Having a good structure and support when learning Portuguese is key. But since language is everywhere, there’s a lot you can do to supplement your learning experience. It only takes some creative thinking and no Euros whatsoever!

Here’s four tips:

1. Start checking the weather on a Portuguese site, like tempo.pt. You will learn the days of the week; weather expressions, always handy for the morning chitchat with the neighbour; be reminded that in Portuguese the sky is more important than what it looks like, hence we say ‘céu limpo’ and not ‘clear sky’; and notice that ‘limpo’ ends with an ‘o’, which means ‘céu’ is masculine;

2. Instagram accounts like @cafedebairro use humour to entertain the Portuguese, but you too can laugh while picking up some grammar, vocab or even a joke! Carlos uses repetition in his posts, which always helps making the message stick;

3. For podcast fans, don’t let the serious topics discussed on ‘45 graus’ intimidate you. Put the vocabulary acquisition aside and focus on picking up any patterns on how he reads out the transcribed introduction: Which sounds does he swallow? Which words does he bind together?...

4. Since I know listening comprehension is a thing... Here’s one more tip for you to work on: sulinformacao.pt has a text to speech button, which, albeit somewhat robotic, can help you check how individual words are pronounced.

If you have enjoyed this quick lesson and would like to learn more Portuguese outside of the box, then please contact Catarina from The Language Unschool - catarina@thelanguageunschool.com