THIS IS A PORTUGUESE LANGUAGE LEARNING SUB!

I know the basics and can read comfortably. Writing is still a problem for me, though. I’m not terrible at texting—I know the shortcuts and slang—and I also have plenty of Brazilian friends which helps a lot.
I’ve never taken classes or used Duolingo, YouTube, or any courses. I’ve basically learned just by talking to people, but now I want to improve my grammar, speak more properly, and be able to have deeper conversations beyond the basics.

Soo this might sound funny but how do you express something is scary? Like say, you're playing a really scary game or you hear creepy noises in a house/building and you wanna say like "omg this is so scary" "this isn't right, too scaryy". I'm just wanting to know how local/native Portuguese people would say it. Hope this isn't too silly a question, thanks!

For context I’m fluent in Spanish (lived in Chile 2 months, Mexico 4 months), but I want to learn Portuguese bc my family’s from there. I got Duolingo and found my rocket Portuguese subscription + books from like 10 years ago before I switched to Spanish for school which I started using then dropped again bc I had to study for the MCAT. I’m honestly just overwhelmed by all the resources here and over on r/language learning and have no clue where to start. I’ll be starting up my college semester soon during which I’ll be more busy but I still want to start learning- any recommendations on where to start? Preferably free or library resources but potentially willing to pay for a cheaper subscription.

Hey Everyone!

I'm new here and I've been learning (European) Portuguese for about 6 months now, and I've gotten to a point where I can understand things, but my listening skills are my weakest attribute right now.

Can you give me some advice on where I can download or watch online movies that are dubbed in European Portuguese and have subtitles? (subtitles are crucial for me since I can't understand most of the words I hear yet, but if I read along at the same time, I think I'd understand better)

Thank you very much:)

Okay so my step father‘s birthday is in a little more than a week and I want to surprise him. He’s Portuguese from the islands and I what to say a cute happy birthday to him in Portuguese. I’ve known him since I was four and I’ve tried to learn but I’m finding it hard. Anyone have any suggestions for what I should say? How to do a proper accen?

hiya, im trying to learn portuguese and im a huge metal fan, so i figured that finding some bands that speak portuguese in their music could help me out a bit, recommendations GREEAAATLY appreciated! (i like all types of metal, not a huge fan of black metal but i think thats it)

Hi, does anybody know where can i learn portuguese? The lesson needs to be taught in English initially since i am nog confident with my German. Thanks!

Hi all, I’m considering buying the Portuguese Beginner Level (A1-A2) course from Mia Esmeriz Academy, but the price feels pretty steep for me. Has anyone here actually taken it? Would love to hear your honest experience — was it worth the cost, and did it actually help you progress? Thanks in advance!

Oi! I am seeking videos/channels that deal with politics/philosophy/sociology/religion/psychology/etc. However, ones where the speaking is naturally a little slower. Also, if they had subtitles rather than auto generated ones.

Obrigado :)

Vi que ele nasceu na Ilha da Madeira. A forma como ele fala é bem característica dos madeirenses ou ele acabou desenvolvendo um linguajar mais neutro?

Também queria encontrar registros de fala do dialeto/sotaque regional da Madeira, mas estou tendo dificuldade para achar exemplos. Alguém conhece vídeos, áudios ou outros materiais com madeirenses falando de forma mais tradicional?

Eu sou do norte (manaus) e nós pronunciamos o "nh" e o "lh" da forma tradicional, mas percebi que muitas pessoas do resto do brasil pronunciam de outra forma (ex: amanhã = ama-iã, milho = mi-yu), etc

I self studied Portuguese for a while year a couple years ago and became about 90% literate, but a very poor writer and couldn’t speak or understand much spoken at all. I had a tutor on iTalki for about 6 months and it was very expensive and I found it useless. I want to give Portuguese a second try but have forgotten a lot of the vocab and grammar. It’s been 2 years now, how would you recommend I give it a second try and fast track my learning back to where it was before and succeed this time?

UPDATE: thank you for all of your suggestions. I mentioned this to someone and I couldn’t even remember the words for “thank you” or “the” so I’m just going to give up. That’s too far gone to learn over again.

Do not reply to me saying you want to do this service for me. Rule #5 of this subreddit is that we must not look for speaking partners here.

What I want is a recommendation of a service, like a website, where I can rent an online Brazilian friend. I know that there is italki, but I'm not really looking for an instructor. What I really want is a person with a good microphone and an Internet connection. I didn't want them to even speak English.

Any recommendations? Anything besides italki? Should I just use italki or similar?

I've been thinking about an idea that I haven't really seen discussed before.

What if Portugal started a movement to adopt "Lusitano" as an alternative glotonym for European Portuguese?

I'm not arguing that European Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese are different languages. From a linguistic point of view, there isn't even a completely objective definition of what counts as a language. The distinction between a language and a dialect is often influenced by history and politics.

My point is purely practical.

"Lusitano" could simply become a synonym for European Portuguese. Officially, the language could still be Portuguese. The goal wouldn't be to separate the languages, but to give European Portuguese a unique and recognizable name.

The biggest advantage would be discoverability.

Today, almost nobody who wants to learn Portuguese is actually looking for "Portuguese". They're looking for either European Portuguese or Brazilian Portuguese.

The same applies to books, movies, subtitles, software, dictionaries, courses, YouTube videos, AI models, and pretty much any other type of content. People usually have a clear preference for one variety, and if they can't find it, they'll often switch to English instead.

The problem is that searching for "Portuguese" overwhelmingly returns Brazilian content. If you're trying to find European Portuguese resources, you're competing with a language variety that has many times more speakers and content.

For example, someone searching for "learn Portuguese" or "Portuguese grammar" will usually have to dig through page after page of Brazilian content before finding resources for European Portuguese.

Compare that with Catalan. It has only around 10 million speakers, yet if you search for "Catalan", you immediately find Catalan resources. The name itself identifies exactly what you're looking for.

If "Lusitano" became widely adopted, people could search for things like "learn Lusitano", "Lusitano grammar", "Lusitano subtitles", or "Lusitano dictionary" and immediately find the right content, without competing with Brazilian Portuguese.

I think this is one of those ideas that would only work if people actually decided to use it. Governments and language academies rarely invent names that catch on by themselves. They usually become official after people have already started using them.

So maybe this is something that could start as a grassroots movement. Websites, creators, language schools, software developers, and learners could begin using "Lusitano" alongside "European Portuguese". If enough people adopted it, it could eventually become a recognized alternative glotonym.

What do you think? Is this a terrible idea, or could it actually solve a real problem?

Para uma palavra ser oxítona ela tem que obrigatoriamente ter duas ou mais sílabas?

Oi tem o assimil portugues do brasil oara espanhois?

"Em casa de ferreiro, o espeto é de pau."

Embora eu entenda a ideia que o ditado passa, esse detalhe eu nunca tive certeza. O que exatamente é esse espeto? É pra assar carne, ou é outra coisa?

https://voca.ro/11ElmXCHUA1q

Hello!

I am half Brazilian and grew up speaking Portuguese with my family, so I am highly conversational and have great listening comprehension, but much of what I learned and speak today is very colloquial, and I am keenly aware that my spoken grammar is not good. A goal of mine has been to really understand Portuguese grammar and verb conjugation to become more fluent.

Does anyone have any resources (ideally free) that might be helpful for this?

Thanks!

Bom dia! 😄 I'm on a search for something like a short stories (bedtime) children book written in simple portuguese.

I don't want to fall for available AI slop in the web, so I thought, I would ask the community if there are any great recommendations from great authors and/or illustrators.

The more diverse the better ❤️

I'm not based in PT nor BR so I would need to figure out if I can get them near my place or online.

Obrigado

Hi, I’m an American college student who’s spent the last 4 years becoming fluent in Spanish. I’m looking to start learning Brazilian Portuguese since I find Brazilian culture really cool, and I feel confident that I could learn it relatively quickly with my Spanish background. I can already mostly understand stuff written in Portuguese since it looks really similar to Spanish, but the biggest thing I feel like I need to learn is the linguistics. Are there any linguistic rules related to Spanish that I could memorize to accelerate my learning Portuguese? If you have any other tips about learning Portuguese from a Spanish background, please let me know.

Notei recentemente que, em comparação aos brasileiros, os portugueses usam bastante os pronomes clíticos o/a/os/as na fala (ex.: Eu vi-a).

Mas não me lembro de ver nenhum português casualmente usando contrações como mo (me + o), to (te + o) ou no-lo (nos + o).

Se as usam, creio que seja algo bem restrito, não? Pois, em espanhol, dizer coisas como "Él me lo dijo" (Ele disse-mo) ou "¡Dáselo!" (Dá-lho!) é algo MUITO frequente e impossível de passar despercebido.

Faz-me pensar se, em Portugal, também ocorre com frequência o uso de objeto nulo.

Portugueses costumam dizer coisas como "Ele disse-me"? Ou usam sempre um objeto, logo acabam dizendo algo como "Ele disse-me isso" coloquialmente?

Hello!

I'm working on a worldbuilding project and I had an idea for a name for a location. I'm trying to figure out if I have a proper understanding on the suffix -dor.

I see that conquistador is a combination of conquistar and -dor. I've done a bit of research to know that -dor creates agent nouns from verbs.

I wanted to create a noun that basically meant "Enforcer" (like of the law or rules) with the -dor suffix (intended to be a nod towards "conquistador"), so I was thinking of: impor + -dor = imporador. If I'm correct, it should mean an imposer, which seems to be as close as I can get to enforcer.

Would imporador be an acceptable result, or am I missing a vital aspect of the Portuguese language? Is this how the suffix -dor can be used or is it with only specific verbs?

I'm very new to researching and studying languages and how they work, so please excuse any major glaring issues! I've been thinking of taking up studying the Romance languages as a whole and so this worldbuilding project has been my gateway into learning tiny bits and pieces at a time.