One resource is a good start, but using more resources can give you a broader perspective. Each resource has its own distinct style and approach to the language. If audio tools are available, the voice, accent and inflection of the speaker may also vary significantly.
Using multiple resources to learn Brazilian Portuguese can better equip you to understand real Brazilian Portuguese.
Practice the four essential components of language
Thoroughly learning any language requires a balance of skills. As you study Brazilian Portuguese, try to improve your reading, writing, speaking and listening to prevent any major weak points in your skillset.
Certain resources will be better for practicing one or a combination of these skills. This is also another good reason why you should utilize multiple resources.
Study often
If you study Brazilian Portuguese for one hour on Saturday mornings, there’s a strong chance you’ll forget some of what you learned from week to week. It’s only natural!
Any skill you’re not using can fade. Studying more often can help keep what you’ve learned fresh in your mind and prevent some of the backsliding caused by long gaps between study sessions. Even if you just study for a few minutes each day, it can help keep you on the right track.
Set goals
Full fluency takes time, but setting smaller goals along the way can help you stay motivated and focused. After all, you might not feel like studying some days, but if you’ve made it your goal to learn five new words each day, that concrete goal may be the extra push you need to keep going.
Utilize your Brazilian Portuguese language skills
You’ve probably heard the phrase “use it or lose it.” Well, this is certainly true when it comes to Brazilian Portuguese. Using the skills you’ve acquired helps to reinforce them, so try to use your newly acquired language skills as often as possible.
Whether you speak to yourself, find a conversation exchange partner, keep a journal in Brazilian Portuguese or enjoy Brazilian Portuguese books and movies, anything you can do to use your skills can serve as extra practice.
Nemo is designed to be used in those spare moments throughout the day that so often go to waste, so even the busiest learners can make progress.
The app features audio from native speakers to help you with pronunciation. Since the audio is saved to your phone, you can even get in some practice when you don’t have internet access, like on your next flight.
Want to see how you sound? The Speech Studio lets you record yourself to compare your pronunciation to that of a native speaker.
And with the app’s flashcard decks, you can pick up new vocabulary with a strong focus on commonly used words.
FluentU takes authentic videos—like music videos, movie trailers, news and inspiring talks—and turns them into personalized Portuguese lessons.
Other sites use scripted content. FluentU uses a natural approach that helps you ease into the Portuguese language and culture over time. You’ll learn Portuguese as it’s actually spoken by real people.
FluentU has a wide variety of videos, as you can see here:
FluentU brings native videos within reach with interactive transcripts. You can tap on any word to look it up instantly. Every definition has examples that have been written to help you understand how the word is used. If you see an interesting word you don’t know, you can add it to a vocab list.
Review a complete interactive transcript under the Dialogue tab, and find words and phrases listed under Vocab.
Learn all the vocabulary in any video with FluentU’s robust learning engine. Swipe left or right to see more examples of the word you’re on.
The best part is that FluentU keeps track of the vocabulary that you’re learning, and gives you extra practice with difficult words. It'll even remind you when it’s time to review what you’ve learned. Every learner has a truly personalized experience, even if they’re learning with the same video.
Learn Portuguese + by Vidalingua offers over 100 lessons and more than 4,000 exercises. This combination of lessons and exercises can help teach you important skills and prepare you to use them.
This app focuses mostly onkey phrases you may need, with lessons on topics like greetings, questions, numbers and time. Audio pronunciations are available with multiple accent options, and you can even set the speed.
When it comes time to reinforce what you’ve learned, there are plenty of exercises to choose from. You’ll find word jumbles, pronunciation exercises and multiple-choice questions that put your skills to the test.
Did you blow your budget by booking your next trip to Brazil? No worries! Learn Portuguese for Beginners can help you learn valuable Brazilian Portuguese skills for free.
This free app works offline too. It’s chock-full of basic words that fall into categories like body parts, foods, colors, animals and common verbs.
Lessons and activities combinereading, writing and speaking, while audio from native speakers can help you get the pronunciation down.
Looking to expand your vocabulary? LinGo Play is a vocabulary trainer that combines flashcards and games. With thousands of words covering hundreds of topics, like education, business and health, there’s plenty to learn.
Beginner students can start out with lessons, while more advanced students can jump right in with educational games. And since there are 16 different exercises, you won’t be left doing the same thing every time you study.
LinGo Play is designed to fit easily into busy schedules and can be used for as little as five minutes a day to expand your vocabulary during your downtime.
Games, games, games! Not to bash traditional studying, but there’s nothing quite like a game for a much-needed break that keeps the learning on a roll.
Digital Dialects has plenty of Brazilian Portuguese learning games that fit the bill. These games cover topics like colors, numbers, animals, phrases and more.
You’ll also find spelling games, verb conjugation activities and general vocabulary builders.
Learn Portuguese Now has its fair share of beginner Brazilian Portuguese lessons. You’ll find vocabulary lessons that cover animals, body parts, clothing, colors, numbers and other common topics.
Not only do you get a vocabulary list, but the site also provides flashcards and games to reinforce the vocabulary.
In addition to vocabulary, Learn Portuguese Now also offers valuable cultural insight on topics like music, food, the flag and more.
This app offers interactive lessons, comprehensive audio recordings and a user-friendly interface. It covers all aspects of language acquisition, including vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation and cultural insights.
The app’s structured curriculum, progress tracking and exercises will ensure that you can effectively practice and reinforce your skills.
This is an excellent resource for improving your proficiency in the language, whatever your current level.
PortuguesePos101 is an online platform dedicated to teaching the language through comprehensive lessons, audio recordings and interactive resources.
Through a range of engaging content, the website offers a dynamic learning experience with a focus on practical language usage, cultural insights and vocabulary expansion.
You can access lessons on various topics, track your progress and even join a supportive community to practice and interact with fellow Portuguese learners.
Semantica is an online video series originating from Rio de Janeiro. It gives you an insider look at Brazilian culture while teaching you the language.
Through a series of engaging video lessons, Semantica combines real-life scenarios with contextualized language instruction, allowing learners to grasp the language in a natural and practical way.
This resource focuses on conversation skills, vocabulary expansion and comprehension, giving you a well-rounded learning experience. The videos feature native Brazilian actors, providing exposure to different accents and cultural nuances.
BrazilianPodClass is a Portuguese course in the form of a podcast. There are over 550 episodes, each providing 15-30 minute lessons and a written guide you can use to follow along.
With its engaging and informative audio lessons, you can develop your language skills and gain a deeper understanding of Brazilian culture. The podcast covers a wide range of topics, including grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, and cultural insights.
BrazilianPodClass provides comprehensive lessons that cater to different proficiency levels. The podcast’s interactive format encourages active learning and enables you to practice your listening and speaking skills.
Through one-on-one video lessons, you can practice conversation skills, receive feedback on pronunciation, improve grammar and vocabulary, and gain cultural insights from native speakers.
italki also provides a community where you can engage in language exchanges, participate in discussion forums, and connect with fellow Portuguese learners.
Brazilpod is a comprehensive online platform developed by the University of Texas at Austin. It offers a collection of free online Brazilian Portuguese learning resources.
Brazilpod offers a series of audio lessons covering various topics, including grammar, vocabulary and cultural insights. The podcast provides an immersive language-learning experience to enhance your skills and explore the richness of Brazilian culture.
Learners can access the episodes for free, making it an accessible and valuable resource for anyone interested in mastering Brazilian Portuguese.
Learn101 is all about teaching language learners the basics, so it’s a great place for beginner students to start.
The site teaches the alphabet and common adjectives, nouns and phrases. Not only that, but lessons onpluralization, gender, verbs and grammar give you all the information you need when starting out.
This site can help teach you some key phrases that you can use right away. The combination of vocabulary and grammar lessons can also help prepare you for additional studying down the road.
Writing practice can be almost as hard to get as speaking practice. And if you’re shy, interacting with native speakers by writing may be a little more comfortable for you than speaking to them.
The Slowly app focuses exclusively on written communication.
Through this innovative app, you can send letters to people around the world. You can also enter your interests to help you find a penpal with whom you have more in common.
There are tons of Brazilian websites that can provide great reading practice. But unless you’re pretty advanced, you probably won’t be able to understand many of the words you encounter.
With Readlang, you don’t have to worry about not understanding! You can just click on the words you don’t understand for an instant translation, making authentic resources much more accessible.
Plus, once you click a word, Readlang automatically saves it. You can go back and study the words you’ve looked up using convenient flashcards.
Scrabbin can help you connect with native Brazilian Portuguese speakers for conversation practice.
While you can’t specifically select “Brazilian Portuguese” as a language, you can search for “Portuguese” and then look for Brazilians.
If you’re targeting a specific area of Brazil, you can choose a filter for that region to get a better idea of regional variations in Brazilian Portuguese.
For language learners, Netflix’s optional subtitles are particularly useful. If your skills are advanced enough, you can watch without any subtitles. However, if you need a little extra help, English subtitles are available for all the content in Portuguese.
Why You Should Learn Brazilian Portuguese
Brazilian Portuguese is widely spoken
Portuguese is a very widely spoken language, with around 234 million speakers. According to the CIA World Factbook, Brazil is the world’s fifth-most populous country with over 208 million people.
While Portuguese is spoken in many other countries, Brazil has the most significant population of Portuguese speakers. If you’re unsure of which variation of Portuguese to study, Brazilian Portuguese may have an edge because it’s so widespread.
It’s more common than French and German
Despite being widely spoken, Portuguese isn’t as widely studied as many other languages.
Learning Brazilian Portuguese can help you connect with Brazilian culture
Let’s face facts: Brazil has a lot to offer. Between the music, dance, sports, food, history and natural wonders, there’s so much to enjoy. Learning Brazilian Portuguese can help you connect with Brazilian culture on a much deeper level.
If you think you love the culture now, imagine how much greater your affection might be once you understand Brazilian Portuguese!
Having the ability to communicate in the native language will open up a whole new world to you in Brazil.
So start working on your base tan, samba steps and Brazilian Portuguese with a few of these handy resources!
Learn101 is all about teaching language learners the basics, so it’s a great place for beginner students to start.
Writing practice can be almost as hard to get as speaking practice. And if you’re shy, interacting with native speakers by writing may be a little more comfortable for you than speaking to them.
Speaky is designed to help you connect with native speakers. Through the app, you can find a partner and exchange texts.
There are tons of Brazilian websites that can provide great reading practice. But unless you’re pretty advanced, you probably won’t be able to understand many of the words you encounter.
Scrabbin can help you connect with native Brazilian Portuguese speakers for conversation practice.
Época is a weekly news magazine with plenty of online content.
Netflix has plenty of binge-worthy content in Brazilian Portuguese.
