Boost your Portuguese vocabulary in 3 steps

No amount of “hacking” and optimizing the process of learning Portuguese will get you to fluency without first constructing a foundation. And that foundation has to be made of the most-used words and phrases. This base of vocabulary is the most important ingredient in the recipe for language acquisition. Once this solid base has been acquired, all pathways to learning the language are open.

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English words used in Brazil

This post is making me extremely hungry. Here’s the deal: once you know these you don’t have to bother to learn the Portuguese equivalents. No need to. They are already in use in the common vocabulary here. Just be sure to say these words with your best brazilian accent. We’ve gotten a native to record…

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Hacking Portuguese Participles

Many Portuguese learners get tripped-up with the past tense. But there are some hacks that can get you speaking quickly. One of them is learning to use Portuguese participles. The past participle is just a verb conjugation that describes something that is over and done: written, said, cooked, closed etc. Learning the Portuguese participles is…

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Num Corpo S贸

You already know that learning a Portuguese song helps your language learning. But, did you know that it in-fact, super-charges you? It does. Images & music sets your brain in a highly stimulated state — and that makes it record what is happening in a uniquely powerful way. Here is a fantastic song by Maria…

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Learning Portuguese with subtitles

I hear from so many people that are either (a) unable to wean themselves from using subtitles, or (b) not taking advantage of the power of subtitles. There is actually a specific process for Learning Portuguese with subtitles, and it’s not that obvious. Using movies, tv shows and YouTube to teach you the language is…

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Portuguese Sentences: great openers

If you’ve already got some of the basics down and are looking for ways to get into a conversation, I’m going to give you a list of very common Portuguese sentences that you can use as openers. These are all simple, yet powerful and: interesting openers. This list will give you some great openers and…

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Portuguese Pronunciation

We’re starting to post the first pronunciation videos! The first 10 lessons of A Virada now have the corresponding pron煤ncia training. They look just great. Luciana and Andre have done an amazing job at showing us the language in all it’s GLORY. This is like watching bees pollenate flowers in super-slow motion. Everything is there…

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Before you fly: Portuguese Travel Phrases

The airport is a great place to start practicing your Portuguese. Most airline staff are bilingual and will be very forgiving of your mistakes and accent. Just go for it and apologize later. Let’s do a typical check-in dialog: AGENTE: Bom dia senhor. Passaporte, por favor. PASSAGEIRO: Aqui est谩. Eu vou para Recife. AGENTE: O…

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Advanced Portuguese phrasings.

My wife just asked me to translate this from English to Portuguese. ‘What?’, I said. Turns out, ‘Juweet’ = ‘did you eat?’ Oh. And we say it all the time. True. It reminded me of the many, many confusing Portuguese language-transformations /convolutions that I hear every day. If you’re trying to get to an advanced…

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