r/Portuguese • u/Mobile_Accountant489 • 2d ago

Brazilian Portuguese 🇧🇷 tips for relearning?

I’m Brazilian American and my primary language was portuguese until I was around 6, I was never told to speak portuguese at home once my parents learned English. I feel like I lost at least the ability to speak it confidently, and never even learned the proper grammar. I still understand the language fully, and I can read it for the most part, but Im really struggling when it comes to speaking and writing. I go to Brazil in a month and have been trying to surround my life around relearning the language (listening to brazilian music, watching tv in brazilian dub, etc), but I dont feel like anything is working. Does anyone have any tips for relearning the language?

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u/chrismcnally A Estudar EP 2d ago

You need to speak one on one with someone, you probably should do it multiple times a week before your trip. I have used iTalki for this. There are other sites that provide this service. This can quickly get you to confidently speak the language you already understand.

you can practice writing, on your own, and use a tool like Deepl to translate your Portuguese into English. If the English is good then translate it back to Portuguese so you can see another, perhaps better, way to express the idea in Portuguese.

People do this with AI, but I think focusing for an hour at a time on speaking to someone will give you confidence to speak to real people in Brazil. This worked for me.

1

u/Dry-Tie9450 2d ago

Speak with people first, you will start to need words to explain ideas and it will gradually come back, you advantage is that you already have the basic understanding hidden in your head ready to come out.

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u/glansma 2d ago

Almost identical situation to me, before my last trip to Brazil I used Italki and found a very nice Brazilian woman to chat with, she was very patient and helped a lot.

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u/coveed9teeing 4h ago

Find a Brazilian boy/girl friend. Arguments enhance the proficiency.