Who We Are: Professors

Erica

Erica fell in love with Portuguese thanks to her carioca aunt, a native of Rio de Janeiro who exposed her to Brazilian culture from an early age. She learned Portuguese after having travelled extensively throughout Brazil over the last 15 years. She also had the opportunity to live in Rio de Janeiro last summer while completing her master’s degree in International Affairs at the New School. Her time there was spent conducting interviews in Portuguese and translating footage in to English for a media-based website on human rights and forced removal of the poor in the lead up to Rio’s hosting the 2016 Summer Olympic Games.

Growing up in a household where English was the only language spoken, Erica made it her mission in life to absorb and speak as many languages as possible. After studying French for six years through middle and high school, Erica spent a year in Costa Rica and eventually earned a bachelor’s degree in Spanish. Along with her fluency in Portuguese, she spent a year learning Japanese and speaks basic conversational Bengali thanks to years of working with friends from Bangladesh.

Erica’s philosophy on studying language is that the student must be exposed to all aspects of the culture; from food to music to traditional pastimes. She is very excited to bring Portuguese to FluentBrooklyn and looks forward to sharing her passion for all things Brazil with her students!

See upcoming class schedules for Portuguese »

Meet more professors »