Your Portuguese Learning Library. One Read at a Time.
25 Portuguese Tongue Twisters to Perfect Your Pronunciation
Want to improve your Portuguese pronunciation? Tongue twisters—trava-línguas in Portuguese—are a fun and effective way to train your tongue and master tricky…
A vs. Para in Portuguese: Key Differences & When to Use Each
Many Portuguese learners struggle to understand the difference between “a” and “para”, especially when both prepositions indicate movement. So, what’s the difference…
Portuguese Regular Verbs in the Present Tense
Portuguese verbs can feel more cumbersome to learn than, say, English. Being a Romance language, Portuguese isn’t short of verb forms to…
Portuguese Conjunctions – All You Need to Know
Without conjunctions, we’d sound clumsy and robotic: I like apples. I like pears. I don’t like bananas. No one talks like that….
English-Portuguese False Friends to Watch Out For
English–Portuguese false friends (or false cognates) are words that look alike in both languages but carry different meanings, often leading to misunderstandings….
Quick Tips to Improve Your Portuguese
How can you develop your Portuguese language skills as quickly as possible? There are several things you can do to accelerate your…
Portuguese Demonstrative Pronouns and Determiners
Demonstratives are words we use to point out a person or object, including their location relative to the speaker and listener. Portuguese…
European Portuguese Podcasts for Language Learners
The more exposure you get to Portuguese, the better. Listening to podcasts is an excellent way to improve not only your listening…
Portuguese Personal Infinitive
The Personal Infinitive (Infinitivo Pessoal) is both unique to Portuguese and quite common. There’s really no equivalent in other languages, which is…
Portuguese Preposition ‘De’
The Portuguese preposition de is a preposition of origin and the Portuguese equivalent to from in English. Additionally, we use de to…
Present Subjunctive in Portuguese (Presente do Conjuntivo)
The Portuguese Present Subjunctive (Presente do Conjuntivo) is used far more frequently than its English counterpart. That’s why many learners struggle with…
Imperative in Portuguese: How to Give Commands & Make Requests
Like other Romance languages, Portuguese has a rich system of verb conjugations, including the Imperative mood. The Imperative is used to give…
Poder vs. Conseguir in Portuguese
Portuguese learners often struggle to tell apart poder and conseguir, especially English speakers, since “can” usually covers both. So, how do we…
Why Speaking Portuguese Feels So Hard — and How to Fix It
Most language learners understand much more Portuguese than they can speak — and that can be frustrating. Sound familiar? See, conversing in…
Past Participle in Portuguese
In Portuguese, we use the Past Participle to form perfect tenses, the passive voice, and also as adjectives. In what follows, I’ll…
Tão vs. Tanto in Portuguese: What’s the Difference?
If you’re learning Portuguese, you might be confused about when to use tão and tanto. While both are essential for intensifying the…
Must-Know Portuguese Irregular Verbs
Have you noticed that some of the most frequently used verbs in Portuguese happen to be irregular? These verbs aren’t just high-frequency…
Portuguese Gerund: Progressive Tenses and Beyond
The Portuguese Gerund (Gerúndio) is used to form progressive tenses (like the Present Continuous) and corresponds to the English present participle –…