Portuguese · Curriculum
The Portuguese curriculum, start to finish.
1 chapters, 24 lessons. A new band of the 100 most common words every hundred ranks, the grammar that turns those words into sentences woven in, and a graded reader closing each chapter that you can read using only what you have learned so far.
- 1
- Chapters
- 24
- Lessons
- 4
- Grammar primers
- 1
- Story milestones
A frequency-first start on Brazilian Portuguese: the first 100 words, the three verb families every conjugation follows, and the ser-versus-estar split that trips up every beginner. Brazilian, and it says so.
Is Portuguese hard, and how long does it take? Read first.
Brazilian or European Portuguese?
This course teaches Brazilian, and the distinction matters more than most language pairs admit. The two share a written standard and diverge sharply in pronunciation, in the second person, and in everyday vocabulary. A European speaker swallows unstressed vowels in a way that makes Brazilian-trained ears struggle; Brazilians use voce where Portugal uses tu with a full verb paradigm behind it. Neither is more correct. Shipping one without naming it is the thing this audience complains about most, so we name it.
Is Portuguese hard to learn?
For an English speaker, no harder than Spanish and easier than French. The grammar is familiar Romance territory: gendered nouns, conjugated verbs, no cases. The difficulty is almost entirely in the sound system. Portuguese has nasal vowels English has no equivalent for, and Brazilian Portuguese reduces and palatalises in ways that make written and spoken forms feel further apart than they are. Read it and you will be surprised how much you understand; hear it and you will not.
Three verb families and very few surprises
Portuguese verbs end in -ar, -er or -ir, and each family takes a predictable set of endings. Learn the three patterns and you can conjugate the large regular majority on sight. The irregulars are the usual suspects - ser, estar, ter, ir and fazer - and they are irregular because they are common, which means you meet them constantly and learn them by exposure rather than by table.
Ser and estar: permanent against temporary, roughly
Portuguese splits to be in two. Ser handles identity, origin and the essentially fixed; estar handles state, location and the temporary. Ele e doente means he is a sickly person; ele esta doente means he is ill right now. The permanent-versus-temporary shorthand gets you most of the way and then misleads you, because it is really about whether you are describing what something is or what condition it is in.
The chapters
What you can do when you finish
- Read the rank-100 graded reader at the end with no lookups - every content word is from the chapters you just worked through.
- Hold a present-and-past tense conversation: ask questions, talk about routines, narrate what happened yesterday.
- Hedge a request politely, follow everyday speech, and recognise the core grammar that turns vocabulary into sentences.
- Cover the 100 most frequent words - roughly 80% of everyday speech by the frequency curve.
Portuguese learning: common questions
Frequently asked
Is Portuguese similar to Spanish?
Very. Lexical overlap is high enough that a Spanish speaker can read Portuguese on sight and follow perhaps half of the spoken language. The reverse is easier: Portuguese speakers generally understand Spanish better than Spanish speakers understand Portuguese, because the Portuguese sound system is the more complex of the two and its speakers are used to mapping onto simpler vowels.
Should I learn Spanish or Portuguese first?
Learn the one you have a reason for. If the reason is Brazil, learn Portuguese, because Spanish will not get you far in Sao Paulo and the habit of substituting it is a hard one to break. If you have no particular reason, Spanish has more learning material, more speakers and a marginally simpler sound system.
What is the difference between Brazilian and European Portuguese?
Pronunciation most of all: European Portuguese reduces unstressed vowels heavily, which makes it sound faster and more clipped. Grammar differs in the second person, where Brazil has largely standardised on voce and Portugal keeps tu. Vocabulary differs in everyday items, such as trem against comboio for train and onibus against autocarro for bus. Written formal registers are close enough to be near-interchangeable.
How long does it take to learn Portuguese?
The Foreign Service Institute puts it in the easiest group for English speakers, around 600 class hours to professional proficiency. Reading simple Brazilian Portuguese comes quickly. Understanding fast colloquial speech takes considerably longer than the written difficulty would suggest, and that gap is the thing to plan for.
Is this a complete Portuguese course?
No. The first 100 words with the grammar that makes them work, and no claim beyond that. Enough to read simple sentences and decide whether to go on.