In the lessons dialogue I hear the person pronounce the “s” like an English “s”, but if I hear it in every day conversation, they pronounce it as “sh”.
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Olá w.a. (
),
it depends on how the next word starts (vowel or consonant) and on the speed in which the sentence is spoken. Joseph or one of the other good souls at PP know all about this and will share this gladly if it is not already covered in the excellent collection of exercises contained in PP. Go hunt with open ears! (You can experiment, e.g., by listeining to both speeds in the vocabulary and sentence exercises).
Good luck and have a lot of fun!
Peter
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I have been living in Alto Minho in a village on the Minho River for the past 3 years. It seems to me that pronouncing any “s” as “sh” is much less common here, certanly less obvious. I don’t have any real knowledge, but it seems to me that pronouncing “sh” is more of a thing in and around Lisboa.
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Olá, @w.a.haas 
The letter S has a few different pronunciations, depending on its placement and neighboring sounds, as discussed here: How to Pronounce ‘S’ in Portuguese – Practice Portuguese. So, this could be one of the reasons why you’ve heard different sounds. Also, at regular conversational speed, an ending S, when followed by a vowel sound on the next word, tends to be pronounced more like a ZZ (e.g. in the Lisbon and southern regions), like a JH (e.g. in parts of central Portugal) or eventually other variations in between. This Learning Note covers this subject: Pronunciation Variations – Practice Portuguese
It’s true that not all places have a strong SH sound to their S, like @jstorm41 said. So I assume you are in a region when the SH sound is more common. If you have any specific examples, let me know.
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thank you everyone for your answers. As I understand it, it is a matter of local dialects.