Learn Portuguese: 55 Words to Boost Your Vocabulary - with Video

I have talked about patterns between English and Portuguese in previous posts. I gave you a list of cognates — words that are very similar — and I listed ninety words that are easy to memorize.

Today I will give you a list of 55 words with the following pattern:

Words that end in -AL in English end in -AL in Portuguese, too.

Here is the best part: Many of these words have the exact same spelling in English and in Portuguese. The pronunciation is different, of course. This is a great opportunity to observe those differences and transfer them to other words in your learning journey.

I will divide the words in two lists: nouns and adjectives. For the nouns, you will see the indication of their gender. The adjectives have only one form for both feminine and masculine.

In the video I pronounce the words for you. Notice that the stress syllable is the last one. The English words are in alphabetical order.

Nouns:

Portuguese	English
O animal	Animal
O canal	Canal
O carnaval	Carnival
A catedral	Cathedral
O cereal	Cereal
O cristal	Crystal
O festival	Festival
O hospital	Hopital
O potencial	Potential
O sinal	Signal
O total	Total

Adjectives

Portuguese	English
Acidental	Accidental
Adicional	Addtional
Artificial	Artificial
Audiovisual	Audiovisual
Banal	Banal
Casual	Casual
Central	Central
Coloquial	Colloquial
Colonial	Colonial
Comercial	Commercial
Confidencial	Confidential
Cordial	Cordial
Crucial	Crucial
Cultural	Cultural
Digital	Digital
Emocional	Emotional
Igual	Equal
Essencial	Essential
Existencial	Existential
Facial	Facial
Global	Global
Gradual	Gradual
Habitual	Habitual
Individual	Individual
Informal	Informal
Irracional	Irrational
Literal	Literal
Nacional	National
Natural	Natural
Normal	Normal
Original	Original
Parcial	Partial
Radical	Radical
Regional	Regional
Residencial	Residential
Sensacional	Sensational
Social	Social
Especial	Special
Espiritual	Spiritual
Tradicional	Traditional
Tropical	Tropical
Usual	Usual
Virtual	Virtual
Vital	Vital

I hope you have fun using your new vocabulary.

This list is from the book Instant Brazilian Portuguese Vocabulary Builder, by Tom Means.

For similar vocabulary videos, check out these posts:

Valeu!

[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGa4QnAeneY]

Photo by Jeff Belmonte on Flickr’s Creative Commons

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