Don’t Give Up Now! 9 Portuguese Intermediate Courses to Push You Onward
When you decided you wanted to learn Portuguese, nobody told you that intermediate-level learning would seem so much more daunting than beginning-level lessons.
These online Portuguese courses created specifically for intermediate learners might be just the impetus your Portuguese education needs to speed closer and closer to fluency.
Contents
- How to Select the Right Intermediate Portuguese Course for You
- 9 Portuguese Intermediate Courses to Push You Over the Intermediate Plateau
- Online Intermediate Portuguese Courses for College Credit
Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)
How to Select the Right Intermediate Portuguese Course for You
Learn How You Learn
Pay careful attention to your learning style when selecting an intermediate online Portuguese course. Online courses vary in their methods and delivery: some use videos, others use interactive activities and still others rely primarily on text. Some courses even provide the opportunity to practice your pronunciation skills.
If you know you learn better through a particular style of teaching, look for a course that makes extensive use of it. For example, visual learners might not do as well with purely text-based materials. Choose a course that fits your learning style!
Focus Your Studies
Portuguese language classes can vary in their focus. Consider what skills you need to work on the most before you decide on a course.
Need more speaking practice? Look for a course that focuses on conversation. Is grammar your weak point? Consider a course that aims to build foundational skills that you can build upon down the road.
Finding a course that targets the skills you need to work on will help you resolve any weaknesses so that you can continue to progress.
Set the Right Pace
Finally, think about how much time and effort you’re prepared to put in. Depending on the format of the course, you might be in for a relaxed pace spread out over a long period of time, or you might need to prepare for a more intense online Portuguese immersion experience.
Knowing how much time and energy you’re prepared to put in ahead of time can help you find a course that you can enjoy without feeling overwhelmed.
9 Portuguese Intermediate Courses to Push You Over the Intermediate Plateau
Live Lingua
The intermediate Portuguese courses on Live Lingua aren’t originals. Instead, Live Lingua generously provides free access to courses created by the Foreign Service Institute (FSI) and the Defense Language Institute (DLI).
Live Lingua offers many course series so learners can start at a beginner level and follow the course sequence. However, learners who are already at an intermediate level can jump in with a later course in the series, like “Portuguese Language Course – Volume 3” and “Portuguese Programmatic Course (Volume 2).”
The intermediate courses cover language structure, reading skills, writing skills, more complex verb tenses and vocabulary. Courses feature both e-books and audio materials for learning. There’s even a nifty recorder right on the page so you can practice your pronunciation by recording yourself, then playing it back.
FluentU
FluentU is an immersive language program that teaches Brazilian Portuguese through authentic videos. Thanks to interactive captions, these clips are transformed into learning tools, making it easy for learners to look up any word’s definition, example sentences and an associated image without leaving the video player.
Flashcards help you keep track of words you want to learn while adaptive quizzes combine videos, images and example sentences into a memorable learning experience.
You select what you watch and how quickly. Meanwhile, FluentU tracks your learning and presents you with questions that correspond to how well you know a word, allowing you to build on what you’ve learned without getting in over your head.
PortuguesePod101
PortuguesePod101.com offers 25 intermediate-level audio lessons. That’s over seven hours of content—more than enough to fill your daily commute or your next road trip with awesome learning material.
Each lesson is centered on dialogue. While these dialogues revolve around themes—like fashion, jealousy and electronics—they also target specific grammar rules, like the pluperfect tense and the subjunctive. In addition to audio, each lesson comes with a vocabulary list, lesson notes and a transcript.
While new lessons are free, you’ll need a Premium subscription to access all the existing materials.
You can find many other learning resources on PortuguesePod101, including hundreds of videos, flashcards, downloadable lesson notes and a lively community. Check them all out!
Easy Portuguese
Easy Portuguese is a free website full of terrific lessons, including 12 intermediate-level grammar lessons that cover verb tenses, pronouns, prepositions and more.
Each lesson offers neatly organized explanations, audio pronunciations and plenty of examples to show you how the grammar rules work in practice. Given the tidy organization and frequent use of tables, you might even want to print some lessons to keep them handy.
Professor Jason
Professor Jason is a popular YouTube channel with videos that teach Spanish and Portuguese.
The videos are formatted much like conventional classroom courses, with audio explanations accompanied by examples that appear on the screen as the teacher explains them. Don’t be put off by the bland presentation—although the videos themselves have no frills, Professor Jason is an engaging teacher who explains topics clearly in a way that anyone can understand.
Portuguese lessons cover a number of topics appropriate for intermediate students, including possessive adjectives and pronouns, common dual-verb constructions and more.
Babbel
Babbel offers a dedicated intermediate course that aims to help students develop reading, writing, speaking and listening skills.
Over 10 lessons cover intermediate vocabulary and grammar through thematic lessons that focus on topics like movies and careers. The courses have you listen and repeat, enter what you heard, translate words and complete other activities that help reinforce grammar and vocabulary.
If you want, you can even use Babbel’s speech recognition to work on your pronunciation.
Access to this course requires a subscription.
MIT Portuguese II
What if we told you that you could take an intermediate Portuguese course from a well-respected university without spending a dime? Well, you can! You won’t earn college credit, but MIT offers free downloads of course materials that come from a real course, so they’re almost as good as taking a for-credit Portuguese course through the university.
Downloadable files give you access to assignments, readings, videos and other great course materials. Plus, the class is conducted primarily in Portuguese to offer a more immersive experience.
Since this material’s derived from a real course, the focus is the same as you’d expect from conventional courses, teaching grammar, vocabulary, culture, reading, writing, speaking and listening.
Want some online Portuguese courses for intermediate students that do give college credit? Read on!
Online Intermediate Portuguese Courses for College Credit
Wish you could earn college credit for your Portuguese study? With these courses, you can!
While you may have to apply to the school or be granted special student status, taking online Portuguese courses through colleges can provide you with credits to transfer to your home institution.
The Ohio State University
The Ohio State University offers three Portuguese courses online. While the first course is at a beginning level, intermediate level students might benefit from the second and third course in the series.
These online courses aim to provide the same quality lessons as in-person classes but in a more convenient format.
Interested students should contact the university for information on their eligibility. If you’re considering transferring credits to your home institution, you may also need to speak with a transfer counselor through your university’s admissions or registration offices to determine how these credits could transfer in.
UMass Dartmouth
UMass Dartmouth offers four levels of Portuguese online, three of which may be appropriate for different levels of intermediate Portuguese students. These courses are offered in the fall, spring and summer, making them easier to fit into your schedule.
UMass Dartmouth’s online Portuguese courses feature activities you’d expect from in-person classes, including grammar and vocabulary exercises, reading and writing practice, audio recordings, videos and speaking practice (conducted remotely through video and audio recording).
Students can contact UMass Dartmouth about eligibility, and they should discuss credit transfer options with their home institutions to ensure credits earned will be useful
Any of these nine intermediate Portuguese courses can give you the powerful learning momentum that you need to keep moving forward.
Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)
