The Skype’s the Limit: Learn Portuguese on Skype with 8 Resources
When it comes to your Portuguese skills, the Skype’s the limit.
Whether you use it to chat with native speakers or get lessons from an expert tutor, Skype can be a powerful way to improve your Portuguese skills.
These eight unbeatable resources will help you harness the Portuguese learning power of Skype today.
Contents
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Why Study Portuguese on Skype?
Practice online
One top reason to study Portuguese on Skype is for conversation practice. There are plenty of great ways to practice Portuguese online, but conversation practice is usually a little harder to come by.
Since one of your main goals in learning Portuguese is probably to hold a conversation, getting some practice will help get you the skills you need to meet your goals.
Native speakers
Studying Portuguese on Skype will also help you connect with native speakers. When you’re studying a foreign language, it’s a good idea to interact with native speakers.
Even well-studied non-native speakers often use a more academic form of Portuguese than native speakers do. Interacting with native speakers helps you improve your accent and pick up on more authentic language.
Work with your schedule
Studying Portuguese on Skype is also incredibly convenient.
You don’t have to lug your books to a classroom. You don’t have to travel to meet up with a conversation partner or tutor.
And, in most cases, you can study Portuguese on Skype whenever you can fit it into your schedule!
Get over the jitters
Let’s be real: speaking practice can be intimidating.
By taking your practice session to Skype, you can make it a little less daunting than in-person speaking practice.
After all, if you mess up and become too embarrassed, you can always grab a tub of ice cream, curl up in bed and never speak to your conversation partner again. (We don’t actually recommend this, though. Get that ice cream, but get back on Skype, too! You can do it!)
Don’t feel quite comfortable enough yet to carry on a full conversation, even from the relative anonymity of Skype?
That’s what these resources are for—over time, your Portuguese skills will improve and you’ll gain confidence.
Make sure you go into the exchange with some ideas for what to talk about. Think up some ideas ahead of time, or search for some ideas online.
For more topics (and to practice your Portuguese listening skills) consider trying out a virtual immersion platform. FluentU, for example, teaches Portuguese with a variety of video clips that could give you ideas for conversation topics.
Learn Portuguese on Skype with 8 Unbeatable Resources
Skype Language Exchange
When you do a language exchange, you give your partner practice in your language. In exchange, your partner lets you practice with his or her language.
It’s an easy (and usually free) way to get valuable speaking practice.
MyLanguageExchange
MyLanguageExchange is a service designed to hook you up with your perfect language exchange partner. Consider it like an educational matchmaking service.
To find a partner, just search by key information, such as native language, what language they want to practice and age range. Plus, you can even search by country, which is a great way to practice variations of Portuguese.
Profiles are usually brief and focus on educational goals. Some users also note interests and share pictures.
While MyLanguageExchange offers some ideas of what you should do in your meetups, the choice is really up to you and your partner.
To get in touch with perspective partners, you’ll need an account. A free account allows you to say “hi” to other members to let them know you’re interested. You can also reply to messages from paying members.
A paid membership allows you initiate contact with other members via email or text chat, which you can then use to set up Skype meetings.
Conversation Exchange
Conversation Exchange is a free service designed to help you find conversation partners for in-person meetings, a pen-pal relationship or Skype-based chatting.
You can search potential partners based on what language they speak, what language they’re learning, what country they live in and what type of exchange (in-person, pen pal or online chatting) they’re open to.
When you select online chatting, you can even narrow the field to only people who are interested in an exchange on Skype.
You can also search by city of residence, enabling you to hone in on more specific regional Portuguese variations.
Profiles include some helpful getting-to-know-you information, like a brief description and a list of hobbies and interests.
InterPals
InterPals allows you to find language exchange partners with the potential for it to develop into something more. That’s because, unlike most sites, “flirting and romance” is an option.
So, if want a little romance mixed in with your conversation practice, InterPals is a strong option. Nothing motivates you to learn a language more than the desire to communicate clearly with your loved one!
To search for other users, you’ll first need to set up a free account. Once you have that up and running, you can filter users by gender, age, whether or not they have a photo, country, city, continent, languages and what they’re looking for.
Many InterPals users post photos of themselves, so you can see ahead of time whether they look like the sort of person you’d get along with.
Another great feature of InterPals is that you can see who’s online, making it easy to message someone and get a quick response.
While there’s no set field for a Skype conversation, you can message other users directly to see if they’re interested.
Reddit does, indeed, have it all—including a language exchange board.
You can browse the list to find Portuguese speakers looking for a conversation partner, or post your own message describing your perfect partner.
Just follow the same format as others: “Offering: (Your spoken languages and your proficiency in them). Seeking: (The language you want to learn and your level in it).”
So if you’re a native English speaker looking to learn Portuguese, you’d title your post: “Offering: English (native). Seeking: Portuguese (beginner).”
Then, in the description field, mention that you’re interested in using Skype for your language exchange.
From there, all you have to do is wait and respond to anyone who’s interested!
Tutors and Lessons on Skype
Online Portuguese lessons can be an affordable way to get direct support. Most of these services use Skype to help you connect with the tutor of your choice.
Preply
Preply is a tutoring service that gives you plenty of choices.
You can filter potential tutors by price, country of birth, availability and whether or not they’re native speakers.
Plus, you can even search by specialty, so if you’re looking for help with a more specific topic, like business Portuguese, Portuguese literature or Portuguese for children, you can filter results to show tutors who cover these areas.
Most tutors share photos and information on their backgrounds. Many tutors also have a video introduction.
Prices start at just $3 per hour and go up to $40 per hour.
Verbalplanet
Verbalplanet offers Skype-based Portuguese lessons that are customized to fit your needs and goals.
Tutor profiles include photos, how many lessons they’ve taught, ratings from students and information on their backgrounds, qualifications and teaching methods. You can filter tutors by language and location.
Tutoring is priced by 45-minute lesson. Prices range from under $15 to over $28 per lesson.
Live Lingua
Live Lingua connects well-educated, native tutors with learners for one-on-one Skype lessons.
If you want to really get to know your tutor ahead of time, Live Lingua has all the information you could want. You get your tutor’s full name and background information, hobbies, teaching style and travel experience.
For nervous learners, this can be a good way to ease some of the getting-to-know you stresses.
Prices start at around $25 per hour.
italki
With all you could ask for and more, italki is a solid choice for Portuguese Skype lessons.
You can search for tutors by lots of different criteria, including whether the tutor is a professional teacher, where they’re from, hourly rate, languages spoken, level of fluency and special skills (like test preparation and business Portuguese).
Tutor profiles are also highly useful. They include plenty of background information along with video introductions, reviews, schedules and more.
Some tutors even list their job histories, so you can feel like a hiring manager selecting your perfect candidate.
Prices start around $5 an hour and go up to nearly $50 per hour.
If you want to improve your Portuguese skills, look to the Skype. These eight unbeatable resources will show you the way!
Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)
