My wife and I became interested in learning Portuguese about two-and-a-half years ago when we decided to move to Portugal. We did a reconnaissance trip in 2016 fell in love with it and when I retired we moved a Lagos. We have a personal tutor who comes in once a week and we study practice Portuguese almost every day. We find that living in the Algarve the speakers of Portuguese are very rapid in their speech patterns. When we go to Porto or Lisbon we actually get along really well and understand and can converse. However the Algarve is still a challenge. Also on a personal note, I I’m like many typical Americans who have taken language is throughout my school years and really not paid attention to them. And my personal challenge to myself is to become bilingual. Like most of the world.
Hi I have visited Portugal several times over the last 3 years and have made many friends. Last year I travelled with my daughter over 700 miles in one week , from Lagos to Evora and on to the Alentejo then back down the coast to Lagos. I stayed with friends, rode beautiful horses and took in the sights. On a previous visit I went to Golega for the horse fair. I have been learning Portuguese for the last 18 months as I want to keep visiting because I have fallen in love with Portugal and the beautiful Lusitano horses.
I think I have exhausted all the audio training on Audible and a lot of it is Brazilian Portuguese so now it’s time to delve in to learning in more detail. Happy to be here 
x Jo
My name is Rens Leenders and I’m living in the Netherlands. I enjoyed very much reading the stories of my fellow students about what made them learning portuguese. Learning this language gives me a lot of pleasure althougt I’m not sure why I’m doing it. This is what happened to me:
Há cerca de 45 anos costumava jogar voleibal com um companheiro português. Foi Graças a ele que comecei a ter interesse em Portugal. Ao curso do tempo tive a ideia de ir procurar emprego no ensino de Moçambique depois de acabar o meu estudo. Obviamente isto exigiu que eu aprendesse português. Em abril de 1979 entrei no comboio com destinação Lisboa. Fui sozinho e na intenção de praticar o pouco de português que já tinha aprendido. Depois de uma viagem inesquicível de 40 horas finalmente atingi Lisboa. Lisboa, nessa altura, estava na plena floração da Primavera e o ceu estava de um azul mágico. Percorri a cidade. A Praça do Comercio num luz deslumbrante, as ruelas de Alfama, os rapazinhos, de pé descalço, jogando futebol como verdadeiros Ronaldinhos à volta da estátua do D. Pedro IV ( o que não paracia lhe importar), o exótico Jardim Botánico, Maria,… parecia que tudo fosse tirado de um romance do realismo mágico de Gabriel Gárcia Márquez. Deve ser esta experiência que até hoje em dia fique à base de minha motivação para aprender português.
Finalmente nunca fui a Moçambique. Encontrei emprego no ensino de Argélia onde se fala francês. É por isso que na aprendizagem do português, o francês continua a ser a minha referência natural.
Em 2016 e 2017 voltei a passar férias de Verão com a minha mulher em Portugal. Fomos à Serra de São Mamede no Alentejo. Tirei aulas de conversa em português durante as férias. O ano antes já tinha retomado o estudo. Foi a minha simpática e excelente profesora que me sugeriu Practice Portuguese.
A minha atividade predilecto em Portugal: percorrer a pé os campos e as cidades, encontrar pessoas, sempre com o meu bloco de desenho sob o braço e um lápis na bolsa (hobby). É assim que aos poucos estou a fazer o meu Diário de desenhos de Portugal. Teria um grande prazer - se pode ser - em partilhar com vocês uns desenhos deste diário.
Abraço.
(Obviamente todos os conselhos por melhorar o meu português são bem vindos.)
Uma boa história Eu acho que aprender idiomas está no DNA de todas as pessoas Holandesas.
Voce faz isso bem.
Olá, @kr.leenders, e parabéns pelo texto em ótimo português, com uma história de vida interessante. Já temos um tópico para fotografias de Portugal; acho que seria muito interessante vermos também desenhos de Portugal (ou desenhados cá)! Fica à vontade para partilhares os desenhos que quiseres.
Olá Joseph,
Muito obrigado pelo teu esforço para corrigir o meu texto em português. Receber este feedback pessoal é extrememente instrutivo e representa uma grande qualidade de Practice Portuguese.
Obrigado também pelo convite de partilhar uns desenhos de Portugal.
I visited Portugal for the first time in 2014 for a week in the Algarve and fell in love with the place. I went back in 2016 for two months on a bicycle and travelled all around the country. I came to like it even more and have been fascinated with Portugal and its culture ever since.
I live in the UK and learning Portuguese is one way for me to keep learning and discovering more about the country and its culture.
I also know I’ll be going back to Portugal (I’m planning a 10 to 15 days hike for whenever we can all travel again) and I want to be able to converse with people beyond French and English (the two languages I speak fluently).
Yes a great country Allysse. We have been visiting 2/3 times a year for 30 or so. Have you noticed how when you are in a fix with your Portuguese and are talking to a senior that they often switch seamlessly into French.? It has got me out of a fix several times in the earlier years.
Many then love to talk, in French, about their years living there when times were really hard in Portugal. A huge number of Portuguese looked to L’Hexagon for work.
Like you we hope to go back soon. We were due to go to the Eastern Algarve for a month on the 28/4 but that is cancelled
When you get to go back, try the Braga/Guimaraes area. Fascinating cities and there are some really great towns to visit further inland towards the West like Amorante (and too many to mention).
Hiking? Ouch. Car? Sim!
Do you tend to visit the same places or have you explored quite a lot of the country?
I definitely noticed that. When I was travelling, it was so easy to use English with younger people and French with older people.
I hope you’ll be able to go soon after we all come out of lockdown.
That’s exactly the area I am looking at! It’s one of the few I didn’t see very much of at all when I was cycling.
We go every year to the Eastern Algarve between Olhao and Tavira on the lagoon where we take a house. And it now seems like home to us. It is Portuguese whereas the Central Algarve is awfully touristy!! But that said Tavira itself is becoming more so but at least it still retains its Portuguese identity.
But we also travel across Portugal each year. The more remote the better for us. Last year we stayed on a vinyard in a little place called Celerico do Basto. The owner makes Vinho Verde and I got to help with the harvest, my wife and I lunched with the family and the harvest helpers. Only one had a little English. It was fabulous even though I missed much of what was being said.
Funnily enough I have just emailed them (in Portuguese) to ask if the wine is ready and good.
Have you done the Alentejo? Monsarraz, Estramoz and Evora are great towns and the Vinho Tinto wine is usually sensational.
Enjoy it when we are allowed out!!
Mac
Olà @allysse.riordan. As @mac.cummings says, many of the older people know French because they may have worked in France but also, French used to be the first foreign language taught in schools.
I have found that, the further north you go, the more French is spoken and have been told that people from Northern Portugal tended more to emigrate to find jobs. Two years ago we stayed near Chaves, not far from the Spanish border and loads of people spoke French. As soon as they heard my bad Portuguese they switched to French rather than English.
You have a head start learning Portuguese if you are a fluent French speaker. I have had some Portuguese lessons with a girl brought up in France and it was really useful to see that things like adverbs are formed similarly in both languages. Personally I would be very happy if everyone in Portugal spoke French. Bon courage.
Yes Patrick. The constructions in French are much the same and there are some verbs which are spelled and mean the same…but boy when it comes to prononciation…!
Hi @allysse.riordan. One big difference between French and Portuguese, which I’m sure you’ll know by now, is verb tenses. I know that in French you can sometimes use the infinitive to avoid the subjunctive tense but it seems that, in Portuguese, you can’t avoid it :(.
I was floored to learn that Portuguese has 6 subjunctive tenses, which all Portuguese children apparently learn as easily as falling off a log. Just to add confusion the word ‘subjunctive’ in Portuguese is ‘conjuntivo’ which really threw me when working with grammar books written in Portuguese.
Spanish also has 6 subjunctive tenses but Portuguese has an extra element of mystery, a tense called Personal Infinitive (but that can be avoided).
I alternate between learning Portuguese and Spanish, which can be good or bad. It’s usually bad because I mix up vocabularies but it has the advantage that they mostly have the same tenses which are used in the same contexts. In particular they are quite precise about when to use the Preterite tense and the Imperfect tense where, in English, we tend to confuse them.
This website is great for including lots of practice on verb tenses but I also recommend the book ‘501 Portuguese Verbs’ published by Barron’s . It has examples for each verb and shows differences between Portuguese and Brazilian usage.
I’m sure you’ll find it all easier than I did, but please keep in touch and let us all know how you are progressing.
Thanks @patrickmcmahon5544
I found that out about verbs quickly.
I did start studying a bit a while ago but for various reason my routine fell off. I’m just coming back to it now.
I studied Spanish in high school so I’m prepared for the verbs. I find verbs and conjugation the hardest in general. It’s just a lot of practice isn’t it.
@mac.cummings I know what you mean about pronunciation! I have always been able to read Portuguese and get the gist of what a simple text says, but when people start to speak… As I progress, I’ll definitely be spending a fair amount of time on my listening and spoken skills.
My partner and I travel to Portugal every year to visit family in a small town called Raposos which is near Nazaré. It is my favorite place to go and we are lucky enough to visit for around a month each time. My grandmother is the OG of the town and is one of my favorite people. She doesn’t speak english, however, so we tend to talk to each other without knowing what is actually being said. We always wake up and head to the beach in Nazaré for Galão and torrada! We’ve become great friends with everyone there and I would love to be able to speak to them in Portuguese and not always rely on them speaking to me in English.
While there we also spend a weekend in Algarve (no specific spot) and I try to travel to a new city every time we go. So far I’ve been to Lisboa, Porto and Caldas de Rainha (which was beautiful)!
I have trouble learning other languages (I’ve been trying to learn Spanish since I was a child) but I have hope with this site and also Memrise and the podcasts.
Looking forward to learning with everyone!
~J
That’s a great reason to learn Portuguese. Maybe you’ll find it easier to learn a the language as you know you’ll get some practice every year, but also you have a very specific goal in mind.
Good luck with the learning 
Originally I came to Portugal for a vacation and I keep returning for longer stays each year. I picked up common phrases in context. Now I want more skills.
I intend to visit with the intention of exploring retirement options. I hope to be able to interact more clearly with locals as I wander the country. As a side note, the teaching on practiceportugese is much much better than the free resources I have used before and well worth the monthly fee.