The Penguin Portuguese Phrasebook (The Penguin Phrasebook Library)

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If you know Spanish, watch for a lot of new vowels, a huge number of contractions (comparable to del and al) and irregular plurals. For the non-fluent, some pronunciation differences can be easily missed, such as año (year) becoming ano. If you speak good French, you may find Portuguese pronunciation to be fairly easy, though much of the vocabulary will have changed substantially.

OPEN Aberto ( uh-BEHR-too, /ɐ.ˈbɛɾ.tu/) CLOSED Fechado ( f(ih)-SHAH-doo, /fɨ.ˈʃa.du/) ENTRANCE Entrada ( ihn-TRAH-duh, /ẽ.ˈtɾa.dɐ/) EXIT Saída ( suh-EE-duh, /sɐ.ˈi.dɐ/) PUSH Empurre ( ehm-POO-rr(ih), /ẽ.ˈpu.ʁɨ/) PULL Puxe ( POO-sh(ih), /ˈpu.ʃɨ/) TOILET/RESTROOM Casa de banho ( KAH-zuh d(ih) BUH-nyoo, /ˈka.zɐ dɨ ˈbɐ.ɲu/) MEN Homens or Senhores ( AW-muhnsh, suh-NYOH-r(ih)sh, /ˈɔ.mɐ̃jʃ/, /sɐ.ˈɲo.ɾɨʃ/) WOMEN Mulheres or Senhoras ( moo-LYEH-r(ih)sh, suh-NYOH-ruhsh, /mu.ˈʎe.ɾɨʃ/, /sɐ.ˈɲo.ɾɐʃ/) FORBIDDEN Proibido ( proo-ee-BEE-doo, /pɾu.i.ˈbi.du/)When someone is telling us something that happened, for example, and they say “She should have come to the party”, we can simply nod our heads and say “right”. Your first mission is to put your learned phrases into context. Memorizing words and sentences isn’t going to do any good if you don’t know how to apply them in your daily life.

Here we are saying to the person that we remember their family, so we send them our greetings. It is something that we consider nice and it is common to hear it.

Asking for Directions 

OPEN Aberto ( ah-BEHR-too) CLOSED Fechado ( feh-SHAH-doh) ENTRANCE Entrada ( ehn-TRAH-dah) EXIT Saída ( sah-EE-dah) PUSH Empurre ( ehng-POO-hee) PULL Puxe ( POO-sh) Notice! When you hear 'push', the Portuguese mean 'pull'! TOILET Casa de banho MEN Homens ( OH-mehns) WOMEN Mulheres ( moo-LYEH-riss) FORBIDDEN Proibido ( proh-ee-BEE-doh) No cultural experience is complete without food. How about trying the famous Brazilian brigadeiro dessert pictured above? For numbers 1,000,000,000 and above, European Portuguese uses the long scale (Brazilian Portuguese uses the short scale).

Portuguese has a complex verb conjugation system compared to English, but it's simpler than some other languages. There are three classes of conjugation, based on the ending of the infinitive: Needless to say, if you know a Romance language, it will be easier for you to learn Portuguese. However, people who know a little Spanish may hastily conclude that Portuguese is close enough that it need not be studied separately. While they may be able to figure out the meaning of some signage, items on a menu, etc., understanding of verbal communication will be very low to nothing. Words such as "gente" (people) are pronounced so differently in either variant of Portuguese, that you would hardly recognise them. Also, some personal names such as "Jorge Ramos," for example, will be pronounced quite differently as well. Now that you have these essential Portuguese phrases, you’re ready to start using this new vocabulary in your own conversations!

Best of Portugal

This phrase is much more informal and probably if you use it this way, you are going to get a very informal reply too. FluentU brings native videos within reach with interactive transcripts. You can tap on any word to look it up instantly. Every definition has examples that have been written to help you understand how the word is used. If you see an interesting word you don’t know, you can add it to a vocab list. The Italian version of a book by Pope Francis was released on Tuesday 21 November, entitled " Il mio presepe" (Christmas at the Nativity).