I'm a nervous speaker so patience and a sense of humor are really important for me. I am usually available only late at night, so insomniacs and night owls are welcome. :-) I am a COMPLETE and TOTAL BEGINNER in Portuguese. A 3-year old Brazilian child speaks better Portuguese than I do. It might seem like fun to practice your English with a gringa, but just remember that you will have to tolerate my baby Portuguese for half of the conversation. :-) I prefer to practice with a Brazilian Portuguese speaker. I am taking lessons with a tutor, but I'm hoping that finding a language partner can just help me to become a more confident speaker and to help accelerate my learning/conversation skills. The good news is that my Spanish is slightly better. I can hold actual conversations about daily topics in Spanish, although I usually have to ask the native speaker to slow down so I can understand them. There is still a ton of vocabulary I don't know, my grammar is...okay, and I can only speak "confidently" in the simple present tense. However, I can usually put together an understandable sentence. I am a native English speaker from the US. I've been teaching on italki for about a year and love it. Before italki, I was a volunteer ESL (English as a Second Language) teacher in my community working with adult immigrants. So, I have a lot of patience with language learners. My students also tell me that I'm good at making even nervous speakers comfortable, so I'll do my best to make you comfortable as well. If you think I would not drive you crazy during a language exchange, drop me a note and tell me a bit about yourself.