Territory 10
Learn
A roadmap for anyone learning the Portuguese language.
01 · Where to begin
Where to begin
Three entry points that build context before you go deeper.
Learn · CEFR A1–A2–B1–B2–C1–C2
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.
Learn · CEFR A1–A2
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.
Learn · CEFR A1–A2
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.
02 · Explore every article
Explore every article
12 Portuguese–English article pairs
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.