Portuguese português
For English speakers. 4 lessons · 3 references · about 47 min of reading, plus as much practice as you like.
Brazilian Portuguese as the baseline; European Portuguese named where it differs.
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Lessons
4 in orderRead them in order; each one has a drill you can come back to.
Lesson 1Portuguese 1: Sounds & SpellingPortuguese sounds like no other Romance language because of its nasal vowels and the way its vowels shift. Learn what the til, the accents and a closing m or n are telling you, and you can read any word aloud.Lesson 2Portuguese 2: The Present TenseA Portuguese verb carries its subject in its ending, though Brazil leans on pronouns more than Spanish does. Learn the three regular families, the ways to say “you” and “we”, and drill the forms with a trainer that brings back what you miss.Lesson 3Portuguese 3: Ser, Estar, Ter, Ir, Fazer, plus Articles & ContractionsFive irregular verbs carry most everyday sentences, and the little words around them fuse together: de and o become do, em and a become na. Learn the blocks, the families of other irregulars, and the two verbs for “to be”.Lesson 4Portuguese 4: Your First 150 WordsA deck of 150 common words that schedules its own reviews: two cards per word, a sentence on each, and a saved schedule that carries across the Portuguese pieces.
Reference
3 toolsKeep these open while you learn: words by level, every verb, and how to say things.
Words by LevelPortuguese: Words by Level628 Portuguese words from A1 to B1, by topic, each with an example and a play button. Search them, filter them, and turn any list into flashcards that come back on a schedule.Verb TablesPortuguese: Verb Tables164 Portuguese verbs in every tense you need up to B1, irregular forms in red, a play button on each form, and a typing drill for any verb that will not stick.How to Say ItPortuguese: How to Say It139 Portuguese phrases for the first situations you meet, with notes on formality; 27 sentence patterns by level; and a one-page survival sheet to print.
Where to go next
Outside the library: the resources from Portuguese 4: Your First 150 Words.
- 🌐 A dictionary with verb tables. The Dicionário Priberam, free online, shows both Brazilian and European spellings and conjugates every verb.
- 🌐 Hearing real voices. Forvo has single words recorded by speakers from Brazil, Portugal and elsewhere, labelled by country, so you can compare accents word by word.
- 🌐 The language’s institutions. Portugal’s Instituto Camões promotes the language abroad and lists courses and certificates; Brazil’s proficiency exam is the Celpe-Bras.
- 📘 A grammar to keep. John Whitlam and Agripino S. Silveira, Modern Brazilian Portuguese Grammar: A Practical Guide (Routledge, 3rd edition, 2023): a reference, not a course; look things up when a sentence puzzles you.
- 📘 A frequency dictionary. Mark Davies and Ana Maria Raposo Preto-Bay, A Frequency Dictionary of Portuguese (Routledge, 2008), the 5,000 most frequent words of Brazilian and European Portuguese with example sentences.
- 🗣 Comprehensible input. Videos and podcasts made for learners, slow and with visual support; search for português para estrangeiros or Brazilian Portuguese for beginners and keep whatever you can mostly follow.
- 🗣 A person. A paid tutor or a language-exchange partner, one session a week, as soon as you can say twenty sentences. No app replaces talking to someone.