The fastest way to learn Portuguese is to spend most of your study time on Portuguese you can mostly understand. That kind of Portuguese is called comprehensible input. What you read and listen to should change as you improve, so the plan below shows what to do at each level and how to split an hour of study.
What to Do at Each Level
Find the level that sounds like you. Its bar shows how to spend an hour of study.
- Level 1
I'm just starting out or know only a few words.
Read and listen 35 min. Review 15 min. Speak 10 min.
Pick Brazilian or European Portuguese, then read short dialogues with audio and a translation and listen to each one twice. Say a few lines out loud, like *Um café, por favor* (A coffee, please).
- Level 2
I can handle simple exchanges.
Read and listen 40 min. Review 10 min. Speak 10 min.
Hide the translation and look up only the words that stop you. Listen to a beginner podcast that comes with a transcript, and start short talks with a tutor or a friend.
- Level 3
I follow conversations on familiar topics.
Read and listen 40 min. Review 5 min. Speak 15 min.
Add free videos and podcasts made for learners, and listen to each lesson once more without reading along. Talk about what you heard for longer.
- Level 4
I understand most content but miss some nuance.
Read and watch 45 min. Review 5 min. Speak 10 min.
Watch street interviews and shows with the Portuguese subtitles on, one episode a week, and read news stories written for young readers.
- Level 5
I read complex topics but rare words slow me down.
Read and listen 50 min. Speak 10 min.
Listen to podcasts made for people in Brazil or Portugal, and read articles about things you like. Look up only the words that block the meaning.
- Level 6
I read at near-native level.
Read and watch 50 min. Speak 10 min.
Read novels and the news, and watch TV and listen to the radio from Brazil or Portugal, for their own sake.
Move up a level when your lessons start to feel easy, and move back down if you lose the thread by the third line.
How Long Does It Take to Learn Portuguese?
Portuguese takes about 24 weeks of full-time classes, or 552 class hours, to reach professional fluency, according to the U.S. Foreign Service Institute. That puts Portuguese in its first group, the languages it calls close to English, with Spanish, French and Italian.
| Language | FSI group | Full-time weeks |
|---|---|---|
| Portuguese, Italian | Category I | 24 |
| German | Category II | 36 |
| Russian | Category III | 44 |
| Japanese | Category IV | 88 |
The Instituto Português do Oriente in Macau, which Portugal's Camões Institute helped found, teaches 150 class hours per level, plus 50 hours of study on your own. Its first two levels, A1 and A2, take 300 class hours, and its first three, up to B1, take 450. Here is how long those take at different amounts of study a week:
| Study per week | IPOR A1–A2 (300 hours) | IPOR A1–B1 (450 hours) | FSI professional fluency (552 hours) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3½ hours | About 20 months | About 2½ years | About 3 years |
| 7 hours | About 10 months | About 15 months | About 18 months |
| 14 hours | About 5 months | About 7½ months | About 9 months |
| 28 hours | About 2½ months | About 3½ months | About 4½ months |
These are class hours, so treat them as a rough guide. Time you spend understanding Portuguese on your own counts too.
What Slows Learners Down
- Verb Tables AloneA typical Portuguese verb has more than 50 forms, and forms learned with no sentence around them are easy to forget.
- Reading Without ListeningIn Portugal, people often drop the vowels they don't stress, so a word you can read may be hard to hear. Listen to everything you read.
- Content Far Too HardA telenovela where you know one word in five teaches you very little.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which Portuguese app should a beginner choose?
If you are serious about learning Portuguese, start with Bubblegum. Poppy writes lessons at your level about things you like. Our Portuguese app comparison covers courses, tutors and speaking apps too.
Can I learn Portuguese in three months?
You can learn enough Portuguese to introduce yourself and order at a café. At 14 hours a week, three months is about 180 hours, which is a little more than the 150 class hours IPOR plans for its first level, A1.
How much should I study Portuguese each week?
Aim for three to five hours a week of Portuguese you understand, in sessions of at least 15 to 30 minutes. A longer session lets you get lost in a story, which teaches more than five minutes a day, and steady time each week matters more than a daily streak. Our post on deep sessions over daily streaks explains why.
Is Portuguese hard for English speakers?
No, by the Foreign Service Institute's measure: it is in the group of languages that take the least time. Many words look like English words, such as informação (information), so you can follow simple Portuguese early on.
Is Bubblegum free?
Yes. The lesson library is free for everyone, because we believe everyone should be able to learn. It holds lessons that other learners asked Poppy for. A new custom lesson costs us real money to make, so your first one is free, and Bubblegum Pro gives you unlimited custom lessons.
The Portuguese lessons on this site are also free and need no account.
Sources
- U.S. Department of State, Foreign Language Training (FSI language categories)
- Instituto Português do Oriente (IPOR), General Course in Portuguese as a Foreign Language (two 100-hour periods per level, 75 of them in class)
- Instituto Português do Oriente (IPOR), founding associates (Camões, Instituto da Cooperação e da Língua, and Fundação Oriente)
- Wikipedia, Portuguese verb conjugation (a typical regular verb has over fifty forms)
- Wikipedia, Portuguese phonology (unstressed vowels in European Portuguese)
