This one is thanks to Prapti, the unschooler in my program who reached fluency in 2 years.

1. Watch TV live on RTP’s website and notice the ads. The language and culture exposure is gold! And then no excuse for not being in Portugal yet…

2. Use Wikipedia in Portuguese: you can change the language in the settings of the site or go directly to pt.wikipedia.org/. This will help you stop translating every word from PT to your language.

3. Shop virtually: you can browse Portuguese supermarkets like Continente online; make your own shopping list in PT and find out the PT names of your usual purchases. Start associating words/names to the thing/its image instead of translating it to another language.

4. Talk to your Google Assistant (or any other voice-command operated software) in PT. Apart from testing your pronunciation, it will also test your listening skills because it will also reply in PT.

5. Use Google Maps in PT: using street view allows you to read notices, shop window signs. If you zoom out enough, you can learn the names of other countries and cities in PT (and even see whether they use the definite article or not!); use it for navigation if you can’t give directions yet.

6. Subscribe to newsletters: most sites, newspapers and magazines offer these free subscriptions, so you can choose according to your interests.


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