(Mostly) Free Portuguese Language Resources
Finding the right resources can make all the difference when learning European Portuguese. Particularly as you’re navigating more often than not mostly br-pt resources online, the free eu-pt content that’s actually got what you need to learn gets harder to come by as you progress.
Generally speaking, past a certain point, it’s not just about memorising vocabulary - it’s about choosing tools that help you practise real communication and understand how the language works in daily life. So I thought I’d list the resources that have worked for me. I’m going to try to focus on free resources but there are a couple of cornerstone books/apps that are worth the money.
Top Free & Essential Picks
1. Building Core Vocabulary
Firstly, I recommend getting started with the Drops app. If you’re starting from zero you can use this straight away to build you vocabulary.
2. Immersion with Practice Portuguese
I then recommend checking out Practice Portuguese for their free content. It offers podcasts, dialogues, videos, and interactive exercises designed specifically for European Portuguese learners. Their short “Shorties” stories and native audio recordings help you get used to natural pronunciation, rhythm, and everyday expressions—ideal preparation for listening and speaking sections in language exams.
3. Recommended Blogs and Communities
Beyond Practice Portuguese there are also many blogs, youtube channels, and podcasts purely covering learning EU-PT. I won’t list them all, because ultimately I think it depends on trial and error - you need to take a look and see which content you find the most helpful. But I will list a couple to help you get started, for example:
Also, a personal favourite of mine from way back in the day: Learn Portuguese with Rafa. I particularly found their post on demonstratives really good (Check out the guide on demonstratives here).
I think once you’re feeling confident with some basic vocab and grammar from trusted learning resources, you can then check out more general portuguese content (particularly youtube playlists). Also you could graduate to usign ChatGPT or Gemini but watch out for them switching from EU-PT to BR-PT, overall they can be really good for clearing up any specific questions, and for generating content/questions to practice with, but always take them with a pinch of salt.
Paid Resources Worth the Investment
I’m going to list some honourable mentions of a couple paid ones that I think are worth the money:
Practice Portuguese (Structured Learning)
First one is obviously, Practice Portuguese. Alongside the variety of free resources when you pay you actually get to do structured learning. It immediately provides you the roadmap from A1 to B1. When I first started pushing myself to B1 I made a timetable with ~3 months of paid subscription to go through all their structured content, and then followed up with supporting grammar books and listening content from youtube.
Gramática Ativa (Books 1 & 2)
For building a solid foundation in grammar and structure, the Gramática Ativa books (Levels 1 and 2) are essential. They’re clear, visually structured, and full of practical exercises that reinforce everything from verb conjugations to tricky prepositions. Each topic includes explanations in simple Portuguese, so you’re learning grammar in Portuguese rather than just about it.
Combining these two resources—Practice Portuguese for fluency and Gramática Ativa for precision—creates a balanced and effective approach to mastering the language.
Essential Portuguese Grammar
Finally, I also really liked the “Essential Portuguese Grammar” book, it’s small enough to take while travelling and helps for recapping what you’ve already learnt from the books/resources above.
Closing Thoughts
Of course, all of these resources will build your Portuguese knowledge, begin to train your ear to the Portuguese language, and hopefully teach you about Portuguese culture, but it’s still lacking the actual talking Portuguese part. I’d say that next step really requires a Portuguese person to guide you as you learn, but at least with these resources you’ll be ready to actually initiate a conversation in Portuguese and (hopefully) understand what's said back to you.