How Can I Learn Portuguese Fast?

So you want to learn Portuguese but you don’t want to spend years going to classes and not really seeing any progress? Instead you want to jump right into it, get started and watch yourself progress quickly so that you can begin to have conversations and get around in Portugal?

Well don’t worry, this is very achievable, especially if you’re a native English speaker. Portuguese shares the same alphabet with English and also has a lot of words that are very similar and easy to pick up.

Find A Portuguese textbook

If you find a Portuguese textbook at your level you’ll be able to work your way through it like you would a course but at a speed that works for you meaning you would be able to move through it a lot more quickly than if you were doing a course where you only had one class a week. But even with a textbook, there are ways to use a Portuguese textbook that can improve your learning efficiency.

Start With The Pronunciation

The first thing I would do is to spend a whole day working on Portuguese pronunciation. It’s not too difficult but it’s definitely different from English and many people have problems with it when they first start out that can last for months.

If you spend your first day concentrating on the phonemes of the language and nothing else, then although you won’t necessarily have it perfect, you will be in a better stage to try speaking than a lot of other people who start out learning Portuguese.

Learn The Conjugations In The Present Tense

The other tenses can come later but to get you started spend another day learning how verbs conjugate in the present tense. Although for the future you’ll need to learn your other tenses, most of your conversations will take place in the present tense (or the past simple). If you learn these basic conjugations as soon as possible you’ll be in a much better position to start speaking a lot quicker.

Learn The 1000 Most Common Portuguese Words

Another way to learn Portuguese fast is to learn the 1000 most commonly used Portuguese words as soon as possible. When we speak we generally use the same words in most conversations. So if you manage to learn the 1000 most commonly used Portuguese words you’ll be able to start forming sentences much more quickly.

Study Every Day

We say this when we talk about learning any language. The quickest way to learn a new language is to make sure you study every single day. This way you’ll have the most improvements and see your Portuguese improve on a day by day basis.

Speak As Soon As Possible

One of the biggest mistakes that people make is that they delay speaking. They want to wait until their Portuguese is perfect before they’ll chance having a conversation, but this is counter productive. The best thing to do is to start speaking as soon as possible and you can learn from your mistakes. A baby doesn’t wait until he speaks perfectly until he starts trying right? Well don’t do the same thing with your language learning.