Learn English from Brazilian Portuguese at PBC Languages
Free English practice with native speakers at PBC Languages: small classes plus 1-to-1 exchanges built for Brazilian Portuguese speakers.
Create your free accountNo card needed. Exchanges between members are always free.
If you speak Brazilian Portuguese, the first wall you hit in English is usually sound-based, not grammar-based. The TH in 'think' or 'this' doesn't exist in Portuguese, so it gets replaced with an F, T or D sound. Final consonants trip people up too: Portuguese almost never ends a word on a hard consonant, so 'hot' turns into something closer to 'rotchi' with an extra vowel tacked on. The English R (as in 'red') and the reduced, swallowed vowels in unstressed syllables ('banana' isn't ba-na-na the way it looks) are the other two things that take real practice, not just explanation.
Then come the false friends, and Portuguese has a lot of them because both languages borrow so heavily from Latin. 'Pretend' doesn't mean 'pretender' (to intend), 'parents' isn't 'parentes' (relatives), and 'push' looks like 'puxar' but means the opposite: puxar is pull. On the grammar side, Portuguese drops subject pronouns and leans hard on the gerund, which is why you'll hear 'is raining' instead of 'it's raining', or 'I am agree' calqued straight from 'estou de acordo'.
What moves fast: vocabulary. Words like 'information', 'nation' or 'university' are near carbon copies of 'informação', 'nação' and 'universidade', so reading comprehension and academic or news vocabulary click quickly once the sound system stops fighting you. That's exactly why we split the work: profesoras nativas fix the sounds and the calques in small groups, and the 1-to-1 exchanges (30 minutes in English, 30 in Portuguese) get you actually using the vocabulary you already half-know.
Words you will actually hear
| Here | Elsewhere | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| pretend | pretender | False friend. Pretend means to fake something; pretender means to intend or plan to do something. |
| push | puxar | Trap word: they look alike but mean opposites. Push means empurrar; puxar is actually 'pull'. |
| parents | parentes | False friend. Parents means pais (mother and father); parentes means relatives in general. |
| college | colégio | False friend. College refers to university-level education; colégio in Portuguese means high school. |
| actually | atualmente | False friend. Actually means 'in fact' or 'de fato'; atualmente means 'currently' or 'nowadays'. |
| fabric | fábrica | False friend. Fabric means tecido (cloth); fábrica means factory. |
| library | livraria | False friend. Library means biblioteca; livraria means bookstore. |
| exquisite | esquisito | False friend. Exquisite means refined or elegant; esquisito means weird or strange. |
| assist | assistir | False friend. Assist means to help; assistir means to watch, like a movie or a show. |
| information | informação | Near-identical cognate. Same root, same meaning, easy win for reading and listening comprehension. |
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How it works here
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Sign up and say your level
Two minutes. If you do not know your level, we place you in the first class.
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Pick a class or an exchange
Classes are led by a native teacher. An exchange is with another member: half the time in their language, half in yours.
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Join by video, nothing to install
From your phone or your computer. If you cannot make it, cancel and get your place back.
Questions about this
How long does it take for a Brazilian Portuguese speaker to get comfortable in English?
It depends heavily on how much you already read or listen to outside class, but the sound issues (TH, final consonants, vowel reduction) usually need several months of consistent correction before they stick. Vocabulary moves faster thanks to the shared Latin roots. Combining a weekly small group class with regular 1-to-1 exchanges speeds up the part that classes alone can't fix: actually speaking under pressure.
Is the 1-to-1 exchange really free?
Yes. You spend 30 minutes helping someone with their Portuguese and 30 minutes practicing your English with them, no payment either way. It's a trade of time and language, not a paid tutoring session.
What level of English do I need to join?
You don't need to be fluent, but you should be able to hold a basic conversation, roughly A2 or above. If you're a true beginner, the small group classes with profesoras nativas are the better starting point before jumping into 1-to-1 exchanges.
How exactly is the half hour split in an exchange?
Each session is 30 minutes in English and 30 minutes in Portuguese, back to back, with the same partner. You decide together who goes first, but the split stays even so neither language gets shortchanged.
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