How to Learn Portuguese (the Fun Way)

Portuguese is the seventh most spoken language in the world today, according to the latest edition of Ethnologue. It surpasses Russian, French, German and Italian and is spoken in 15 countries, with 221 million using it as their first language. 

Learning Portuguese will allow you to communicate with a variety of different cultures in Africa, Europe, South America and North America. But, how do you actually learn the language? In this post, you’ll find out how to learn Portuguese using a variety of content that you can easily find thanks to the internet. Let’s go!

How to learn Portuguese

Most language learners use the traditional approach to learning a language – by attending classes and reading lessons from textbooks. If this isn’t for you, don’t worry. There’s a lot of alternative resources that you can use to immerse yourself in Portuguese with a click of a mouse. What’s great about this approach is that you get to choose content you enjoy (YouTube channels, music, movies) to help you learn. Below, I’ve listed a few pieces of content that I recommend you to check out in order to get started.

YouTube Channels 
We know how great YouTube is for both entertainment and whenever you need bits of information. However, YouTube is a wonderful platform to learn a new language too. Instead of binge watching various videos in your native language, use your time productively. Search for them in Portuguese! Besides improving on your listening, you can also practice your reading since most videos on YouTube have Portuguese closed captions.

YouTube has a ton of Portuguese content to choose from, from comedy channels such as Rezende Evil to DIY and tech channels like Tubalatudo,

Podcasts
Another fun way to learn Portuguese is to listen to podcasts. Getting used to hearing how native Portuguese speakers sound will help improve your listening skills.

Like YouTube, podcasts have almost an infinite amount of Portuguese content to choose from. You can see for yourself by heading over to iTunes. 

What’s also great about podcasts is that you can listen to them wherever you go. Even if it is still difficult for you to speak the language fluently, you can listen to the audio repeatedly and list down as many words as you can. You will improve your comprehension, build your vocabulary and help you speak Portuguese better as your diction and pronunciation improve by listening to native speakers.

Music
Music is another great way to learn a new language, and Portuguese is no different. Not only is it enjoyable to do so, but you’ll soon start to pick up new words and phrases and understand the culture a bit more. Make things fun and sing along to popular Portuguese songs and hear how words are pronounced. If you want to learn what the lyrics are about, you can get professional help with Portuguese translation.

How to Learn Portuguese Faster Using LingQ

As you can see, immersing yourself in Portuguese doesn’t require you to travel abroad or sign up for an expensive language program.

However, it can be a bit tiresome to find interesting content, go back and forth between sites, use different dictionaries to look up words, and so on.

That’s why there’s LingQ. A language app that helps you discover and learn from content you love.

You can import videos, podcasts, and much more and turn them into interactive lessons.

Keep all your favorite Portuguese content stored in one place, easily look up new words, save vocabulary, and review. Check out our guide to importing content into LingQ for more information.

LingQ is available for desktop as well as Android and iOS. Gain access to thousands of hours of audio and transcripts and begin your journey to fluency today.

Enjoyed this post? Check out polyglot and LingQ cofounder Steve Kaufmann’s blog post on how to learn Portuguese! 

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Bernadine Racoma is a content writer for Day Translations, Inc. She’s into languages, culture, travel and blogging. Her many interests and frequent travels help her give unique twists on a variety of subjects.