Learn Easy Words In Portuguese

If you already know either French or Latin you have a head start in learning Spanish, Italian or Portuguese. I started by learning Spanish which I thought was more useful and easier. Then I took a trip to Umbria in Italy and switched to Italian. Now I have a trip planned to Madeira so I am looking at learning Portuguese using Duolingo and Duolingo's tiny cards.

When I read the back of packets of cereals and chocolate bars I find it easy to switch from the English to the Spanish, Italian and Portuguese and can recognize about half the words. However, when doing a course, you have to pick up all the words, not just half of them. So I am noting down how I remember the words and sharing my memory aids with you.

Problem
How do I remember Portuguese words?

Answer
Find a related word in English as a reminder. Look for a word with similar spelling. Even a similar initial letter is sometimes a sufficient trigger.

Portuguese - English
(a) abelha - the bee (notice the letters be in abelha)
a água (the) - water (the accent on the á goes up, like the first accent on the French word élève meaning secondary school child - the meaning is like the English words elevated or elevator)
(o) animal - (the) animal
(os) animais (the animals)
(o) cavalho - (the) horse (reminds you or cavalry - ho!)
(uma) formiga - (an) ant (reminder - when I see that form I fumigate)
gato - cat (c and g sound similar - cat- oh! in my gateaux!)
o påssaro - the bird (should be a dot above the a but my font options don't include that; memory aid pass-arrow)
o pão - bread (the letter b turned upside down and two vowels, like the word bread, with a wavy line above the a, like a piece of flat bread)

English - Portuguese
(the) animal - o animal
the animals - os animais (add an s for the plural like in English; note that the l turns into i for the plural, which might not be clear if you are looking at small text on a small screen)
an ant - uma formiga
the bee - a abelha
(the) bird - o passaro
the bread - o pão (the p looks like an upsaide down b, and is like the French word pain; also the Indian bread parata which is fried and flat and puri which is a crisp shell)
cat - gato
(the) horse - (o) cavalho
(the) water - (a) água

First I look at each word at least three times (which you have to do to answer the multiple choice questions on Duolingo). After that, when I am standing around doing nothing, such as waiting for a train, I mentally go through the words saying the reminders in my head. (Gato is cat. Cat is gato.) So even though I don't have my course in front of my eyes, I am using my time and setting the words in my brain, a bit like letting bread rise.

bread - pão

Angela Lansbury
Travel writer and photographer, author, learner and teacher of languages. Please bookmark and share links to your favourite posts.