There are a lot of websites for learning Portuguese out there. This isn’t one of them. This is a website about how to learn Portuguese, as intelligently and efficiently as possible. Hacking Portuguese refers to hacking in the sense of ”any sort of trick, shortcut, skill, or novelty method to increase productivity and efficiency“. Recently, some linguaphiles on the web have been applying the art of hacking to language learning. On this site, we’ll look at how we can apply these techniques to learning Portuguese in particular.
Because hacking any language involves having the right tools and resources at your disposal, much of this site is dedicated to collecting and reviewing the resources that are out there. I’ve spent the last 2 years obsessively combing through every book, audio course, app, video, podcast, and blog I could find in my own journey to become fluent in Brazilian Portuguese. This website is the result of all that effort, a place to share with you those resources that I’ve found to be indispensible for motivated learners. I hope the tools here will be useful for both intermediate students who want to reach fluency faster, and for beginners wondering where to start.
So what’s so great about Portuguese?
Portuguese is one of the world’s most beautiful and expressive languages, spoken by 300 million people in Brazil, Portugal, five African countries, three southeast Asian principalities, and Brazilian expat communities throughout North America and Europe. It is a truly international language, the fifth or sixth most spoken in the world depending on how you count, with two main dialects (Brazilian and European) and numerous creoles with African languages. It’s the most spoken language in South America and, in fact, in the entire southern hemisphere:
While similar to Spanish in many ways, it has a distinctly different sound and grammar, which render it only semi-intelligible to Spanish speakers. The sound of the language varies widely between Portugal, Africa, and the different regions of Brazil. Have a listen to some of these diverse sounds of Portuguese: Alice Sant’Anna (Rio de Janeiro) , Caetano Veloso (Bahía, Brasil) , Seu Jorge (Rio de Janeiro) , Marina Silva (Acre, Brasil) , Cesária Évora (Cabo Verde, West Africa), Amália Rodrigues (Lisboa, Portugal). Here’s a bonus clip of Cesária singing in criolo, a Portuguese creole language that is the vernacular of Cabo Verde.
With Brazil poised to become the world’s first developed nation in the tropics, Portuguese is becoming an increasingly important language for business, tourism, urban studies, environmental studies, and fans of Brazilian arts like samba and capoeira. Rio de Janeiro — already famous as the cultural capital of Brazil, home of samba, bossa nova, Christ the Redeemer, Sugarloaf Mountain, Ipanema beach, favela culture, Maracanã stadium, and Carnaval — will gain even more popularity when it hosts the World Cup in 2014 and the Olympic Games in 2016. The Amazon basin, the majority of which lies within Brazil, has global importance as a reservoir of cultural and biological diversity, as a major front in the debate over sustainable development, and as a crucial bastion against climate change.
A roadmap to fluency in Portuguese
When I first started learning a bit of Portuguese in 2009, little did I know that I would fall in love with it so much that two years later I’d be reading newspapers, writing blog posts, and chatting with Brazilian friends entirely in Portuguese. Little did I realize how bit by bit it would become a major part of my life, like playing music.
Learning a language has its challenges. There are every day hundreds more books, podcasts, youtube videos, iPhone apps, audio courses, blogs, social websites, desktop apps claiming to be able to teach us a new language. How do we sort through this mess, this information overload? How do we choose the best resources and create an actual plan for learning instead of spending all our time finding out what works and what doesn’t?
Since I began studying Portuguese, I’ve learned that there’s a lot of junk out there, and a lot of people out to make a quick buck from other people’s desire to learn a language. But there are also a few people and companies that have dedicated themselves to producing high-quality resources that can be invaluable for a self-learner.
This website is essentially what I wished I’d had when I started out: a roadmap to learning Portuguese. Rather than keep a blog, I’ve decided to publish a small number of very comprehensive articles so that everything is well-organized and easy to find. Every page is constantly updated as I find and review new resources and integrate them into my own learning. Aproveite!
I saw your review of the Portuguese grammar book on Amazon and followed you here. I just picked up a Pimsleur CD set to learn Braz-Port, and am excited about moving to Rio within the next 2-3 years. I expect to glean a lot from your site (I taught English overseas for four years).
Kevin – thanks for your comment and congratulations on starting a new language! I think Pimsleur is a great way to start, just keep in mind that the language it teaches you at first is a bit overly formal. And please let me know if you have any questions about other resources.
-Lauren
The woman from whom I get Thai massages is from Brazil, and I plan to locate other sources of authentic speech so I can practice. I am well aware that CD or computer-based language programs, if learned pedantically, will make you talk like you have books in your mouth.
I already checked out your post on good learning sources and have ordered the Semantica and am trying to find the dictionaries.
Oh, you’ll be hearing from me again and again!
Kevin-
It’s even more nuanced than that, sort of like Arabic has one written and a different spoken language. Brazilian Portuguese is the same- Pimsleur teaches ‘theoretical’ Portuguese, and it was actually a detriment to me when I first moved here 6 months ago. I have yet to find anyone who talks like that, and I didn’t know simple phrases.
This site…wow. Incredible. I’m jealous of you – I also started in 2009 but I am nowhere near fluent. Congratulations, you’ve found some amazing stuff here.
Lauren, sou brasileiro, carioca, primo da Daniela e adorei o seu website! É muito bom ver o seu interesse na língua portuguesa, pois ela é realmente muito bonita! Eis um link de uma música de Portugal cantada por uma portuguesa (Dulce Pontes) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCahD0M9cv4&feature=related e outro da mesma música, interpretada por uma brasileira http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clZo4_DOMxs (Lucila Lopes). Tente perceber a diferença de sotaque! Beijos!
E aí André, muito obrigada por dar um pulo no meu site e por escrever uma mensagem tão gentil! Já aprendi muito de português (e claro um pouco de carioquês) da sua prima talentosa. Que fado dramático que vc me mandou, né? Curti as músicas e consegui perceber sim a diferença de sotaque – pra falar a verdade, eu prefiro o sotaque brasileiro pq é mais distinto de espanhol, com seu próprio som único.
beijo grande,
Lauren
Ola pessoal!
Parabens pela iniciativa de voces. So gostaria de salientar que os videos em questao nao sao o melhor exemplo das diferencas entre os sotaques do portugues falado no Brasl e em Portugal porque a cantora brasileira canta imitando um pouco o sotaque portugues, por isso, a diferenca nao fica tao evidente.
Um abraco.
P.S. Nao consigo colocar acentos nas palavras no meu palmtop porque ele foi importado. Sorry! rsrs
Romero – você refere à brasileira Marisa Montes, no vídeo em que ela canta com Cesária Évora, não é? Isso é uma muito boa observação que eu não percebi antes. Espero que os outros vídeos sirvam de exemplo do português brasileiro no lugar desse.
Ah, desculpa, acabei de ver que o seu comentário foi uma resposta a aquele do André. Faz mais sentido agora!
Exatamente, Lauren!
Eu nao tinha tido tempo de esclarecer, mas voce percebeu antes disso.
Valeu!
P.S. Fico constrangido de escrever sem acentos numa pagina que divulga nossa lingua. Pode passar a impressao, para os menos familiarizados com o Portugues, de que eles (os acentos) nao sao importantes
I want to thank you for this website. This is one of my favorite portuguese site.
Olá Lauren.
Agora é a minha vez de apertar a tecla sap e escrever em Português hehe.
Fiquei encantado com o seu site e interesse pela lingua Portuguesa, fico admirado quando vejo um Americano/a querendo aprender Português.
Como descrevi no meu blog, eu sou apaixonado pelo Inglês Americano, gostaria de poder falar Inglês como falo Português, tenho fé e persistência que esse dia chegará.
Foi muito legal descobrir o seu site, de hoje em diante vou ficar antenado nele! :-)
Parabéns pelo seu site/blog e sucessos no seu aprendizado.
Um abraço.
Marcelo
Hi there, great work here…
I’d like to know if any of you could refer me to a good brazilian radio station: 90% talk shows and 10% music to help me improve the hearing & listening.
If you have any other suggestions to help me improve my hearing apart from movies & sope operas (I can’t find free time to sit before the tv) don’t hesitate I’m all ears!
Thanks
Hi Vivian, all your questions will be answered on the Practicing Listening page. There are a ton of listening resources out there on the web and that page has plenty of suggestions. Good luck!