Have you decided what will be the first real sentence you try to speak? “Bom dia” and “Tudo bem” don’t count. Something useful. Something that will help you on your travels in Brazil and start a simple conversation. For me it was this: Você sabe onde fica…? Perfect, right? >> “Where is whatever (located)?” This…

Mais (more) finds it’s way into many expressions, always assuming the role of saying most or, more. Let’s look at one of the most useful ways mais in Portuguese can say things like: prettier, heavier, younger and etc. (ie, as an adjective). Examples of mais to express most can be found in this other post….

The Portuguese preposition de shows up in many different places. As you know — I HATE to dig into grammar-speak unless it’s really necessary to move you into Portuguese fluency. So, I won’t. But, let me just say that it’s worth being said that a preposition is a word that ties others together. Each language…

Todo mundo: everyone gets confused over these two common words. Actually, they’re called indefinite pronouns. Officially, their job is to “represent either count nouns or noncount nouns”. What?! These are just the words that convey: all, every, entire etc. The confusion stems from the fact that tudo sounds a lot like todo. To keep them…

There are so many different ways to express again/another time that it can get confusing. Let’s focus on the four most common ways that Brazilians say one more time. In order: (1) de novo (2) mais uma vez (3) outra vez (4) novamente Can we just use any of these in all situations? Sim… quase….

The LH in the middle of a word is one of the trickiest pronunciations. Really though, it’s not that hard. You just need to remember to half-pronounce the ‘L’. So, it’s not trabayar it’s, trabaLHar. Feel yourself saying the L. But don’t dwell on it. As soon as you feel the L continue right into…

It’s often really confusing to understand how Brazilians say who and which. Quem é? Who is it? That’s what you say before opening the door or when a stranger calls on the telephone. Simple. But what about the other ways they use who? Let’s look at some very common examples. É de quem? Who’s it…

The Portuguese verb TOMAR can be confusing. The problems comes from the fact that it can take the meaning of to take or to drink or to consume. In general, Brazilians use tomar when talking about taking something that will become part of their being – that will change them internally. What?! They won’t use…

I’ve written about pode deixar before but everyone keeps asking about the ever-popular expression: deixa pra lá. Why? Because deixar is super-useful. It means of course, to leave, let. And when you use it as deixa pra lá you’re saying: deixa pra lá = nevermind, forget it, let it go. Like I said: VERY USEFUL….