Bem-vindos!
As a teacher, one of my biggest passions has always been developing personalized content for my students. It is important to make sure they learn things they would want to use when communicating with other people or when reading or listening to native content that they actually find interesting.
I also think that one of the greatest (and most difficult) things when you teach is making sure you’re doing it in a way that people can actually understand.
There’s dozens of different learning styles, different stamina levels when it comes to time you can spend learning new things, and then practicing them, and there are also hundreds of different scenarios when it comes to the time needed to acquire that new knowledge and then recalling it easily when the time comes for you to use it in the real world.
I’ve tried to come up with learning materials for all major learning styles: you’ll find long and short explanations, audio and text materials, and eventually also video.
I’ve also created a Learning Curriculum where you can find information used to build regular language courses, or to evaluate learners during exams, so you can try to understand what’s your priority, and you can build your own studying plan if you’re into studying by yourself.
My goal is to provide you with tools that are useful to your language learning situation, to make you more comfortable with your studying process and progress, and to help you in any way I can to learn a little bit more of European Portuguese every day.
Obrigada!
FAQ
Here are some Frequently Asked Questions about the language, which also redirect you to more FAQ sections about particular topics when needed.
Who are you?
Are the European Portuguese resources free?
Can you answer my European Portuguese question?
What’s it like to live in Portugal?
Do you teach European Portuguese classes via skype / zoom?
What’s the difference between Brazilian and European Portuguese?
Is Portuguese similar to Spanish?
Is Portuguese difficult to learn?
How long does it take to learn a language?
What’s the best way to learn a language?
How should I study a new language?
About the language
The content is written using informal language, both current and correct. I use TU, informal, when addressing you, the reader, in Portuguese.
The standard used for the cultural tips is always slightly high on the politeness scale. This is a conscious decision for two very important reasons.
First, in a worst case scenario it is always best if someone laughs a little and tells you that you don’t need to be so formal, than if you go straight to the informal speech and offend them right off the bat.
And the second reason is that polite people will not let you know that you are being rude unless you are very obviously disrespecting them a lot. This means that people will let you know if you need to decrease your politeness level, but no one will tell you to speak a little bit more formally when you should.
So aim high to make sure you’ll always land on your feet.
My European Portuguese variety is a little influenced by the northern accent, but very close to standard. I am not as familiar with the Madeira, Azores, and Alentejo varieties. My accent has some diphthongization more typical in the North.
I might change my approach depending on my readership’s demographics and actual feedback.
English is my second language. I will work with proofreaders in the future, but for now I’m writing the content on my own. If you find any mistakes, please let me know.