Portuguese lessons near me
Whether you want to learn Portuguese for a holiday or longer term, you will need to learn the fundamentals of the vocabulary – words, grammar, phrases and good pronunciation for food, shopping and travelling so it is important to familiarise yourself with the day-to-day customs and rituals (surrounding food for example) as these are the times when people get together and converse. After all, food and art are the best insights to a culture.
Is it easy to learn to speak Portuguese?
Portuguese, like all Latin languages, is a romantic language full of beautiful words, phrases and descriptions and there are various routes to learn the language including online Brazilian or European Portuguese, also Portuguese via Spanish.
Portuguese is not difficult for a native English speaker to learn. The grammar and sentence structure are different from English, but simpler. The accent has more in common with American English than Spanish and it’s not so hard to pick up new sounds like the nasal vowels.
People often ask, how long does it take to learn Portuguese? Mastering Portuguese to a fluent level takes the same amount of time as Spanish, with 600 hours of study during a period of six months but there are many courses that claim that they can make you fluent in four hours! Be careful when choosing. This is why it’s worth talking to an actual live tutor.
Is it beneficial to learn Portuguese?
Yes! It’s worth learning Portuguese simply because it is very easy, espcially if you are already fluent in Spanish (roughly 95 percent of the vocabulary is the same or similar). You may have difficulty separating Portuguese and Spanish at first but with a little practice it comes naturally.
It is useful to have some knowledge of the country’s history, empire and culture. This is especially important for someone who wishes to learn the language ahead of moving to the country.
Portugal may appear societally conservative, but the country has shown great forward thinking regarding modern culture and uses art incentives to improve environments, as well as tackling contemporary problems like drugs in a very advanced and sensible way.
Do I really need a tutor to learn Portuguese?
Online courses are great to use if you are an academic learner, but for many you simply cannot beat face-to-face learning and learning from a teacher or tutor.
A tutor can help with inspiration and motivation, provide feedback from time to time, especially in correcting writing, and to provide a native speaker to talk to where that is otherwise lacking. They can help in areas you may not understand, and accelerate the learning process.
Learning a language can be real fun – chatting to each other or sharing stories is a wonderful way into a language and then you can take this further by choosing a favourite subject (art and sculpture for example) and using this as a core part of your learning.
So, do some research, look at some online courses then fine tune your learning with a tutor. Before long you will find a Portuguese café, get a table in the corner, order a coffee and some food and develop a relationship with the owner and the staff. You’ll soon be talking like a native.