According to the US Department of State, Portuguese is one of the easier languages for English natives to learn due to the multitude of similarities in structure with English and having the same Latin origins as English.
Now let’s focus on how difficult Portuguese is for an Indian!
If you know English, half the job is done, if not, you have a tough, but not an impossible, goal to achieve. If you don’t know English add another year to your learning quite literally! People who are not fluent in English often face hurdles beyond learning a new language. Rely on your motivation and perseverance to lead you ahead.
Please be aware these prescribed methods will work best for an English speaker from India!
Now, let’s assume as an English speaker you were to spend 10 hours each day learning Portuguese, it would then, theoretically, only take 48 days to learn the language. Which, accounting for a few days off here and there, equates to two to three months. But, that’s not realistic for 99% of learners. Plenty of learners start having in-depth conversations in Portuguese at this time but lack fluency and sentence formation as a result of a lack of grammar understanding.

If you follow the right methods, you’ll get there fast. The difference here are the goals you set. Here are a few factors that affect your learning speed:
- The reason, why you want to learn Portuguese! Are you learning Portuguese just to converse during business or travel? Or you intend to speak Portuguese fluently.
- How do you choose to learn it? Are you going to take classes? Use an app or online program? Or travel to a new country to learn a language through immersion? All of these have different timelines for moving from elementary, to conversational, to fluent.
Here are a few tips to learn Portuguese easily:
- Know what works in your favour!
Portuguese is a relatively easy language to learn, especially if you already know other Romance or even Germanic languages, especially Spanish! The Portuguese language sounds very similar to the Spanish language. The grammatical structure of sentences, vocabulary, and syntax are all very much the same, and it is only accent and pronunciation that really make the difference between these two languages. Thus, there is a high level of intelligibility between these two languages, and someone who understands one language will be able to understand much of the other language.

Both Portuguese and English originate from the same language family: the Indo-European languages, and have a lot in common, even though the similarities aren’t that apparent.
Both Portuguese and English share a number of cognates.
Portuguese and English are SVO languages (SVO stands for Subject-Verb-Object).
If you are familiar with the different word classes in English, then you’ll feel comfortable learning Portuguese grammar. In general, both languages use similar terminology and conceptualize grammar and syntax the same way.
By default, both English and Portuguese form the plural by adding an -s at the end of nouns, the so-called s-plural.
English and Portuguese use a reversed word order to indicate possession.
Because some words in English come from the same root as some words in Portuguese (mostly Latin words), the word will be similar in both languages, with a minor difference in the suffix.
Portuguese has a lot of borrowed words from other European languages which, whilst spelt differently, are often pronounced similarly to their counterparts.
Keep these in mind. Coupled with your techniques, language learning will show results!
- Get your 3As right, attitude, attentiveness and availability!
- Set yourself a daily goal that is achievable for your personal circumstances. A good starting point is between 30 minutes and two hours each day.
- Track your progress by taking tests regularly
- Duolingo, Memrise or Portuguese Pod 101 can be great learning resources.
