Portuguese for complete beginners: your first 30 days

Week 1: sounds and your first 70 words

In the first week your goal is to get used to the sounds of the language and learn the most basic words: greetings, yes and no, thank you, numbers and family. With 10 words a day you reach 70 words by the end of the week.

Always listen to every word. For a complete beginner, learning the right pronunciation from the start is far easier than fixing it later.

Weeks 2 and 3: everyday conversations

As your vocabulary grows, seeing words in sentences matters more. Start the introduction and everyday conversation lessons in these weeks; they are free.

Listen to each dialogue first, then repeat it line by line. Memorizing set phrases (“What’s your name?”, “Where are you from?”, “How much is it?”) helps a lot in your first conversations.

Week 4: 300 words and review

In the fourth week keep learning new words but pay more attention to the daily test. Listen again to the words you struggle with and reread their example sentences.

By the end of the month you have learned about 300 words. A large share of the words used in everyday conversation are among these first words.

What can you do after the first month?

You can greet people, introduce yourself, ask simple questions and understand the answers, and use basic phrases for shopping and asking for directions.

The 300-word Portuguese core list takes about 30 days at 10 words a day. After that you continue with the remaining conversation lessons and review tests.

Sample Portuguese words

As a member you learn 10 new words like these every day, with pronunciation, meaning, an example sentence and audio.

Tips for learning Portuguese

• A familiar alphabet with a few surprises

  Portuguese uses the Latin alphabet plus accents. Watch these spellings: ç and c before e/i sound "s", ch "sh", lh "ly" (as in "million"), nh "ny" (as in "canyon"), and j and g before e/i like the "s" in "measure". The h is always silent: hotel is "otél".

• Nasal vowels and swallowed syllables

  ã, õ and a final -m are said through the nose: não "naun", bem "bain". In Portugal an unstressed e is very short, almost silent, and an unstressed o sounds "u": obrigado "ubrigádu". A final s sounds "sh". On LinguDay the stressed syllable is marked in every pronunciation.