Common Mistakes English Speakers Make Learning Portuguese

Portuguese's relationship to Spanish and other Romance languages creates both genuine advantages and specific traps for English-speaking learners, particularly those with some prior Spanish exposure.

1. Assuming Spanish knowledge transfers directly

Portuguese and Spanish share substantial vocabulary and grammatical similarity, given their shared Romance language roots — but assuming complete interchangeability leads to genuine mistakes, since pronunciation, some vocabulary, and specific grammatical conventions differ meaningfully between the two.

2. Mispronouncing nasal vowels

As covered in our starter vocabulary article, Portuguese nasal vowels are genuinely distinctive and have no direct English equivalent — approximating them with a standard non-nasal vowel sound is a very common, easily noticed non-native pronunciation pattern.

3. Ignoring noun gender

As with French, Spanish, and Italian (covered in our related articles), treating Portuguese gender as optional causes compounding grammar mistakes throughout a sentence, since gender affects articles, adjectives, and agreement.

4. Confusing Brazilian and European Portuguese resources

As covered in our related article, mixing vocabulary and pronunciation resources between the two major varieties without realising the difference can create an inconsistent blend, particularly noticeable to native speakers of either variety.

5. False friends between Portuguese and English

Words that look similar across the two languages don't always share the same meaning — pretender means "to intend," not "to pretend" (which is fingir); push notifications aside, push in Portuguese signage sometimes appears differently than English speakers might expect on doors, given different sign conventions. Genuine false friends are worth learning as a specific vocabulary category.

6. Misjudging formal vs informal address

Portuguese has formal/informal address distinctions that vary somewhat between Brazilian and European usage — worth learning the specific conventions for whichever variety you're focused on, rather than assuming a single universal rule applies identically everywhere.

The underlying fix

Most of these mistakes come from either overestimating similarity with Spanish, or underestimating specific, genuine Portuguese features — nasal vowels, gender, variety-specific conventions — that require dedicated, deliberate attention.

Check full meanings, gender and pronunciation notes — not just a bare translation — with English Portuguese Dictionary →