Social media posts about Brazilian food always generate great engagement. Of course, right? Who can resist a good pão de queijo or a beautiful moqueca dish?

Have you been using your love of Brazilian food to improve your Portuguese? You should!

Most English speakers who have a Brazilian partner use English to communicate. In my experience, when you start a relationship in one language, it’s challenging to switch to the other. So I hear many people saying that they wish they had more opportunity to practice Portuguese with their loved ones.

Plan a dinner date in Portuguese

Here’s what you can do. Plan a dinner date in Portuguese. You can go to a Brazilian restaurant or cook at home. The food doesn’t even have to be Brazilian. The trick is to reserve a couple of hours to intentionally speak Portuguese. Having a plan and knowing that it’s an exercise that will only last for a couple of hours will help reduce the impulse to switch to English.

Use your love of cooking to learn Portuguese

If you like cooking, pick some great recipes and use them to your advantage. Learn about local ingredients and cooking techniques as a way to immerse yourself in the Brazilian culture and learn new vocabulary.

Check out Nando Cuca’s YouTube channel. He shows how to cook Brazilian Cuisine classics. The videos are in English.

I recently learned about Travel to Brazil – The Cookbook, written by a Brazilian travel entrepreneur. I hear it is full of great stories about Brazil and tasty recipes.

Below are other books of Brazilian recipes and culinary traditions. Now get to work and take the opportunity to improve your Portuguese 🙂

Invite your Brazilian friends to come over and try your dishes. Make it fun by challenging each one of them to teach you a new word,  expression, or cultural tip as their ticket to dinner.

The goal is to have a good time and to speak some Portuguese. Of course enjoying great Brazilian food doesn’t hurt 😉