Life Long Language Learning: Online Tools for Portuguese Learning

by Ann Abbott

I say it all the time: I love hearing from former students! Especially when they tell me that they are still using Spanish and are interested in continuing their learning.

This week I received this email from a student:

Hi Ann,

I'm not sure if you remember me or not, but I am a former student of yours (like six or seven years ago). I saw you on LinkedIn the other day and have been thinking of trying to pick up Portuguese lately so thought I'd reach out for some direction. I would like to take an online course for credit somewhere to keep me motivated and on task. If you have any insight and advice (and also time haha) please let me know. If you know of any similar advance Spanish courses like that I'd be interested as well. I've been using it a lot and there's always room for improvement! 

Unfortunately, I don't have good answers to the specific type of learning experience he's looking for. I understand signing up for a for-credit course because the structure and payment make you prioritize it. But I just don't know about 

So I shared the following information, and "Prof. Jason" and Prof. Kelm added more. 

• Prof. Jolley has a YouTube channel that can help you with both Portuguese and Spanish. 
• Prof. Kelm also has a YouTube channel that you can look through. On his blog, look at the right-hand column to see all the links to great resources for Portuguese and other things that might interest you.
• From Prof. Jolley: "Boa tarde! I'd also recommend the online classes at streetsmartrazil@gmail.com. Also, I know of a really great instructor on the italki platform: Isabel de Azeredo Moura. Hope that helps!"
• From Prof. Kelm: Sure enough, Jason Jolley has a great site, check out his youtube channel for both Spanish and Portuguese. 2) From my end, my BrazilPod site is my homepage for all of our Portuguese materials at the University of Texas. And here’s the facebook link too. From there you will find: Tá Falado podcast series, Língua da Gente podcast series, Conversa Brasileira video series, ClicaBrasil lessons, and Portuguese Communication Exercises videos. All of my materials are designed to be ancillaries and extras. All are open access and free to use. 3) You may also like to see the padlet wall that I am currently using for my Introduction to Portuguese Linguistics course.  It’s a random collection, but a lot of nice links. 4) If you are looking for a good app to practice chatting in Portuguese, try HelloTalk.  I have found it to be pretty powerful and there are tons of Brazilians who want to practice.
• Update. I'm Facebook friends with Prof. Jolley, and he just shared this gem: a website targeted to speakers of Spanish who want to learn Brazlian Portuguese, and especially its sounds.

What I forgot to add is that we do offer totally online Spanish courses from the University of Illinois that are for credit. I don't know if any of them fit this former student's interests and level, but maybe they will interest you.

You might wonder what work this former student does now to keep him interested in improving his Spanish and learning Portuguese. What do you think? International business? Agribusiness? Work in the tourism sector?

No. He is an EMT.

I hope that you're using online resources to keep up with your language skills! If you have any specific recommendations, please let me know (in a comment here or at arabbott@illinois), and I will add them to this post.