Eduardo, you might try "Portuguese as a Second Language," if your target audience is speakers of English. This is by analogy with the classes we have in the US that we call ESL, or "English as a Second Language."

I know that for many non-native speakers, the new language may be a third, fourth, or fifth language, but the point gets across.

After all, your classes are not just for "foreigners," are they? Your target audience also includes immigrants who wish to become Brazilians? Don't make them feel unwelcome by referring to them as "foreigners."

Incidentally, I just asked the engineer who sits in the office behind my cubicle, who fills the air with rapid-fire Portuguese when talking to our customers in Brazil, and he said he thought "Portuguese as a Second Language" might be appropriate. You will want to try it out on some of your students and see how they like it.

Johanna, just so. Thanks. Houston is in Texas, and Texas is in the US, and that means I'm an American. :) For the sake of consistency, I always post using the writing style that is most correct where I live and work.

There are, naturally, cases in which the punctuation goes outside the parens in (so-called) American English. It depends on the punctuation and the situation. I know there's thread around here where we discuss this in some detail...

(wanders off to try to find it)

Perenna, you really cannot do better than this: http://www.onelook.com/

Pay attention, though, because although they give you results from a couple dozen possible dictionaries, a few are of purely historical interest.

(cough) Ok, the matter at hand. "SundEE??" I've only EVER heard "sunday." I bet the "sundee" pronunciation is from out in the Northwest US, but truly I haven't a clue.

Generally, yes, but here the confusion arose between the written S and the pronounced S sound at the end of X. It's a natural and common error and essentially shows that the person does actually care somewhat about doing things right. :)

The news that Japanese is a different languiage from English will come as no surprise to anyone on this board; however, that's a really interesting fact. Thanks for mentioning it.

Perenna, you're from Great Britain? (I don't think government workers in the US commonly refer to themselves as "public servants" anymore.)

In the US, inclusive and tolerant as we like to think we are, "foreigner" is definitely a not-OK word unless you're talking about the 70's rock band :) but it's true that I don't know what is proper overseas. I asked a co-worker from Vermont and another co-worker from Aberdeen what they thought, though, and they both said it was a "better not use" sort of word.

YMMV. ("your mileage may vary," as is said in new car commercials)

OK, here's another thought. I sense you may be looking for a word to place in a construction like this, in which refer to my own family background:

"My father was born in Hungary and moved to the US when he was 20. He is a/an ________. His family still lives in Hungary. I live in Texas. With respect to me, the members of my father's family are __________."

I personally would use the words "immigrant" in the first case, and in the second case just say that my father's family is "Hungarian." I could also say they are "natives of another country."

Stuart, please go out of your way to avoid using the word. It may be the quickest and easiest word to think of, but unfortunately nasty people have ruined it.

Your best alternatives depend on context, but "people from other countries" is never wrong. If you intend to contrast people with the "native-born," you may refer to them as "immigrants," "extranationals" (not used much and kind of officialese sounding), "noncitizens," etc. In college, we had an "International Student Union," and referred to students from other countries as "international students." Here in our "multinational" corporation, we refer to our emplyees in other countries as "non-U.S. employees."

Play with it and see what sounds right to you.

Mike wrote:

"X differs from Y"
"X is different than Y"
"X differs in respect to Y"

These usages are the preferred ones:

"X differs from Y in that..."
"X is different from Y..."
"X differs with respect to Y..."

Forgive me for being didactic about a word that does not even exist, but I believe that if it did exist it would actually be spelled "whichth."

"Whicheth" sounds like the kind of fake King James Bible speech that we used to get in trouble for when we did in church as children: "Blessedeth be-eth they-eth thatteth mourneth, for they-eth shalleth be-eth comforted. Eth."

Heh.