学 Section 10
Learn
A roadmap for anyone learning the Portuguese language.
12 articles
Learning Portuguese: a roadmap
A map of the Learn section — where to begin, in what order to advance, and how to gauge progress when studying European Portuguese as a foreign language.
Why learn Portuguese
Spoken across four continents by more than 250 million people, Portuguese combines demographic reach, economic weight and one of the world's richest cultural traditions.
European or Brazilian Portuguese: which to learn?
How to choose between the European and Brazilian varieties of Portuguese — what actually differs, what is shared, and which criteria should guide a beginner's decision.
Alphabet and pronunciation
The letters of Portuguese and the sounds they stand for — vowels, nasals, digraphs and the essential reading rules for beginners, with European Portuguese as the reference.
Greetings and Basic Phrases
The first greetings, courtesy formulas and survival phrases in European Portuguese — with pronunciation and the all-important distance between "tu" and "você".
Numbers, dates and telling the time
How to count, agree for gender, write dates and tell the time in European Portuguese — from cardinals and ordinals to the calendar and the everyday clock.
Essential grammar
A pocket card with the minimum viable Portuguese grammar: gender and articles, plurals, agreement, pronouns, ser vs. estar, and the verb tenses that let you start speaking.
Common Learner Errors
The recurring stumbles of Portuguese learners — ser and estar, por and para, gender, agreement, the two past tenses and the subjunctive — and how to fix each with confidence.
False Friends for Foreign Learners
The lexical traps that most often catch learners coming to Portuguese from English or Spanish — and how to stop falling into them.
CEFR levels and certification exams
The six levels of the Common European Framework of Reference and the two main certifications of Portuguese as a foreign language — CAPLE in Portugal and Celpe-Bras in Brazil.
Conjugation in practice
How to train Portuguese conjugation efficiently: master the three regular paradigms, tackle the high-frequency irregulars first, and use the Conjugator as a study tool.
Resources and immersion
How to build European Portuguese immersion at a distance — choosing media, balancing a diet of input and output, and setting up a sustainable routine from A1 to C2.