Learn Hebrew from Brazilian Portuguese at PBC Languages
Free Hebrew-Portuguese exchanges with natives, 30/30 split, plus small classes with native teachers. Built for Brazilian Portuguese speakers.
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If you grew up speaking Brazilian Portuguese, you already make one of the trickiest Hebrew sounds without thinking about it. The guttural R in words like "carro" or "Rio" (the one pronounced almost like an H or a scrape in the throat, depending on your region) sits very close to the Hebrew ר (resh) and even gives you a head start on ח (het). Grammatical gender is another shortcut: Portuguese nouns and adjectives agree in gender just like Hebrew ones do, so that whole layer of the language doesn't feel foreign.
What trips people up is the sound ע (ayin), a pharyngeal sound with no equivalent in Portuguese, and the habit of breaking up consonant clusters with extra vowels. Portuguese speakers tend to turn "shtayim" (two) into something closer to "eshetaim," because Portuguese almost never starts a word with two consonants in a row. Verbs are the other wall: Hebrew builds meaning from three-letter roots run through fixed patterns (binyanim), which has nothing to do with regular or irregular Portuguese conjugation, so it needs its own study track rather than analogies. The construct state (smichut) also gets mistranslated at first, since Portuguese always reaches for "de" (casa de livro) while Hebrew just glues the nouns together (beit sefer, literally "house-book").
Where you move fast is vocabulary you didn't know you already had. Portuguese picked up a batch of words straight from Hebrew through religious tradition: sábado, amém, aleluia, messias, maná. Those aren't approximate translations, they're the same words with the same roots, and they give you an immediate anchor before you've studied a single verb table.
Words you will actually hear
| Here | Elsewhere | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| שבת (Shabat) | sábado | Direct cognate: the Portuguese word for Saturday comes straight from Shabbat, the day of rest. |
| אמן (amen) | amém | Same word, same use in prayer, borrowed almost without change. |
| משיח (mashiach) | messias | Cognate: both mean "anointed one," used the same way in religious contexts. |
| מן (man) | maná | Cognate: the food from heaven in Exodus gave Portuguese its word for unexpected fortune. |
| כרוב (keruv) | querubim | Cognate: the Hebrew plural keruvim is the direct source of the Portuguese word. |
| הללויה (halleluyah) | aleluia | Nearly identical in sound and exact same meaning, just adapted to Portuguese spelling. |
| שים (sim) | sim | False friend: this Hebrew word is an imperative meaning "put!", while sim in Portuguese means "yes." Easy to mix up out loud. |
| מים (mayim) | mais | Sound-alike trap: mayim means "water," not "more," but the first syllable throws Portuguese speakers off. |
| קרה (kara) | cara | Sound-alike: kara means "it happened," not "face" or the slang "dude" you'd expect from cara. |
| כן (ken) | quem | Aural false friend: ken means "yes," but it sounds close enough to the Portuguese question word quem ("who") to cause mix-ups in fast conversation. |
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 until I can hold a basic conversation in Hebrew coming from Portuguese?
There's no fixed number, and anyone who gives you one is guessing. What we see is that people who already know a handful of Hebrew-origin words from Portuguese (sábado, amém, messias) and who show up regularly to exchanges get past the alphabet and basic phrases faster than someone starting from zero vocabulary.
Is the one-to-one exchange actually free?
Yes. You spend thirty minutes helping your partner with Portuguese and thirty minutes practicing Hebrew with them, no payment involved on either side. The classes with native teachers are the paid part of PBC Languages; the exchanges are member to member.
What level of Hebrew do I need before joining a class or an exchange?
For the small group classes, the teacher places you according to what you already know, including zero. For one-to-one exchanges, you just need enough Hebrew to get through simple exchanges of information, since your partner is there to help you build from there, not to grade you.
How exactly does the thirty/thirty split work for a Hebrew-Portuguese pair?
You agree with your partner on which half goes first, then switch languages halfway through the session, usually with a quick check of the clock rather than a strict timer. Most pairs settle into a rhythm after one or two sessions and start alternating who opens in which language each time.
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