Are you swotting Portuguese at college or varsity?
Are you finding it hard to remember everything that you are learning?
If this is true, you may soon be feeling that you’re not achieving what you had set out to with your Portuguese lessons.
Learning a new language can be a pretty daunting task, which requires commitment and quite a bit of discipline from you, the learner, on a daily basis.
The reason for this is that the process is very similar to learning to drive a car with a manual transmission, especially after having driven an automatic car for years. There is so much to learn, think about and do, all at the same time! So, to do well at either of these activities, you have to practise, practise and then practise some more.
The more regularly you spend time learning and, in particular, speaking Portuguese, the greater and more solid your improvement or growth will be.
Any time spent away from the language will result in a loss of a grasp of elements such as pronunciation, vocabulary and common phrases.
To try to limit the interruption in your language learning programme, it may be a great idea to review and consolidate your understanding of Portuguese beyond the confines of the classroom, on an ongoing basis. Committing yourself to a dedicated programme of review outside of your Portuguese class, will definitely pay off handsomely in the long run.
Review Key Aspects of Your Portuguese Lessons Regularly
A key way to positively impact on your learning of a new language, is to ensure that you revise on a regular basis what you have previously learnt, whether that be:
- Tenses and verbs;
- Common phrases; or
- Fundamental concepts like the alphabet.
Reviewing previous lessons is very important, as it will aid the consolidation of knowledge and helps you to memorise the information. This will enable you to recall information readily the next time you encounter a Portuguese speaker or when you prepare for your next Portuguese class.
The benefits of regular revision cannot be over-emphasised. It is in a sense automatic, that if you wish to become proficient in the target language, you must have mastered and understood the fundamentals of the language first. It is, thus, vital that you know and understand how to conjugate common verbs, have a firm grasp of basic vocabulary and are conversant with basic sentence structure.
A great deal of your consolidation can come about by simply reviewing your notes from previous lessons. Set aside time every week to work through your Portuguese class notes and, soon, it will be easier for you to recall vocabulary and phrases that you’ve previously been taught. Reviewing, before upcoming lessons, will facilitate the expansion of your knowledge of Portuguese tremendously.
A great way to secure and review key concepts of earlier classes is to copy them onto flashcards. These are a wonderful aid to jog your memory quickly and are easy to cart about, thus facilitating learning on the move.

Make Your Online Portuguese Course Your Friend
The world we live in is technology-driven! So, why not make use of the latest technology to help you learn a new language.
The Internet, for example, is a treasure chest, where language learning resources is concerned. There are, for instance, an array of language learning aids can be found online, where learners can interact with experienced or native speakers and have questions answered about a particular target language.
So, whether you’re learning Portuguese, or Spanish or French, as a foreign language, you may be able to utilise the resources of the same forum, because a number of them cater for a large number of languages.
Also, if you would want to study on your own, there are several different apps available which can positively impact on your understanding of a language like Portuguese. Two of the most popular apps are:
- Babbel; and
- Duolingo.
There are, of course, many more out there. You will find a number of apps which allow for the free use of their resources. There are, however, others where a fee is charged. It is incumbent on you to research which apps charge a fxee and how much. You will also to decide whether you are willing to pay for a service which others offer for free.
To help you decide whether to use a particular app or not, read the reviews of other users and gain a sense of what their experiences were like, before making up your mind either way. Very often, applications, like Duolingo, don’t demand too much of your time every day, which makes it easy for you to practise Portuguese in a manageable way, so that it doesn’t come across as hard work.

Get Lost in Portuguese Outside of Formal Classes
What is the best way to learn Portuguese outside of the classroom? That’s not a question with a definitive answer.
Many believe that the best way to learn any foreign language, is to immerse yourself into the language and the culture in which it is embedded. Possibly the best way to learn Portuguese, would be to travel to Portugal or Brazil and live with a family for several months to a year, at least. The benefits of such a stay would be that you would converse with native speakers every day and learn quite a bit about the nuances of the spoken language.
Not only will your vocabulary improve, but also your listening skills, comprehension and your pronunciation of words and phrases. On a daily basis, your confidence levels will grow and the way you speak the language will come across as very natural … even to yourself! One thing for sure: you won’t find yourself constantly having to translate English to Portuguese all the time.
You, of course, do not have to travel overseas to advance your understanding of the language. Below we have put together a whole lot of great ways for you to carry on developing your appreciation and understanding of Portuguese outside of your Portuguese language course or class. Following are a number of great Portuguese learning materials or aids.
Watch Portuguese TV and Films
Almost everyone loves relaxing on a couch or easy chair watching TV, right? So, instead of bingeing on the latest Netflix series, why not build into your schedule a Portuguese movie or start following a series?
If you feel that you’re still a novice who needs a bit of a crutch, you could activate the subtitles and follow either the English or the Portuguese version. Following the latter, you will be able to see how the words are spelled as opposed to how they are said. Think, for example of the French terms je t’aime and chauffeur. Don’t sound like they look, right? You bet Portuguese doesn’t always sound the way it’s written. Let Google translate, for example, Qual é o seu nome, (What is your name) for you?
By utilising the subtitles, you will be able make sense of dialogue and follow the plot, as well as picking up new words and phrases, as you go along.
As stated earlier, this is a fun way to develop your Portuguese listening skills and improve your pronunciation exponentially! Me entende?

Read a Portuguese Book
If you’re more of a bibliophile, then it may suit you better to get your hands on a Portuguese novel to read in your spare time, thereby developing your Portuguese reading skills. Books are, no doubt, wonderful Portuguese learning materials.
If you’re really into reading and want to extend your knowledge of Portuguese in that way, try out one of the following suggestions:
- Buy a Portuguese book and keep an English-Portuguese dictionary at hand for when you get stuck or strike words or phrases that you’re not sure of;
- Rent or buy a book in both English and Portuguese and then read them side by side;
- Mix and match these two approaches and see which suits you the best.
You could, also, get your hands on an audio version of a book along with its hard-back, paperback or Kindle version. That way, you could listen to the spoken word while you follow the story in your chosen format. It may be difficult for you to follow along if you’re still an absolute novice at Portuguese, so, do consider carefully the approach to follow at different stages in your learning journey.
Give Portuguese Music a Spin
Many of us have listened to, and possibly sung along to, French, Spanish or even Italian songs, so why don’t you give Portuguese music a try?
Choose either a Brazilian or Portuguese artist to help you enjoy and understand the way the language is spoken in their particular corner of the world.
You may even fall in love with the language through its music!
In no time, you may find that you do not have to translate English to Portuguese anymore! That’s exactly where you want to be!
Check out the Superprof website for one-on-one Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese lessons!
Retain the Services of a Portuguese Tutor Online
If you want to ensure that you retain what you've learned in your Portuguese class, but feel that you need some extra guidance, consider procuring the services of an online Portuguese teacher or tutor. Superprof may just have the right one for you!
He or she will definitely be able to assist you in getting to grips with aspects you may be grappling with, including:
- Tenses;
- Verb conjugation;
- Pronunciation; and
- Common expressions and vocabulary.
These Superprof tutors will guide you through all the difficulties of learning a new language, like Portuguese, to the extent that it will soon start sounding very natural to you.
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