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

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 important. And I think that’s a shame, because A1 is a genuinely useful milestone in its own right.

Personally, I like stepping stones. Learning a language is a long, occasionally demoralising slog, and “get to A2” is a big, vague mountain to stare at for months. Knowing you’ve reached A1 breaks that journey up.

It’s a checkpoint.

It’s the moment you go from “I know some words” to “I can actually introduce myself, ask a few questions, and survive a very slow, very kind conversation.” That’s worth acknowledging — even if you don’t stop there, and even if you never sit an exam to prove it.

So this post is about A1 on its own terms: what’s in it, what it feels like, how it differs from A2, how long it takes, and which courses treat it as a real level versus which ones lump it in with A2.

A quick heads-up on variety: everything here is about European Portuguese — the Portuguese spoken in Portugal. If you’re using Duolingo or most big apps, you’re almost certainly learning Brazilian Portuguese, which sounds and behaves differently enough to trip you up. More on that below.

Courses & Resources

Here’s the practical bit. Because most people are really chasing A2, a lot of courses don’t separate A1 out at all. That’s not necessarily bad — but if you specifically want a standalone A1 stepping stone, it’s worth knowing which is which.

Practice Portuguese — my pick for affordable + structured

Practice Portuguese is the one I recommend most often as an affordable all-rounder, and it’s especially good for A1. A few reasons:

• The units are split by level — A1, A2, B1, B2 — so you can actually see where you are and know when you’ve cleared A1. (There are around 40 units in the A2 section alone, to give you a sense of scale.)
• The audio “shorties” — short, clearly-spoken dialogues — are also split by level, so you can train your ear on genuinely A1-appropriate listening instead of getting thrown in the deep end. For the “start with the sounds” advice above, this is gold.
• It’s very affordable — and Portugalist readers get a discount (around €12.75/month through this link).

If you want a low-cost, well-organised introduction that has everything you need in one place, this is where I’d start.

Liz Sharma’s Portuguese Pro — supportive and pronunciation-led

Liz Sharma — the face behind the hugely popular Talk the Streets YouTube channel — runs a course called Portuguese Pro, and lots of people find it brilliant. It’s very pronunciation-led (again: the right priority for European Portuguese), and what really sets it apart is the support: weekly check-ins, a real sense of being guided rather than left alone with a pile of videos. That structure and encouragement is exactly what keeps a lot of people from quitting.

She also runs a free training webinar, which I’d genuinely recommend even if you don’t end up buying anything — it’s a low-commitment way to see her teaching style and work out whether it’s for you before you spend a penny. (You can also read our interview with Liz to get a feel for her.)

One caveat for the A1-only crowd: her course goes up to A2 and isn’t split into a separate A1 and A2. So it’s a fantastic option if you’re happy to do the full A1→A2 journey — but if you strictly want to stop at A1, it’s not the neatest fit.

Mia Esmeriz — structured and grammar-focused

Mia Esmeriz runs a well-structured, classroom-feel course with lots of additional material beyond the core levels. Pricing-wise, her standalone A1 is around $249, while the combined A1 + A2 is around $399 — so in practice you’re usually better off buying both together, since you’ll want A2 eventually anyway and the maths works out.

Portugalist readers get 15% off with the code 15PORTUGALIST.

Pimsleur and Michel Thomas — for the gym, the car, and the dog walk

These are audio courses, and they’re a different beast — great for the moments you can’t be staring at a screen.

Pimsleur is solid if you can pick up a cheap copy (I’ve had luck with libraries and secondhand copies on eBay). It won’t give you a big vocabulary or the ability to build your own sentences from scratch, but it’s perfect for the gym, the car, or walking the dog — passive-ish practice that keeps you ticking over.

I personally found Michel Thomas more advanced, and it took me noticeably further — it’s better at teaching you how the language actually works so you can construct your own sentences. If you’re choosing between the two as your main audio course, Michel Thomas is the more substantial one; Pimsleur is the better background/multitasking option.

A word on textbooks

There are plenty of good A1/A2 European Portuguese textbooks (Passaporte para Português, Português em Foco, and others), and you can get a lot out of a good one. But most people learn online these days, so I won’t dwell on them — just know that if you’re the type who likes something physical to work through and test yourself against, they’re worth a look.

• Passaporte para Portugues: Pack: Livro do Aluno +CD audio & Caderno de Exerc (amazon.com / Amazon.co.uk)
• Português em Foco 1 (amazon.com / amazon.co.uk)
• Dialogar em Português (amazon.com / amazon.co.uk)
• Ola! Como Esta?: Pack Ola! Como Esta? – Livro De Textos + CD + Livro De Actividades (amazon.com / amazon.co.uk)
• Aprender Portugues: Pack (Manual Com CD + Caderno De Exercicios) (Portuguese Edition) (amazon.com / amazon.co.uk)
• PORTUGUES ATUAL 1 (amazon.com / amazon.co.uk)

what can you actually do at A1?

A1 is the “breakthrough” level. It’s survival Portuguese — concrete, personal, and present-tense. Officially it means you can:

• Introduce yourself and other people
• Say who you are, where you’re from, how old you are, where you live — and ask someone else the same
• Use everyday greetings and polite formulas (olá, bom dia, por favor, obrigado/a)
• Understand slow, clear speech about familiar things: family, home, daily routine
• Tell the time, give dates, count
• Say you’re hungry, tired, cold, happy — or that you don’t understand
• Describe your home or room in simple terms
• Fill in a form with your personal details and write a few short sentences about yourself

The key phrase is if the other person speaks slowly and helps you out. At A1 you’re leaning heavily on memorised patterns and a patient conversation partner. That’s not a failing — that’s what the level is.

What you’ll actually learn (the grammar)

A1 grammar is narrower than a lot of “beginner Portuguese” courses make it look. The whole thing is anchored in the present tense and in talking about yourself and your immediate world. Here’s the core:

• The present indicative — regular -ar / -er / -ir verbs (falar, comer, partir) across all the subject pronouns
• Ser vs estar — the two verbs for “to be.” This is the big early hurdle for English speakers: ser for permanent things (who you are, where you’re from), estar for temporary ones (how you feel, where something is right now). Getting a feel for this is half the battle at A1.
• High-frequency irregular verbs — ter, ir, vir, fazer, poder, querer, saber, ver. You need these immediately because they’re how you say what you have, want, can do, and are going to do.
• The “easy” future — instead of a whole new tense, you just use ir + infinitive: vou comprar (“I’m going to buy”). Nice and painless.
• The informal imperative (tu) — basic commands like fala (“speak”), come (“eat”). Formal and negative commands are held back for A2 (they need the subjunctive, which is a later problem).
• Articles and agreement — o / a / os / as, um / uma, and the constant business of making nouns, adjectives and articles agree in gender and number.
• Possessives and demonstratives — o meu / a minha, este / esta, isto / isso / aquilo.
• Prepositions of place and time — em, de, para, com — including their contractions (em + o = no, de + a = da).
• Question words — quem, onde, como, quando, quanto, qual.
• Negation — sim / não, and being able to say não compreendo.

That’s genuinely most of it. A1 isn’t “mastering the present tense” — it’s controlled access to a handful of very common forms, with errors that are totally normal and expected.

How much vocabulary?

Honestly, this one gets over-stated. You’ll see “500 words” thrown around; some academic sources put A1 nearer 1,000–1,500. The truth is there’s no official word count for A1 — the framework deliberately doesn’t set one, because it varies by language and by how you count.

What matters more than the number is which words. At A1 your vocabulary clusters around a small set of concrete, personal themes:

• Numbers, dates and time — 0–100, days, months, telling the time
• Personal identification — name, age, nationality, job, where you live
• Family — mãe, pai, irmão, irmã, avó, avô, filho, filha
• States and needs — fome, sede, frio, calor, cansado, feliz, triste
• Home — rooms, furniture, basic household stuff
• Food and drink — meals, café, água, pão, enough to order simply
• Place and directions — here/there, in/on/under/next to, near/far
• Daily routine — wake up, wash, eat, study, work, go, come, sleep

Don’t obsess over hitting a magic number. Learn the words that let you talk about your own life, and the count takes care of itself.

How much harder is A2? Is it split half and half?

This is the question I get most, so let me answer it straight: no, it’s not a neat 50/50 — and in the ways that matter, A2 is the harder half.

Here’s the honest breakdown. A1 gives you the foundations: the present tense, ser vs estar, the building blocks of sentences. A2 is where the properly difficult stuff lives, and the reason is one thing above all: the past tense.

At A2 you have to handle two past tenses and learn to choose between them:

• The pretérito perfeito — for completed, finished actions (fui ao mercado e comprei fruta — “I went to the market and bought fruit”)
• The pretérito imperfeito — for ongoing, habitual, or background past stuff (quando era criança, brincava no parque — “when I was a child, I used to play in the park”)

That distinction between “did” and “used to do / was doing” is famously hard for English speakers, because our language just doesn’t chop up the past the same way. It takes real rewiring.

A2 also piles on object pronouns (o, a, lhe) with those fiddly European Portuguese placement rules where the pronoun hooks onto the end of the verb (comprei-o), plus more connectors, longer texts, and more independent conversation.

So how would I frame it? In terms of raw study hours, A1 and A2 are roughly comparable — maybe A1 is even a touch longer because you’re building everything from zero. But in terms of difficulty, A2 is the bigger climb. A1 is the gentle path up to base camp. A2 is where the gradient kicks in. If A1 clicks and you find yourself thinking “actually, this isn’t so bad” — enjoy that feeling, and know the past tenses are coming.

Which, by the way, is exactly why A1 is worth marking as its own milestone. You’ve earned the base camp photo before the real ascent.

Is there an A1 exam? (And should you take it?)

Yes — there’s an official A1 exam called ACESSO, run by CAPLE. It’s four parts (reading, writing, listening, speaking), takes about an hour and thirty-five minutes, and you pass at 55%.

But here’s the thing: almost nobody takes it. The A1 certificate doesn’t unlock anything legally — it’s the A2 exam (the CIPLE) that counts for residency and citizenship. So most adult learners skip A1 certification entirely and just keep studying until they’re ready to sit A2. The A1 exam is mostly used by younger learners or for academic placement.

Even if you never sit it, though, it’s useful to know what an A1 test looks like, because it’s a good self-check. A typical A1 assessment involves things like:

• Listening: short, slow, clear clips — someone introducing themselves, a simple announcement, times and dates — usually played twice
• Reading: signs, notices, forms, short messages (“Library closed today. Opens tomorrow at 10.”)
• Writing: filling in a form with your details, then writing 25–35 words introducing yourself
• Speaking: a short interview (What’s your name? Where are you from?), describing a simple picture, and a little role-play

If you can do all of that with short, intelligible sentences — and understand slow questions about yourself and your routine — you’re functioning at A1. If you can comfortably narrate past events, give directions from A to B, and string several sentences together with because and but, you’ve already wandered into A2 territory.

How long does it take?

You’ll see wildly different numbers for this, and they’re all sort of true — they’re just measuring different things.

A focused self-study video course (like Mia Esmeriz’s A1) is only around 9 hours of video, though in practice each lesson takes longer than its runtime because they’re dense. An intensive in-person course might get you “to A1” in two weeks. Meanwhile, universities and official bodies that count every guided classroom hour tend to quote 90–120 hours for A1 — because they’re counting all the practice, review and speaking time too, not just the input.

My honest, practical take: if you study a little most days, a solid A1 is a couple of months away. And “a little most days” beats “one big cram session a week” every single time — early on, frequency matters more than volume. Twenty focused minutes daily will stick far better than a three-hour Sunday marathon, because you’re building patterns before they decay.

The bottom line

A1 isn’t a lesser, unfinished version of A2. It’s a real level with its own shape: present tense, ser vs estar, the core verbs, your personal world in words. A2 — with its past tenses and pronouns — is the harder climb, and it’s the one that matters legally. But there’s no rule that says you have to treat A1 as a blur you rush through.

Mark it. Notice when you hit it. You’ll have gone from nothing to actually holding a (slow, patient, slightly wobbly) conversation in Portuguese — and that first checkpoint makes the rest of the mountain feel a lot more climbable.

Boa sorte. 🇵🇹