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Added October 6, 2014: How to Learn Brazilian Portuguese the Quick, Painless, and Free way.

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Commonly used verbs (infinitive forms)

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Body Parts 

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Belts and Colors

Tabela do Pesos 

(Competition Weight Classes [masculino])

Note: One kilo = 2.2 lbs.

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Familia

 Family relations are very important in Brazil and especially when the family is like an army (as Renzo describes the Gracie family)

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Many thanks to Leka Vieira, Aloisio Silva, and Taka for help in constructing this glossary and to Dr. Carlos Eduardo Loddo for proofreading and valuable commentary, and to Pedro Alberto for helpful corrections.

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Want to learn Brazilian Portuguese the easy way? Or any language for that matter? 

Read books written for kids. (Obviously you need to learn the writing system first if it differs radically from the one or more that you are familiar with.) Textbooks will tell you what the writers think you should know. That isn't necessarily what all native speakers know and it isn't how they normally communicate with each other. Native speakers know what they know because they grew up with it. You will miss a lot of that if you learn primarily from textbooks (or phrasebooks). Kids' books would include anything written for kids (school textbooks and comic books for examples). Naturally you will need a dictionary, grammar books, and if possible a native speaker to help you get through it. If you are lucky enough to actually be "in country" and people see you reading the books  they remember from their childhood, they will probably be nostalgically intrigued and want to or at least be willing to help you. It's a good way to meet "people" "socially" (it worked for me).

Where to find such materials? Used book stores, among others. I found these in a used book store in São Paulo in 1997. I still have them and they are still useful. I'm partial to the Tio Patinhas   (Scrooge McDuck)series. Tio Patinhas is featured in Aventuras em Patópolis too.

Some other easy learning methods are: 

(1) Reading  magazines, especially copiously illustrated magazines, because one picture is worth a thousand words. If the caption says "Carlão, em luta dramatica, encaixa o gravata decisivo" and the picture shows Carlão, in a dramatic match, locking in a decisive guillotine/front choke/headlock, you will then have a pretty good preliminary clue what luta and gravata mean. 

(2) Reading  newspaper articles about topics that you are already familiar with. Especially if the paper runs a series, as O Globo often does. The vocabulary will be used repeatedly and probably in various forms and contexts.

 (3) Watching movies and TV with captions (American movies/TV with Portuguese captions, Brazilian movies/TV with English captions, and so on).

 (4) Talking to very young and very old people. They are less likely to have complexes about foreigners and foreign languages and probably won't even try to speak English or anything other than their own language. They might even think that you are Brazilian for a while.

Learning a language is learning a culture. You need to know what native speakers take for granted. Reading what native speakers read and listening to what native speakers do is the best way. The difference is that you should read and listen at your second-language ability-related age, not your chronological age. There are some short-cuts for literate, reasonably well-educated adults, but as with most things, you have to walk before you can run.  

If you want to go to Rio, but can't, you will want to read Jiu-Jitsu in the South Zone.  It is the closest thing to being there, other than being there.

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(c) 2000-2015, Roberto Pedreira. All rights reserved.

Revised October 6, 2014

Revised May 10, 2015.