“I am a Venezuelan student taking Portuguese language lessons in preparation for my upcoming move to Lisbon to begin a master’s program. I feel much more confident in my ability to communicate in Portuguese thanks to her thorough and didactic lessons. Catarina has been a great resource for me to understand and master both formal and colloquial Portuguese. Since I started taking lessons, my writing, speaking, and pronunciation proficiency has improved immensely. Catarina is very flexible as a tutor and gauges the student’s level and learning preferences to make a strategic plan for language skills advancement.

She quickly identified the most efficient methods to teach me, including occasionally using her knowledge of my native language (Spanish) as a reference. she has also taken the time to explain the culture and go beyond language preparation.”

“Extremely happy with my tutor. Catarina not only teaches language but also the culture which is fascinating. Best of her approach is: pronunciation - she speaks very clearly, gramma - she introduces grammar in conversation so you learn by repetition, and professionalism - she sends notes and recordings of vocabulary after the class. Hope to continue with her for months to come.”

“My lessons with Catarina Mendes were excellent. Not only is she a highly professional and knowledgeable teacher, but it was fun to learn, and everything felt easier than I expected. I especially appreciated how thorough, and clear her explanations were, and how well organised all the follow-up materials were. Also, her warm and kind manner, made sure that I never felt stupid. It was only a pleasure to learn.”

“I have been taking Portuguese language lessons with Catarina Mendes for the past few months. I cannot say enough positive things about Catarina. She plans every lesson to my needs and has even adapted to my style of learning. She goes above and beyond to understand my strengths and weaknesses in language learning. Our lessons are comprised of lessons through a course book and freely chatting about our days, improving my spoken comprehension and accent. Additionally to the class structure above, she makes the classes fun, incorporating Portuguese cultural references to each lesson. She has a very pleasant demeanor about her, making the lessons one of the highlights of my week. Though I live in Oakland, California, USA the lessons feel very intimate, as if she was sitting beside me. She has made learning Portuguese fun and my goal of living in Portugal part- time even more of a reality.”

“ I have been studying with Catarina for a couple of months now - she is a great teacher, very dedicated and committed. She is helpful and patient and also happy to take my goals and objectives into the account. Big thumbs up - I would definitely recommend Catarina if you are thinking of taking up or improving your Portuguese.”

“Catarina is a wonderful teacher and I highly recommend her. She is very open, friendly and very well prepared. She is always smiling and makes learning Portuguese very fun!”

“I initially approached Catarina as she stood out from other Portuguese teachers with her friendly, kind and infectiously positive demeanour, which I knew would be a huge factor in my motivation to learn. I have started with not being able to say a word and arrived at a point at which I am able to have a conversation in Portuguese with my other half – a dream of mine for a long time.

Catarina is always attentive to my needs.Her level of patience removes the anxiety that had previously hindered my learning, as a student who takes a lot of time to understand concepts. I believe that due to her experience with teaching students from all over the world, she is able to adjust her teaching style to suit the needs of students from a multitude of backgrounds and understands the different ways people can learn Portuguese.

Catarina’s multilingual capabilities have proven immensely valuable to my learning. Having a teacher to support me in this multi-dimensional way has accelerated my understanding and helped me not only with my linguistic capabilities, but also my cultural understanding of Portugal. I believe this Catarina’s unique ability – to make her classes more of a cultural journey and one that feels like you are travelling to Portugal with her.

my lessons are always impeccably organised, with worksheets and aids such as textbooks, workbooks, and audio recordings. No student is ever neglected or left behind.”

“I am an 18 year old college student from Willemstad, Curaçao and in April of 2020 I decided that I wanted to learn Portuguese.

I began by searching for teachers through an online platform that fit the following criteria:

• Previous teaching experience
• The ability to customize lessons to my learning needs
• Apply different teaching methods
• Cultural knowledge of Portugal
• Internationally minded

It was very important that I find a teacher that met all the criteria previously mentioned due to the fact that I already knew some Portuguese and it was important that the lessons were personalized to me so that I could learn efficiently. Catarina fit this criteria flawlessly and I have learned a lot in the past three months. The lessons have included a combination of grammar, vocabulary and applying both into conversations that capture my interest. As a graduate from the International school of Curaçao I believe that Catarina would be a perfect fit as a Portuguese teacher at your school. ”

“After my first week with Catarina I have no doubt that she will get me to the level of Portuguese that I am trying to achieve. Fantastic teacher, so lucky to have found her on the first try!”

“C’est parfait. J’adore mes heures partagées avec catarina.”

“We are an Italian couple, fluent in several languages. We moved from the United States to Portugal and have been taking online classes with Catarina Mendes for a number of months. We attend individual classes and Catarina tailors each class to the specific needs of each of us.

Catarina is an outstanding tutor. She is detail oriented but never loses sight of the big picture, with the ability of zooming in the finest details of grammar, syntax, and pronunciation and then zooming out to place words and expressions in their cultural context. With great patience, she gently but firmly highlights all our mistakes, turning every blunder/imperfection into a perfect teaching moment. Her impeccable and crystal-clear pronunciation is really helping us acquire the distinct sounds of Portuguese vowels and diphthongs. She is warm and caring and always goes the extra mile to provide us with useful suggestions on how to learn more and improve.
Catarina Mendes is a brilliant Portuguese tutor and a wonderful human being.”

“I am a marketing professional and I have been receiving online Portuguese tutoring from Catarina for a couple of months. Catarina is incredibly organized. Anytime I need some extra exercises to understand one of the grammatical rules, she follows up by email. I know that Catarina teaches people all over the world, but she is so attentive that it feels like I am her only student. I have already made considerable progress with my Portuguese skills, and now feel confident keeping up in conversations about many topics. I am thoroughly enjoying my lessons with Catarina.”

“During the last few months online studying Portuguese with Ms. Catarina, I find some of her greatest assets are her passion and creativity. She treats each class with all her effort and heart, she engages me in unique ways and make language learning fun. Learning with Ms. Catarina you gain culture knowledge on top of it, even though we live in Malaysia now I feel very much my life in Portugal has already started.”

“A wonderful teacher who explains well, is patient and always smiling!!
She makes learning Portuguese seem easy!!”

“Great lessons with Catarina! She is very helpful filling in all the details of phonetics and grammar as well as encouraging me to speak in Portuguese and not to worry about mistakes!”

“Très bonne professeur. A l’écoute et explique très bien les choses. Ce que j’aime c’est que la majorité du cours est en portugais, ça permet de bien pratiquer et de corriger la prononciation!!”