Portuguese is actually considered one of the easiest languages for native English speakers to master.

The Foreign Service Institute classifies Portuguese as a Category I language.

This means it takes the average English speaker about 600 hours of study to reach basic fluency.

You already have a massive head start because English and Portuguese share the same alphabet.

You’ll also quickly recognize thousands of words that look and sound very similar to English.

I’ll break down exactly what makes Portuguese easy and what parts might take a bit more practice.

What makes portuguese easy

The biggest advantage you have as an English speaker is the shared Latin alphabet.

You don’t have to learn a completely new writing system like you would with Arabic or Japanese.

Portuguese also uses a very familiar sentence structure.

Just like English, Portuguese follows a Subject-Verb-Object word order.

Another huge benefit is the massive amount of cognates.

Cognates are words in two languages that share a similar meaning, spelling, and pronunciation.

Because English has many words derived from Latin, you already know hundreds of Portuguese words without even studying.

Here are a few common Portuguese cognates:

The hardest parts of portuguese

While Portuguese is highly accessible, it does have a few tricky grammatical rules.

The first major challenge for English speakers is gendered nouns.

In Portuguese, every single noun is either masculine or feminine.

This means the words for “the” and “a” change depending on the gender of the noun.

For example, a car is masculine (o carro) but a house is feminine (a casa).

Verb conjugation is another hurdle that requires dedication.

English verbs are very simple and barely change depending on the speaker.

Portuguese verbs change their ending depending on who is doing the action and when it’s happening.

Here’s how the verb falar (to speak) changes in the present tense:

Finally, pronunciation can take some time to get right.

Portuguese has several nasal sounds that simply don’t exist in English.

The most famous nasal sound is the ão, found in common words like não (no) and pão (bread).

Brazilian vs european portuguese

You must decide early on which variation of Portuguese you want to learn.

Brazilian Portuguese and European Portuguese are the same language, but they sound vastly different.

Brazilian Portuguese is generally considered easier for beginners to understand.

Brazilians speak with an open, rhythmic cadence that makes individual words easier to hear.

European Portuguese speakers often drop unstressed vowels, making the language sound faster and more closed.

There are also many vocabulary differences between the two regions.

I recommend picking one variation and sticking with it to avoid confusing yourself.

Best resources to learn portuguese

Using the right learning materials will significantly speed up your progress.

Here are the best platforms to help you master the language.

• Talk In Portuguese is our highly recommended platform for mastering speaking and listening.
• It provides bite-sized, practical lessons tailored specifically for real-world conversations.
• Pimsleur is a great audio-based course if you want to practice pronunciation during your daily commute.
• iTalki is an excellent directory for finding affordable online tutors for 1-on-1 speaking practice.

Portuguese is a beautiful and highly rewarding language to learn.