Learn Portuguese

Notes

The Portuguese language boasts 250 million native speakers worldwide, and is the official language of Portugal, Brazil, Mozambique, Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, and Sao Tome and Principe. The language has official status in Macau, East Timor and in Equatorial Guinea, and speakers can also be found in Malacca in Malaysia and in Goa, Daman and Diu in India.

Portuguese is the third most spoken European language in the world, and the seventh most spoken language overall. Described as a "sweet and gracious" language by Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes, Portuguese is expressive, romantic and colorful.

Learning Portuguese is a popular choice for those traveling or working in Brazil. Sao Paulo has the largest concentration of Portuguese speakers anywhere in the world, and is also the language's founding city.

Most people find Portuguese pretty easy to grasp, progressing quickly past conversational basics to intermediate phrasing and colloquial expressions in a month or two. Portuguese shares a moderate level of mutual intelligibility with Spanish. The accent and word formation is often similar, and therefore puts those with a command of Spanish at a distinct learning advantage.

The ease of learning Portuguese makes it a perfect home-study language, and I highly recommend beginning your learning with a language software course such as those listed above in my comparison table. Moreover, buying a course saves time on travelling back and forth to private lessons or to a language school, and also saves you a pretty packet on fees, too.

Comparison Table Analysis

As they did with Spanish, Rocket Languages has done a fantastic job of producing a comprehensive Portuguese course at an affordable price. In addition to 31 25-minute audio lessons, the course is complemented by audio recognition software that assists in fine-tuning your pronunciation, cultural lessons that prepare you for travel to Portuguese speaking countries and an interactive dashboard that allows for study personalization. There's also a cool "Survival Kit" designed for travelers and holidaymakers who want to learn essential travel-related phrasing.

My second Portuguese language learning software recommendation is the world-renowned Pimsleur brand. The course utilizes complete immersion through audio and reading lessons, and is available as a CD set or via mp3 download. The course is separated into three courses spanning basic, intermediate and advanced levels. You will be required to pay for each level separately unless you buy a bundle first time round. The whole package costs $265.95 which comes in four monthly payments of $64 and an inital $9.96 for the trial period - a far cry from Rocket's very affordable $99 package.

If you budget is better suited to a monthly pay-as-you-go option, then consider my third recommendation, Transparent Portuguese. For $16.66 a month you will receive a comprehensive course that covers pronunciation, speech, grammar, writing, vocabulary-building lessons and supplemental learning materials. For those wishing to learn on the go, Transparent offers an Everywhere Portuguese audio course for a one-off payment of $49.95. However, this option is limited to basic and lower-intermediate learning only.

I encourage you to read beyond my comparison table and drill down into my reviews using the "Read Review" option at the bottom of each column. The reviews will provide you with a full spectrum of pros and cons, and a deeper insight of the learning techniques adopted for each platform. I wish you all the best with your study. Boa Sorte!