Niko_br and Nurya gave what I think is the best information you can get. Although Brazil has it's safety problems, any other country has, plus it's not so severe. John is rather biased about it. I recommmend coming to Brazil. It's a very good country.

hello! as far as i know the best colleges for portuguese studies here in brazil are unicamp, in campinas - são paulo [www.unicamp.br] and ufpr, in curitiba - paraná [www.ufpr.br] both cities are very good places to live, but i personally prefer curitiba. about the safety, well, there's violence no matter where, but i think the only place i wouldn't recommend is rio de janeiro... anyway, niko_br and nurya already gave some other important informations :3

Ola Natalia!!!!tudo bem?bom aqui no Brasil é um lugar bom de se vive tirando a violencia ficaria melhor ainda , mas em que lugart nao tem violencia . como voce quer aprender portugues aqui é um excelente lugar ^^ , se voce quiser uma pessoa para conversa em portugues via internet posso te ajuda ^^ . abraço que tudo de certo para voce !!!! Natalia Hello! You doing? Good here in Brazil is a good place to live apart from the violence would be even better, but where lugart not have violence. as you want to learn Portuguese here is a great place ^ ^, if you want someone to talk in Portuguese via the Internet can help you ^ ^. embrace all of that right for you!

Ohh i dont recommend my country... violence levels are extremely high, being unable to walk on streets at night. Include prostitution, drug dealers, and our government is highly corrupt - they just dont even care about the population -, taxes are terrible, making all the prices here the highest as possible. Our minimal month payment is about R$ 450,00, something like US$ 300,00. I cant wait having money to buy a passage to far away from Brazil. And by the way it goes, ill need to wait for so long...

Hi Natalia! Well the cost of living in Brazil depends on a lot of things but specially about the region of the country where you plan to spent some time. How you might know Brazil is a large country, then, if you apply yourself doing researches I'm sure that you'll find a nice and cheap place. I would recommend you to search some universities at São Paulo or another big state such as Rio de Janeiro and Rio Grande do Sul. These states have what we call "global cities" and they're also well developed as big cities around the world. Safety in Brazil is a polemic question. Yes, it is true that this country isn't the safest place of the world but come on, people sometimes say too much! It isn't the worst place ever either... I do believe that you can protect yourself from violence avoiding dangerous places doing simple things like... Avoiding contact with strangers, always being near from someone that you can trust and who knows where he or she is, keeping some emergency phones with you for some emergency, easy things like that..you know? Like I said, I can suggest you to access sites from some colleges, www.mackenzie.com.br is my university and is located in São Paulo, where I live. There are some exchange programs to foreigners but honesty I don't know in fact how it really works. If you got interested and have some doubt fell free to contact me.. I wish you a lot of lucky in your new experience! Tchau, tchau! xoxo, Nurya.