone.

I built this site on my own.I am also able to sometimes impress English native speakers with the way I speak!

Can you Imagine?!

I can deal with any situation, I can even compete with other English native speaker boys chatting to girls!!!

This is really crazy! Amazing! Superb! Extraordinary! Phenomenal!

Now, the English native speakers are the ones who tell me that I use my accent as an advantage to get people interested in me, in talking to me, in being my friends.

Well, in a way, I have to agree with them. Having an accent is charming, attractive and appealing to others. If you want to learn more about language accents, click here.

Just to finish my story, I now work for 2 universities in London. I provide language services for several Blue-chip companies, and I teach Portuguese to people all over the world through Skype as well.

I also spend part of my time doing voluntary work in a night shelter for homeless people, and building this website. These two activities give me incredible pleasure.

I wish I could help people more... but you know what? The more I help the others, the more I get from others.

For instance, some people help me maintain this site with their donations.

If you would like to help me spend more time building this site, and at the same time help other people learning Portuguese, you can also make a donation by clicking the button below. Your donation will be processed with total security through PayPal.

You generosity will contribute to a better website, and will be very much appreciated by myself and all of those who find this site and learn Portuguese from it.

So, if you would like to contribute, please click the button to donate, and don't forget to notify me.

And yes, this is me. This is Rafa, and I’m here to share with you what I've discovered, studied, and researched. I'm here to share with you what I've learnt and created.

I’m also here to share with you the certainty that you can also achieve what I have achieved!!

And, indeed, much much more!

Are you ready???

If so, please give me your hand and let me show you how to overcome the obstacles.

Click the Mindset button to learn more about what you need to bear in mind to learn Portuguese quickly and without frustration.

Muito obrigado!
[Thank you very much!]

Rafael Tavares. x

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