My name is Helena, and I’m from Lisbon, but languages have taken me everywhere!
Before moving back to Portugal in 2019 I was a serial expat - all counted, I lived, studied and worked in 9 different countries :)
I’ve been in your shoes!
I understand how just a little language push could be the difference between always feeling like a tourist, and starting to make yourself at home.
How did everything happen?
In the 2000s I studied Linguistics, Translation and Interpreting at university.
After that my first “grown up jobs” were as a language teacher - teaching English to kids in two Lisbon schools, and an audiovisual translator for a Portuguese media company.
In 2009 I moved to Finland to run courses of Portuguese Language and Culture at the University of Helsinki.
It took a move across Europe for me to start teaching Portuguese, but once I started I loved it, and I knew there was no going back :)
In the 2010s I trained as an interpreter at the EU institutions in Brussels, and I worked with tech startups all over Europe.
In 2020 I started this independent project - I called it Lengalenga, (that’s Portuguese for a limerick).
Since then I’ve connected with hundreds of language learners, and I’ve helped newcomers ease into a new life in Portugal.
I’d love to work with you next!