Recommendation: Portuguese for foreigners

Duolingo is a free app to start. Google translate will help.
Many schools in SP and private teachers.

I did a student visa in the first 2 years here in Brazil.
You need to check in the Federal universities, they offer Portuguese for Foreigners. I am not sure in SP because I am in Floripa. In Floripa, I enrolled in UFSC.

To get the Student visa, you cannot apply the visa inside Brazil. You need to apply it outside of Brazil.

1. The first thing you need to do is look for the Federal school in SP and contact them.
2. Ask them that you want to enroll for Portuguese class and they will give you a letter stating that you are going to study in that school.
3. That letter is needed when you ask for a student visa.

Here are some schools in sao paulo that i know about:

Instituto aprenda2
PUC-SP
Mackenzie
FAAP

It would be a good idea to get a skype account and pay for some credit, so you can call these schools.  A lot of these portuguese schools take a week or more to reply to emails or don't reply at all.

To maximize your chance of getting a student visa, you should get an apostilled birth certificate and apostilled fbi criminal background check (if you are american).  If you are not american, i still think you need a criminal background check. 

If u get a student visa outside of brazil, i don't think you need the documents apostilled, but if you renew your student visa within brazil, you need the apostilles

You can probably call or e-mail a school to send you a letter of acceptance to apply for a student visa at their consulate in the country where you´re at.

Last thing I would want to do is to go to a language school to learn the Language. 
I would rather crash in and pick up on the go. 
Language Schools are for most part a futile attempt to learn the language and a racket
Every time they come up with a " Method" I smell a rat.

Any language school at a reasonable price will do if your real goal is to live in brazil on a non tourist visa.
For me, language schools were a waste of money and time. I learnt on the street and with brazilian friends.

I'll respectfully disagree:  I think language schools are necessary, but not sufficient, if you want to speak Portuguese well enough to understand, enjoy, and participate in the culture, and not just the minimum necessary to navigate daily life.  There may be people who can learn at that level on their own, but the vocabulary of educated people is extensive, the grammar is complex, and it takes more work to master them than most people are willing to put in.  I'd recommend taking a course at a good university, like a couple of the ones that misterinternational mentioned above.
In addition, a person needs to READ:  you won't get more than basic vocabulary talking to your friends.  This is especially important if you're trying to do it on your own.  At the very least, read newspapers that use good Portuguese, like Folha de São Paulo, Estado de São Paulo, and Jornal do Brasil, all of which are available online.  Laurentino Gomes's popular histories ("1808", "1822", and "1889") are written in good, accessible Portuguese, and will give the reader some Brazilian history, too.  Finally, listening to a lot of Brazilian vocal music, especially singers like Beth Carvalho, who generally chose quality lyrics and delivered them clearly, gives you a good feel for the cadence and flow of the language.

"At the very least, read newspapers that use good Portuguese, like Folha de São Paulo, Estado de São Paulo, and Jornal do Brasil, all of which are available online. "

i'll try this out after i finish all the lessons in duolingo.

for the most part, the only portuguese literature i've been reading is mma websites off and on.

Although they probably shouldn't be all you read, MMA websites may be more helpful than you might think.  My husband is an avid videogamer, and the games have done a lot for his English, besides given him an extensive vocabulary related to blowing stuff up. 

Thank you for all your feedback. Besides wanting to learn Portuguese, I want to live in Sao Paulo. And a student visa seems to be the only possible way to live here long term. I got a quote from Aprenda2 intensive course 16h per week $1775 USD all in cost with visa. (if anyone has feedback to share on their student visa or experience taking Portuguese for foreigners course please share). There are also a lot of rules attache to the student visa. Attendance is a must or visa is suspended.

by the way, when i mentioned to call portuguese schools, that probably seems like a pretty daunting task, but i would estimate that 10% of people in sao paulo speak english, so there is a good chance if you call a school and ask if there is someone who speaks english, that there will be somebody who speaks english.

tem alguem ali que fala ingles? = is there somebody there who speaks english?