A basic guide to speaking Portuguese

When you move to Portugal, depending on where you go, you may find a large number of people speak English and you may never need to learn any Portuguese at all. In other places, the locals may not speak a word of English and you could be lost without learning at least some basic phrases.

No matter where you live or travel, local people will always appreciate if you make a little effort, even if only to say ‘good morning’ and ‘thank you’.  Since the Portuguese language is notoriously different and difficult to pronounce, we found these handy videos to help you along.  Watch them once or twice and you will have a good head-start on ingratiating yourself with the local community!

Portuguese:  greetings & basic phrases  (9 minutes)

Portuguese: basic grammar (6 minutes)

Portuguese: series of BBC video clips teaching the basics

There are two important things to remember about the pronunciation of Portuguese words that will serve you well. First, just about any word that you see ending in an ‘s’ pronounce that ‘s’ as ‘sh’. And just about any word that ends in an ‘o’ pronounce it as ‘oo’ like you would in ‘loo’.

Below are some extremely common words that will make a good start to your vocabulary and get you through a lot of situations. Boa sorte!