Do you want to know what is the
Portuguese vocabulary
you need to speak?

Yes, around 300 words it's all you need!

Before you start learning Portuguese, you might have thought of how much Portuguese vocabulary you need.

You might have thought of how many words you need to know to start speaking, and sustain a conversation with native speakers.

Well, I can tell you that you only need around 300 words.

I'm going to present them to you here with some explanations. These words are very important because, in many cases, one word can be used in different situations, with different meanings.

By the way, I'm about to release for you a revolutionary way to learn Portuguese vocabulary easily and effortless.

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OK, here I'll divide this essential Portuguese Vocabulary into categories, so that you can build sentences.

Learn no more than 10 words or expressions per day. Choose them from the different categories and learn them by heart. And yes, put your heart into it too.

Try to identify each word of this Portuguese vocabulary with the corresponding English words you use in the same situations.

Then, when you are having a conversation with one of your Portuguese native speaking friends, use this Portuguese words and... feeeeel them.

Build your own sentences. Common sense will guide you through.

So, Ready to learn this essential Portuguese vocabulary?

Here we go, choose them by category, if you feel it's easier for you.

a) Definite Articles.

b) Indefinite Articles.

c) Possessives.

d) Demonstratives.

These words exist in the Portuguese vocabulary because saying, for instance, A porta" ["the door"] is not the same as saying Uma porta" ["a door"].

So, the Definite articles are as follows:

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And the Indefinite articles which are the Portuguese words for "A", "An" and "Some", are as follows:

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Let's look at the Prepositions, and then their contractions.

The difference between "Por" and "Para" is commonly confusing. It might be a good idea to check it out in order for you to use them correctly.

And that's it. These are all the prepositions of the Portuguese vocabulary you need to know to communicate.

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In this first group, the possessive comes before the noun,
e.g. O meu amigo come carne. (My friend eats meat).

In this second group, the possessive comes after the noun,
e.g. O amigo dele come carne. (His friend eats meat).

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So, research shows that the most important nouns of the Portuguese vocabulary are:

* Tempo, Vez and Hora are words that might be easily misused among the meanings of the Portuguese vocabulary if we don't understand them properly:
In Portuguese you'd use the word "Vez" to describe a "turn" ("Agora é a minha vez." - "Now it's my turn"). However, there are situations that we might incorrectly tend to say "tempo" instead of "vez" (e.g. "Esta vez vou de carro" - "This time I'll go by car"). Here we are using the word "time", but what we really mean is "this turn, i'm going by car".
Tempo is more like measuring a period of time, for instance asking "how long" something is going to take ("Quanto tempo é a reunião? Muito tempo?" - "How long is the meeting? Very long?").
Hora(s) is used to specify for instance a flight time, or the specific time of a flight ("A que horas é o vôo? As 14.30?" - "What time is the flight? At 14.30?").

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Remember Adjectives follow nouns (e.g. to say "A tall man" in Portuguese you'd say "Um Homem alto".

Because, in the Portuguese vocabulary, adjectives describe nouns, they have to agree in number and gender with these nouns.

When an adjective ends with an "o", it means that it's describing a masculine noun. The adjectives in the following table will be all in their masculine form.

In order for you to learn better the adjectives of the Portuguese vocabulary, I'd suggest you learn first the masculine, and then adapt it to the other forms.

You can easily transform it into the feminine gender by replacing the last "o" by an "a".

The same applies to plurals - in which case you need to ad an "s" after the "o" or "a".

e.g. "Aberto" means "open" for masculine nouns like "Um livro aberto", but if you are describing a feminine noun like "porta" (door), you say "Uma porta aberta.

And the same for plurals: "Uns livros abertos" and "Umas portas abertas.

So, here you have the most common adjectives in the Portuguese vocabulary.

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Are you finding Portuguese vocabulary difficult or rather interesting?

Don't forget to build sentences. You'll learn your Portuguese vocabulary better is you feel the words.

You don't need to know many of them. In the following table we will have the most frequent and important ones:

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Think this way: if adjectives describe objects, adverbs describe actions.

If we take as an example the sentence "Ele fala bem Português" (or in English, He speaks Portuguese well.), we can see that the word "fala" [speaks] is the verb (in other words, the doing word) and the word "bem" [well] is the adverb - which describe how the verb is doing.

While you are learning the Portuguese vocabulary, you'll realize that sometimes adverbs can also describe adjectives (e.g. "Ela é muito bonita" [She is very pretty]. So, "muito" [very] is the adverb and "bonita" [pretty] is the adjective.

Also many adverb words that in English end in ...ly, in Portuguese the same words end in ...mente.

So, can you imagine how much can you increase your Portuguese vocabulary right now?

Can you imagine how may words you can immediately convert from English into Portuguese? Lots of them! For instance, "immediately" in Portuguese is "imediatamente"; "automatically" in Portuguese is "automaticamente"; "basically" is "basicamente", and so on.

Now, who can tell me this is not great...?

In the following table, I'll present you the most common adverbs in the Portuguese vocabulary. I'm also adding some useful common expressions that use those adverbs. Learn them, and use them when you are talking to your Portuguese speaking friends. They will be impressed with your Portuguese skills!

But, hey! Don't be greedy! Remember: 10 words or expressions only per day. Otherwise you'll be retaining NONE in your memory!

OK, ready? Let's then analyze the most frequent adverbs of the Portuguese vocabulary.

** This is a rather coloquial expression in the Portuguese vocabulary but very usefull and "sempre" gives the idea of decision (e.g. "Sempre foste a Portugal?" - "In the end, did you go to Portugal?").

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* "O que?" is normally followed by a verb, (e.g. "O que bebe?" - "what would you like to drink?"), whereas "Que?" is followed by a noun (e.g. "Que carro tem?" - "What car do you have?").

Note: When European (EU) Portuguese native speakers ask a question, they normally emphasize these question words of the Portuguese vocabulary with "é que" (e.g. Quem é que come carne? - Who eats meat?). If you ask questions with this "é que", you'll impress your Portuguese friends, because normally, only native speakers use it! However, it has to be said really fast to sound natural.My suggestion is: practise them all running the words together like this: "Como é que?" [koo-may kay?], "porque é que?" [poohr-kay-kay?], and so on.

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And yes, now, go to the streets and start asking people questions in Portuguese! Even if nobody understands you (in case you are in a non-Portuguese speaking country), at least you are practising by saying it aloud...!