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5000 Portuguese Words You Already Know

Have you ever noticed that sometimes you can look a Portuguese word you’ve never seen before, but still understand what it means?

Or if you have already had a Portuguese conversation, you may have even successfully guessed a word you had never previously studied, just by changing the ending of an English word.

When words are similar in multiple languages, they’re called cognates. Despite the dry-sounding name, they are very powerful and can be used to add thousands of Portuguese words to your vocabulary.

Disclaimer: This is one of our first videos, so we take a few minutes to loosen up. Keep watching, we think it will be worth it.

Grab the PDF below and hit play to get started!

5000 Words You Already Know (Cover)

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Making a Reservation
Traveling in Portugal: Arrivals & Departures
Useful Vocabulary For Travel And Transportation
Asking For The Bill in Portuguese
How to Talk to a Waiter at a Portuguese Restaurant
How To Order In Portuguese At A Restaurant
Tips for Making Restaurant Reservations in Portugal
“With” In Portuguese – How To Use It Correctly
The 3 Most Important Portuguese Conjunctions
How to Say No in Portuguese

Comments

  • Eles são divertidos e talentosos. A lição é útil porque ajuda a salvar ambas as palavras e pronúncia !! Eu gosto muito de vocês, atè a proxima !!!

  • This lesson is great! It’s a good review and makes such good sense to have vocabulary presented into logical groupings. Thank you!

  • I’ve been learning Portuguese for several years. This is the best lesson I’ve ever had. So easy to remember and use in conversation. Brill.

  • You guys did a great job!!! Fabuloso!!!! It motivates me to knock on the door of the school in the Município de Lagoa again to see if they are starting the Portuguese course for foreigners this year!! Keep up the good work!!

    • Thanks so much Kathleen! We worked hard on this one and glad it paid off 🙂 good luck if you decide to enroll in the course and hope this gives your vocabulary a head start

  • Super super inteligente, ou não fossem da família.
    Vocês já repararam que o que vocês estão a fazer também serve um pouco para quem quer aprender inglês?
    Isso é uma maneira muito inteligente de ensinar.
    Brilhante

  • Rui e Joel! Vocês continuam a fazer um excelente trabalho. Este vídeo vai certamente agradar aos meus alunos. Abraço aos dois.
    Pedro, Suécia

  • You guys are great, I really enjoy to learn the language with your support. Mi piace il portoghese! (Happy subscriber)

  • I appreciate your doing this so much! It has been needed to be done for a very long time. I cannot begin to put a value on it. Muito obrigado!

  • Thanks so much Rui and Joel! I write this from Madeira where I am visiting my husband’s family. His parents do not speak English. Sadly, I do not yet speak Portuguese conversationally, but I’m learning! Your podcast is great and this video was too!

    • Thanks for the comment, Wendy and also for your Premium support this month! Keep on perseverin’ 😉

  • Good job guys, you are cute! I teach portuguese to foreigners in Portugal and sometimes use your stuff, it’s cute. ☺️

    • Obrigado Tamara for sharing our work, we’re glad to help, (especially when complimented as cute!) Keep in touch

    • Hi Lowell! Even Grandmas can learn, we’ve got at least a couple premium members in their 70’s! Glad to help 🙂

  • I loved this video! You guys really bring a potentially boring but incredibly useful lesson to life. The bloopers are a nice touch, too 🙂

  • Muito obrigado! vocês têm sido de grande ajuda para eu aprender a falar português. Parabéns e muito mais éxito.

  • Good fun and whilst there was a lot of content (as you said) it was good fun and easy(ish) to follow. I just realised I should have written this in Portuguese … d’oh!

  • Parabéns e obrigado Joel e Rui! Um excelente vídeo. Muito educativo e divertido. Just the kind of thing a raw beginner like me needs. As I’ve told you before, Joel, I really like your warm and light hearted approach. Probably my biggest issue in language learning is my discomfort with screwing up so I especially thank you for your coaching in that regard. I am looking forward to the next instalments.

  • Hi Joel and Rui
    The video was great. I have been learning Portuguese for almost 5 years but had never had cognates pointed out. should make a lot of conversation that much easier. Thanks and keep it up!!

  • Great video! But I’m REALLY looking forward to the next one on the vowels! I’m hoping to be able to start to get the hang of the way the Portuguese seem to drop so many vowels when speaking at a normal rate. Keep up the good work! From a new subscriber…..Dave, So. Cal

  • Love, love, love and love. I have lived in France for 13 years, i am English and 56 years old, i can only learn with associação and had worked a few of these out for myself. I come to Portugal as often as possível with the intenção to live there one day soon. You guys have made my day, thanks so much, you really are amazing and funny too, this has helped me alot!!!

    • Jaquelina, thanks for the comment and for the email msg the other day too! Glad we could help and hope the next video about pronunciation (which we’re on track to launch tomorrow) helps too!

  • Very nice job, chaps! The flowchart showing how you apply the process in conversation was especially clever.

  • You are awesome! I’m Russian, live in Moscow and study Portuguese. Unfortunately, i can’t find native speakers here in the city, but your video is really helpful!

  • What particularly helps is that it clarifies words that are masculine that end in ‘a’ – one of the things which has regularly had me stumped.

  • When is numero dois going to be out. I’m in Madeira and can’t understand a thing these wonderful people say. Please hurry!!

  • Thank you Very good for the first 26 minutes very professionals then the last 2 -3 minutes you both become 2 kids
    thank you very much it is a pleasure watching your vedio very well done you could have omitted the last 2 minutes.
    Keep up the good work.
    Muito obrigado, é um prazer assistir seu vedio muito bem feito que poderia ter omitido os últimos 2 minutos.
    Mantenha o bom trabalho.

  • Thanks for the video, I’m glad I was recommended your site, It’s very easy to use and I’m sure it’s going to help a lot. I’ll be spreading the word.

  • Estive a ver os vídeos com algum deleite. Sou professora de Português, mas tenho um marido estrangeiro que está a aprender português e todo este material poderá ser excelente para ele. Muito grata pela partilha ! 🙂

  • Sou um falanate de Português (de Portugal— claro!) e nunca me tinha apercebido do que seria que fazia “tropeçar” os Ingleses no aprendisado da nossa língua . Achei muito engraçado o espanto deles por ser vulgar “comer” (fazer desaparecer) as vogais no início, no fim e até no meio de palavras… Sem me dar conta reconheci que nos afastamos muito da palavra escrita ao falar …

  • Thanks. Very helpful. I’ve just discovered your website and it looks like it fills a gap that I need. I’ve just started learning Portuguese but it’s difficult because a) most of the stuff online is Brazilian not European and b) in terms of listening I need something that is more than chamo-me Joao but isn’t authentic Portuguese TV where I can hear maybe one word in one hundred if I’m lucky.

  • Muito Obrigado. Je suis francophone et cependant votre leçon était très claire et facile à comprendre. Quel enthousiasme et quelle bonne humeur vous nous faites partager !

  • Muito obrigado Rui e Joel!
    Gosto muito o entusiamo de vocês. Estes videos vão facilitar as minhas tentativas de falar português.
    (Tenho 69 anos, sou reformado holandês and I stay every year a few weeks in Algarve)

  • Thank you so much for this great lesson Rui and Joel! My daughter and her husband live in Lisbon and it is one of my favorite cities.
    I’m determined to learn more Portuguese for my next visit and your lessons are fun as well as informative.

  • Genial, brilhante, inteligente, incrível, formidável, fantástico, magnífico, extaordinário, enorme !!!! Vou atingir as 10 000 palavras com o meu Francês Ü Muito obrigada Rui e Joel !

  • As a new resident living in Angola, and hope to soon visit Portugal for my R&R, your instructional material has helped me imensamente! I am 50 years old, and meu motorista says that I speak Portuguese very well (I disagree, as I am still struggling.) Please keep the materials coming. You have hit a niche that really needs filling.

  • I am brand new to this language and y’all and broken it down so well. I feel confident I can feel comfortable by the time we move to Portugal in six months. So thankful I found y’all!!! Thank you.

  • Excelente!! Fez-me rir o que me fez querer saber mais Excellent made me laugh which made me want to learn more.

  • I never thought that learning Portuguese could be fun but you guys have made it so easy and enjoyable. Extremely useful..and the giggles at the end aslo.

  • Obrigada – eu gostei muito – sou inglesa mas meu marido e Portuguese – obrigada

  • Well done guys. Great help to get started to learn Portuguese.
    Because of you two, I am closer to sign up for the monthly service.

    • Good question! There are fewer words with this suffix so it’s harder to find as much info compared to the others. But the words are generally the same as in English (and by the looks of it, also French, Spanish etc), and are generally feminine. Eg. A attitude, a latitude, a longitude. However, there are exceptions that change from English, like gratitude -> gratidão. And there are some that exist in PT but not EN, like youth -> juventude

  • I found the cognates to be very useful. Building vocabulary and sentence structure are my greatest challenges now.
    Now I think I know a lot more vocabulary, and your clear pronunciation is great and easy to understand.

  • Hi guys,

    I’ve been going to Portugal at least twice a year since visiting Lisbon on the 2012 Tall Ships Race and quickly fell in love with the country so the obvious next step was to learn the language.

    I’ve been (slowly) learning from books and CDs but having discovered your site they are now just supporting material. I’ve been working through the basics and have found them well structured and paced just right. The other big plus is that I don’t have to worry about picking out the Brazilian variations. Anyway, I have just rented an apartment in Porto for all of next September so now I have a target date to get my conversation up to a reasonable level.

    Thanks and keep up the good work,

    Dave

    • Hi David, great to hear from you and thanks for your support this past year, we literally couldn’t continue without member support, so we’re very grateful to have you along. Exciting to hear about your plans to stay in Porto – having a deadline like that is a great way to stay motivated, and it sounds like you’re well on your way. All the best of luck, and keep in touch! Abraço

  • Your site has so much excellent resources I feel bad to suggest more, but a future addition could be vocabulary work based on the cognates. For me to learn the cognate rules and fully internalize I need to practice and practice so maybe taking 50 or so common cognates per rule ex -ly=-emente and then creating online drills to fully reinforce and become second nature.

    • This is a great idea Rafael, and it’s on our list! We’d also like to do something similar for the open/closed vowels video. Thanks for your support 🙂

  • U guys r amazing…I wished I had my portuguese course with u. 2 Weeks at a Lisbon language school didn’t teach me, what I learn here with u 2…muito muito obrigada

  • Obrigado Joel e Rui. Will we be able to start with simple sentences using these cognates? That would help to give us confidence. (from a 78 year-old grandmother.)

  • You guys are amazing! Eu moro em Lisboa desde janeiro e os vossos podcasts acompanharam os meus dias e vao faze-lo em futuro! Never been so excited to learn, obrigada 🙂

  • Caros Rui e Joel,
    Desculpe. Como é que eu podia ver os outros dois videos nesta série que se referiam no podcast do 2016? Deviam ser muitos interessantes e informativos, e gostaria muito de os ver. Obrigado pela sua ajuda!
    –Phil

  • It shows your hard work.You must have done research to creat this amazing piece of work.Your hard work is good for the new learners like me to learn portuguese language .May god bless both of you.thanks alot friends .I wish success in your life ahead .

  • Great video! I have been searching for European Portuguese lessons, but unfortunately I can only find Brazilian speakers here in Los Angeles.

    I’m looking forward to the lessons!

    Obrigado!

  • As I go through my day I am noticing words that fit the rules and translating them. It really does work!
    I also found a website that has lists of -tion & -sion words (https://www.spellzone.com/word_lists/folder-1340). It’s interesting to copy & paste the lists into Google Translate (although I know it is Brazilian Portuguese). It really shows how many words follow the 2 rules!
    I did notice that if the word in English has double letters, in Portuguese it seems to only have one of the letters, unless the letter is ‘r’. E.g. collection – coleção vs correction – correção. Does that make sense as a rule?

    • Yes it’s surprising the number of words you can figure out that are similar enough to the English translation! I think that rule about double letters applies most of the time, but there are exceptions – rr, like you said, and also ss sometimes. There may be more, but it’s still a helpful pattern to notice!

  • I am really impressed but I need to get to see more of your lessons to build up my lasting opinion or my genuine feedback.

    Thanks a lot.

  • i am so glad i found you! now i really believe i can learn Portuguese de Portugal and in such a fun intelligent and natural way! congratulations and thank you Joel and Rui!

  • I love listening and learning from you two. Such a perfect mix of native languages crossing over to become one. Darren. I am getting a huge amount of support from your site trying to learn Portuguese from scratch with no other knowledge of a different language. Typical UK person…. ha

  • Excellent and fun way of learning Portuguese. Many good tips for changing English words into Portuguese. Obrigado!!

  • I have just recently begun my Portuguese lessons, and this was the first video I have watched. I have to say, it was a lot of fun! I have been enjoying the lesson, too. I am happy that I found Practice Portuguese. Tom

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