Portuguese LANGUAGE LEARNING GUIDE

Want to learn Portuguese but don’t know where to start? Take a look at some of these tips that will help you become a successful speaker in no time.

If you truly want to become a proficient speaker, the smartest thing you can do is find a trainer who can guide you through the learning process. Getting the help of a language professional will ensure you feel motivated while you learn, as you’ll have someone who can give you all the support you need. Another benefit of learning with a teacher is that they will create the best learning plan for you, so you won’t have to waste any time trying to find materials online, which can be really convenient if you don’t have that much spare time on your hands. On top of this, a native tutor can teach you all about the Portuguese or Brazilian culture, and you’ll get to ask them all the questions you have about their traditions, so you’ll end up knowing a lot of interesting things about life in these countries that is pretty hard to find in books or on the internet.

Want to start learning Portuguese right away? If so, you can start by using language apps, especially if you’re a complete beginner, as they’ll help you learn your first words and phrases in Portuguese. The great thing about apps is that they are an excellent complement to language lessons, and you can use them in your free time, no matter where you are. Although there are many incredible apps out there, you can start by using some of the most popular ones, like Duolingo, Drops, or Memrise, which cover the basics of Portuguese and allow you to learn both the European and the Brazilian variants.

When starting to build your vocabulary in Portuguese, a simple thing you can do is find words that are similar to English words and mean the same. Because English is heavily influenced by French, which derives from Latin like Portuguese, there are plenty of words that you’ll recognise easily without having to resort to a dictionary. To make this easier for you, here are some of the most useful Portuguese-English cognates you should learn.

As you can see by these examples, although it’s really easy to recognise these words in Portuguese, their pronunciation is really different from that in English, so always remember to ask your teacher for help or look them up online.

Even though there are many words that look similar and mean the same, there are others that look like English words but have completely different meanings, so if you want to avoid confusion, take a look at the list of the most common false cognates.

If you want to sound like a native, you have to master Portuguese diacritics. Diacritics are marks placed over certain vowels that indicate how that sound should be pronounced, as well as identify the stress in a word. There are three diacritics, also called accents, you should know:

Want some extra recommendations to improve your pronunciation? Here are some Useful Tips for Perfecting your Portuguese Accent.

One of the most challenging aspects of learning Portuguese is that you’ll have to learn to differentiate masculine from feminine nouns. Although it will take some time for you to learn how to do this, there’s a simple rule that can help you avoid mistakes, especially at the beginning. All you need to do is look at the ending of a noun: if it ends in an “o”, like the word filho, which means son, that word is probably masculine, whereas if it ends in an “a”, like the word filha, which means daughter, chances are it’s feminine. Although there are quite a few exceptions to this rule, it will certainly help to apply it when you first start, so if in doubt, remember to look at word endings.

Another aspect of Portuguese that can be daunting for English speakers is verb conjugation. In order not to be overwhelmed by Portuguese tenses, you should learn the three most used tenses first, and leave the rest for later. First, you should start with the present tense, which is called presente, and it’s used to express habits, customs and general statements that allow you to say things like “Eu falo português,” which means “I speak Portuguese”. Next, you should learn the pretérito perfeito, a very useful tense that will allow you to talk about the past and say things like “Eu aprendi português”, which means “I learned Portuguese”. Lastly, if you want to talk about the future, you only have to combine the word ir, which means to go, with another verb in the infinitive, and you’ll be able to say things like “Eu vou aprender português,” which means “I’m going to learn Portuguese”.

Whether you’re interested in Brazilian Portuguese or European Portuguese, you should try to make as many native friends as possible in order to put your skills to the test and speak confidently. There are many ways you can do this, like attending a local language exchange event near your town or city, or joining an online community where you can chat with people from all over the world, like Interpals or Meetup. The more you talk to native speakers, the better your conversational skills will get, so don’t be shy and find people you can talk to!

If you want to understand cultural references and develop your Portuguese skills, one of the best things you can do is immerse yourself in Portuguese and Brazilian culture as much as possible. You can do this in different ways, like watching movies and TV shows, listening to podcasts, reading books, listening to music and reading the news in Portuguese. Don’t know where to start? Here are some useful links you can check out.