Learning Portuguese

Learn European Portuguese for Free: 50+ Resources I’d Actually Use

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You can get surprisingly far in European Portuguese without spending anything. Free podcasts, dictionaries, flashcard apps and Portugal’s own public TV cover listening, reading, vocabulary and grammar well. Speaking is the exception. Free conversation practice exists, but it’s thin and hard to find for the Portugal variant. Every resource below was checked in November 2026: is it still free, is it actually European Portuguese rather than Brazilian, and who makes it? For what to do first and where paying helps, …

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The first time I came to Portugal as an adult and said I wanted to learn European Portuguese, someone handed me a textbook with a CD. It was dry, grammar-first, and boring. Plus, my laptop didn’t even have a CD player at that point, so it was already feeling very dated. I’d learned French, Spanish and German before that, and every one of them had so many more resources than European Portuguese. That’s changed. There are far more resources now, …

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There isn’t one right way to learn European Portuguese. Some people start with grammar. Some throw themselves straight into immersion. Some sign up for an intensive course and grind it out until it sticks. Over the years, I’ve interviewed people who learned Portuguese by dating someone Portuguese, by binge-watching TV shows, by working through dusty old textbooks. They all got there. They all did it differently. So let’s get that out of the way first: there is no single correct …

Screenshot of "Portuguese Pro (Beginners)" course page with lesson phases, resume button, and a sidebar with resources and session links.

Portuguese Pro is the most well-rounded European Portuguese course I’ve come across. It’s the only one with a full CIPLE mock exam and feedback on all four parts, and it’s built to get you speaking Portuguese in Portugal, not just passing a test.

Practice Portuguese Co-Founder Joel Rendall: How He Reached C1 Level

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Practice Portuguese is one of the most comprehensive (and most popular) tools for learning European Portuguese. It’s something many people living in Portugal will be familiar with, but most people probably don’t know the story of how it came to be. In this interview, I chat to Joel Rendall about how he came to live in Portugal, the difference between life here and life in Canada, and his personal tips for learning Portuguese. Also worth mentioning: Practice Portuguese normally costs …

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Liz Sharma spotted a need for more engaging content for people learning European Portuguese. She set up Talk The Streets, which has become one of the most popular YouTube channels, and later set up her own very popular course: Portuguese Pro. Check out her 7 tips for sounding like a local and free lesson for beginners. In this interview, we discuss how she learned Portuguese and where she thinks language learners should focus when learning European Portuguese. James: You have …

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Most people learning European Portuguese aren’t really aiming for A1. They’re aiming for A2 — because that’s the level you need for citizenship and permanent residency, and it’s the one the exam (the CIPLE) actually tests for. That’s also why so many courses just bundle A1 and A2 together and march you straight through both. Which is fine. But it does mean A1 gets treated as a sort of half-finished thing you pass through on the way to somewhere more …

If you’ve spent any time hunting for Portuguese-learning resources, you’ve probably run into the big frustration right away: most of what’s out there teaches Brazilian Portuguese, not European Portuguese. That’s the gap Mia Esmeriz has been filling since 2017. Through her website, her YouTube channel, and a full set of online courses running from A1 to C1, she’s helped thousands of people learn real, everyday European Portuguese — pronunciation, listening, grammar, and natural conversation. I’ve since gone through her courses …

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When I first wrote this article, there were very few European Portuguese TV shows with subtitles. There were a handful on RTP, but there was no easy way to find them — and there still isn’t. Which is strange, given how many people in Portugal presumably have hearing difficulties and would like to search for them. There were also no Portuguese TV shows with English subtitles, despite a growing expat population. Now, I’d like to say a lot has changed. …

An open book displays verb conjugation charts in Portuguese. The left page shows conjugations for the verb "fazer," and the right page shows conjugations for the verb "ferir." Both pages include various tenses and grammatical moods. Green leaves are visible in the background.

If you’re applying for Portuguese citizenship or permanent residency, you almost certainly need to prove you speak Portuguese at A2 level. For most people, that means sitting an exam called the CIPLE. Thankfully, there are several courses that cover it in depth. Liz Sharma’s Portuguese Pro even includes a mock A2 exam, which her team corrects. If you’re feeling uncertain about where to start, her free training is a good first step. Practice Portuguese has more European Portuguese audio than …

Learn European Portuguese for Free: 50+ Resources I’d Actually Use

My Top 7 European Portuguese Courses (Tested & Reviewed) — Plus 3 More Worth Knowing About

How to Actually Learn European Portuguese (Get Fluent — Don’t Just Play With Apps)

Review: Portuguese Pro from Liz Sharma (Talk The Streets)

Practice Portuguese Co-Founder Joel Rendall: How He Reached C1 Level

How Liz Sharma from Talk the Streets Fell in Love with Portugal

What A1 European Portuguese Actually Looks Like (And Why It’s Worth Aiming For)

Mia Esmeriz On Learning Portuguese in 6 Months

20+ Portuguese TV Shows (With Subtitles) That You Can Stream

The A2 Portuguese Test (CIPLE): Courses and How to Pass