When people are trying to learn Portuguese language on their own they watch several videos , follow different people on YouTube and download different apps on their cell phones. But, at the end, they still don’t chieve the desired result.
If this is your case, or if you are just starting to learn Portuguese, pay attention to the 7 tips that will help you learn Portuguese language faster and more dynamically.
Although it seems kind of obvious, this tip, which is so important, is often not put into practice by people who want to learn Portuguese on their own. People just decide to study Portuguese, but they don’t plan how they are going to do it in the long and short term.
And you, have you set your goals?
If you haven’t already, take some time to think about your goals and objectives. You should think about big and small goals in a practical and objective way.
What is your goal in studying Portuguese? How soon do you want to reach this goal? Think about it, and preferably write it down somewhere.
What are you going to do during the week to reach your main goal?
In my opinion this point is just as important as the first, or maybe even more important. This is where you set the days you will study, how much time you will dedicate to Portuguese and what resources you will use.
For example: I will study every day for 30 minutes, watch at least one video in Portuguese and memorize 15 words.
We learn by what we see, hear and write.
In my online store you will find free materials that will help you with this. There are videos, flashcards, PDFs and more. Everything to help you who want to learn Portuguese on your own. Click here access your free material now!
One of the techniques used by world’s greatest polyglots is to learn through the means they enjoy: either reading a book or watching movies and television shows. That is, they seek to have fun while learning.
This technique is important for two reasons:
1. Learn in context
It makes them learn the content in context. Not just isolated information. And this is an important thing in language learning, because it helps you to intuitively understand the way that language “works”, its grammatical structures.
For example: a person watches a documentary where a wave of black cats invades some city. And several times he hears this expression “gato preto” (black cat) during the video. In the future it will be easy for that person to translate “black cat” as “gato preto”, instead of “preto gato”.
Attention: If you have questions and would like to learn more about how to use adjectives correctly in Portuguese I have prepared a lesson especially on this subject. Click here to learn now.
Learning content in context also helps with the cognitive process, because what you’re reading, seeing or hearing resonates with your emotions. And what messes with our emotions tends to activate our memory more.
For example, I remember I was watching a Chinese series on netflix “Princess Weiyong”, and there is a scene where the prince says to her:
– 你，我，我，你，我们 (ni, wo, wo, ni, wo men).
And it was a nice scene between them. And then when I really started to study Chinese and learned that “Ni” means you, and “wo”= me and “wo men” = us. I immediately remembered that scene of the prince talking to her and had to go over there to review the scene.
And now I was really understanding what those words meant. I loved that! Which brings us to point number 2.
2. Have fun x memorization
When we have fun and learn new things through interesting content. It not only brings motivation to continue learning but also helps in memorizing the content.
Try to have an active learning. Studies indicate that studying a little every day is more efficient than studying a lot for just one day.
And how long should you study?
Well, that depends on how much time you have for it, right? Between 30 minutes to an hour would be good. Particularly I try to study at least 30 minutes of Chinese a day. But if I don’t have time or I’m tired, I only study 15 or 20 minutes, because a little is better than nothing.
I also think it’s interesting to diversify this study, so it doesn’t get boring. So there are days I just watch the videos, other days I take more time to do the exercises and sometimes I just want to focus on learning new vocabulary.
Tips 1 and 2 to learn the Portuguese language faster are linked to what experts call “input”, that is, the knowledge that reaches your brain. This phase is very important, but the second phase is equally important, the “output”.
“output” refers to putting out acquired learning. Tips 3 and 4 are linked to it.
Repeating out loud what you are wanting to learn is very important in the learning process. This is because the mechanisms our brains uses to understand content and to speak are different. Also if you have already trained yourself to speak a word or phrase it will be much easier to speak that word or phrase in a real situation with a native.
Speaking will also help you memorize the content you want to learn and also improve your pronunciation. Because when we learn a new language, we need to learn to articulate our speech in a different way, as there are often sounds in that language that don’t exist in ours.
For example, in French we have the sound of [ü], which is a mixture of “i” and “u”. This sound also exists in Chinese, but in Portuguese we don’t have it. So I had to learn to speak this sound that is so different to me.
I have always sought, and still seek, to repeat aloud what I am learning. And I think it helps me a lot to learn new languages and to communicate with people. Which brings us to tip 5:
This is another point in common among the world’s greatest polyglots: they seek to converse with natives to improve their language learning. Talking to native speakers will help you to review the content you have learned, thus helping in the memorization process and also helping you to have more and more confidence when speaking.
But, honestly, I think that for this technique to work better it’s good that the person already has at least a base of the language. You already need to have a grasp of grammar and basic vocabulary.
There are people who try to learn a language like that, just talking to the natives. But for me that wouldn’t work. Because when I study a language I want to understand the mechanisms, the grammar of the language. So for me just memorizing phrases is not enough.
And if you also like to understand how the language works, and want to have a basic notion of the Portuguese language, click here to know my basic Portuguese course – module 1, and learn the Portuguese language in a simple and practical way.
Reviewing the content is a very important step to learn, not only Portuguese, but any language. Because it helps you better understand and retain the content in your mind.
Have you ever heard about the forgetting curve?
In 1885 the German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus developed the concept of the forgetting curve.
According to him, the more time passes, the more we forget what we studied.
After 1 day about 70% of learning is lost. After 7 days approximately 75% of the learning is lost. And after 31 days the people tends to forget about 80% of what they studied.
And how can we reverse the effects of the forgetting curve? Making reviews. And what’s the best way to do that?
If you look at the graph and the information I gave you, you can see that the biggest loss in retention of the studied content occurs in the first 24 hours. That’s why reviewing the content the next day is extremely important.
And if you want to improve your learning even more, here’s another tip: the 24/7/30 review technique.
According to this technique you must review the content studied after 24 hours. Review what you studied again after 7 days and then review all the content in 30 days.
And how to review?
To review the content you don’t need to study it all over again. You can review your notes, summaries or even do the exercises.
If you are enrolled in one of my online courses, just download the PDF of the lesson. So you’ll always have a summary at hand to review whenever you want!
In the previous tip I talked about how important it is to review what has been studied. A great way to do this, in addition to doing exercises and reading PDFs with the lesson summary, is to use flashcards.
Used by the world’s greatest polyglots, flashcards are a quick and efficient way to review the material studied, and thus improve the brain’s ability to retain information.
There are people who want to learn Portuguese just by watching YouTube videos. So they watch a lot of videos from different channels talking about different subjects. And at the time they feel they have learned something new. But over time, they can’t see their Portuguese evolve.
Why? I believe that this happens for different reasons, and one of them is the lack of review of that content.
If you want to start using flashcards to help you review and memorize what you’ve studied, there are apps like Anquidroid and Quizlet, which allow you to create your own flashcards. They are very interesting.
The problem with these apps is that you need to find time to create your cards. Honestly, it’s a bit of a tedious and time-consuming task. I know this from experience!
You can find ready-made decks. But then the problem is that they won’t be related to what you studied that week. That is, they are not useful for reviewing and the content of these cards can be very mixed and out of context, which is not good for learning.
That’s why in my online lessons I’ve prepared a set or more of flashcards related to the lesson content. These are words and phrases that can be read and heard by the student, without him or her having to spend time preparing. Just go straight to the flashcards to review the class, in less than 5 minutes.
In my online Portuguese lessons my students watch the explanatory video of the class, review the main part of the content on the flashcards and then do interactive exercises that help to review and fix the content.
Each lesson also has PDFs with the flashcard words and phrases and the lesson summary. This allows the student to make different resources available to review and retain content. Everything at hand in an easy and practical way.
Now it’s much easier for you to learn Portuguese! Click here to access classes and other materials for free.
I hope the tips are useful for you. Até mais!
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