Tourist and resident information on Portugal, Madeira and The Azores

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Portuguese Language Map

The Portuguese language is spoken by around 264 million people in 31 countries and territories around the world. Click on the map to expand it. This number includes both native speakers and second language speakers. Portuguese is the 6th most spoken language in the world.

Portuguese Language Map

The wide geographical spread of Portuguese reflects the colonial expansion of Portugal in the 15th-18th centuries.

Brazil, a Portuguese colony until 1822, has the largest number of Portuguese speakers followed by Portugal itself. Portuguese is also the official language of Mozambique, however only around 8% of the population, use Portuguese as their first language. Portuguese is also used in India, Canada, France, Paraguay, South Africa, and the United States.

The U.S. Foreign Service Institute classifies Portuguese as a Category 1 language, which means it's one of the easiest languages for English speakers to learn. The institute estimates that it takes around 575-600 hours of study to become fluent in Portuguese.

One of the main difficulties of learning Portuguese is pronunciation followed by verb conjugation. Portuguese is a Romance language but its pronunciation makes it sound somewhat like Russian!

Simple Phrases in Portuguese

yes sim
no não
Where is? onde é
How much? quanto custa
Ticket bilhete
Thank you obrigado
Toilet casa de banho
food comida
drink bebida
water água
Excuse me/I'm sorry desculpe
What time is it? Que horas são
Wait a moment espere um momento

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