Using headlines, as I’ve shown before in a previous article, is a good way to improve your Brazilian Portuguese. Doing exercises, such as the one I’ve created below, on a regular basis can really help you progress in several areas at once. Additionally, with a thesaurus by your side, skimming of similar words can prep your brain for future vocabulary expansion.
In fact, I used to take the thesaurus thing a bit too far and worry myself with trying to learn all the extra words related to the one I was learning. It turns out some were obscure or unused in most daily conversations, thus why I suggest you merely skim the thesaurus.
Here is an example of how you can learn Brazilian Portuguese from the headlines:
Headline: Robô disfarçado de bebê pinguim ajuda pesquisadores [1] Translation: Disguised baby robot penguin helps researchers
Nouns
Robô – Robot
Bebê – Baby
Pinguim – Penguin
Pesquisador – Researcher
Looking at the nouns, two words jump out at me due to there being other words which could take their place. A direct alternative for bebê is neném, while a word similar to pesquisador is investigador. The suffix of -dor in these last two words, by the way, references a person who does what comes in the word before (ie, pesquisa and investiga).
[Tweet “Here’s a simple exercise to learn Portuguese from the media”]Verbs
Disfarçar – To disguise
Ajudar – To help
It’s also good to remember that disfarçar can be applied to the act of hiding one’s emotions. For ex. Ele tentou disfarçar a emoção. = He tried to hide his emotions.
You can customize your exercise to learn whatever you want to learn. It is very useful to practice verb tenses.
At Street Smart Brazil we have a great library of class materials that come from the news. Book a Trial Lesson to see how we can help you speak Portuguese comfortably.
The video below is in English; it if just for your enjoyment watching the cute penguins 😉
Adam,
Where do you recommend we look for Portuguese headlines?
Thanks!
Rich
Hi, Rich! This post lists 28 Brazilian magazines that you can read online:
https://streetsmartbrazil.com/sharpen-your-portuguese-28-brazilian-magazines-you-can-read-online/
Any of the websites will have lots of great headlines. Just pick a topic you like.
You and can also try newspapers like Jornal do Brasil, Folha de São Paulo or O Globo.