In this article, our intention is to show you how you can use a simple and easy resource to study Portuguese and improve it. We will show you how you can use news to learn Portuguese.
Sometimes we spend a lot of time looking for grammar books that could teach us Portuguese. Then we buy this kind of book, most of them are very expensive, and soon we realize we are not evolving, our knowledge is not growing exactly the way we wanted.
The point is grammar books are not enough to help us to develop our level in a language. They are actually good when we already have a level of fluency and we need to become even better and learn complex structures.
Use news to learn Portuguese – they are easy, simple and helpful!
For those learning Portuguese, news can be used both to let you know what is happening in Brazil, for example, and to help you to improve your Portuguese level.
News are the kind of text that follow a standard structure. All of them have a MAIN title, (the headline), a summary of the topic (the lide) and the text. In this text, in general, you will find references to the participants, to the date, and place where the fact happened, and the story, of course.
News have easy verb tense
The verb tense mostly used in news is the present tense, what makes this kind of text pretty simple, since it normally doesn’t have complex structures. Beyond that it is a very objective text, that can be easily understood by most people. So, no complex vocabulary!
News have useful vocabulary
News also talk about daily topics, therefore you will find a lot of vocabulary useful for your daily life. So reading text you can acquire new vocabulary, and also learn new grammatical patterns, studying in contextualised way.
Possibility of watch and listen to it
Moreover, many news websites in Brazil also have videos available, then you can also watch the news. So, you will be able to read the text and also watch the news, practicing your listening.
Here you go a tip: read the text, then watch the video about the same subject, and you will be able to listen to many of the words you see in the text and practice their pronunciation.
To use news to learn Portuguese, do the following:
- Find a Brazilian news website. (HERE YOU HAVE SOME)
2. Choose a topic that fits your level of knowledge in Portuguese.
3. Read the text in a low voice first. Identify words, underline all words that you know the meaning.
4. Read out loud many times. It doesn’t matter if you don’t know the right pronunciation. Just try!
5. Now circle all the words you don’t know, and take note of them, together with sentences where they are. Look for their meaning and write the meaning next to the words. Remember to check them again from time to time.
6. Watch a video about the same subject or the same topic to practice listening.
7. Do every step again and enjoy the process!
Now, if you want to see these steps in practice, we have done an exercise with news in the class below. It was a live class, but it is here available to you!
Enjoy!