The 7 best books to learn Portuguese • Wanderlix

Do you know that reading is one of the best ways to advance in learning a language? So discover our selection of the best books to learn Portuguese!

Read in a foreign language only brings benefits when you want to improve your knowledge in a language. This allows both to enrich his vocabulary, learning new words, and to work his written understanding.

Thus, by reading books or articles written in Portuguese, you will dive into the language and culture of the Portuguese-speaking country. To guide you in your learning, here is a selection of books that will help you develop your skills in Portuguese!

1. Harry Potter

We no longer present Harry Potter and his friends, whose adventures are known all over the world. Fans will be delighted to find them in the Portuguese version and follow their perpetia at the Pudlard Witch School while discovering the lexical field in Portuguese.

Ideal to chat with friends at the exit of the courses! This book is rather intended, we will have understood it, to young readers and fans of the Harry Potter universe.

2. O Principezinho

Finding The Little Prince in its Portuguese version is an excellent way to get acquainted with this language. One of the most translated books in the world, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry , you will share the adventures of the little prince, a young boy with golden hair, who visited several planets before landing on Earth.

He meets a lost aviator, who is at the same time the narrator of history. We can hardly imagine that this is the author himself. The little prince will prove to him that “we only see with the heart” and that love is the most powerful of life’s engines.

The 96 pages of this Portuguese translation will make you travel in a fiction full of humanity, which touches the youngest as the greatest. Magic and adventure, everything is there to diversify his vocabulary. You must already have an intermediate level in Portuguese to begin reading.

3. Contos e Crónicas de Expressão Portuguesa

This book is rather fast and simple to read, as it brings together stories and chronicles. Short stories are light and told about the tone of humor. For readers who are not yet familiar with the Portuguese language, the text is fully translated on the right page. In addition, grammar points are annotated under the text for more understanding.

The authors are authors from Portugal, but also from Brazil and African countries, which allows the reader to have an overall vision of the Portuguese-speaking culture.

4. Cozinha Tradicional Portuguesa

If you like cooking and want to know more about the typical cuisine of the different regions of Portugal, this book is for you!

You can find in this book the recipes of the famous cod donuts, the “Bowlinhos de Bacalhau”, traditional dishes such as the Algarve fish stew, the “cataplana algarvia” or tasty desserts such as the famous nata pasteis or the orange flan, the “pudim de laranja”.

Apart from a few technical terms that you have quickly mastered, the book is easily accessible to all who already understand Portuguese and practice it regularly.

5. A Árvore das Palavras

In Árvore das Palavras is a historical fiction that describes the years before the independence war in Mozambique, and especially in Lourenço Marques, the former name of Maputo, the capital. We discover the fascination of Africa and African culture on Portuguese colonizers.

The reader then feels the nostalgia of childhood through the eyes of Gita, a child shocked by his parents.

6. Os Lusíadas

The Lusiades is undoubtedly the major work of Portuguese literature. It is an epic poetry, like Iliade and the Odyssey, that details the discovery of the maritime route to India by Vasco de Gama. The author takes advantage of this work to praise the Portuguese people and their sense of adventure by recounting important episodes of the country’s history. Luís de Camões, the author of this epic, explains to us that man “has given new worlds in the world.”

The story consists of ten songs and more than 1100 strophes, spread over 288 pages. But history lovers cannot miss this masterpiece, especially if they want to know the history of Portugal in the Middle Ages and during the Renaissance. The richness of the vocabulary you will find there and the rich historical details are worth a visit. You will discover Portuguese literature under its best day.

However, it is mandatory to have an advanced level in Portuguese to begin reading Lusiades. Grammatical turns, period expressions can stop understanding. But you should know that the work is absolutely fascinating and allows you to understand the taste of the risk and freedom that Portuguese people often feel in the deepest of them.

7. O Colar

This play was written in 2001 by the greatest Portuguese poet of recent decades, Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen. In this work, O Colar has as a backdrop the sumptuous Venice and takes us on the footsteps of Vanina, a dreamy teenager who falls in love with Pietro, a noble ruined and solitary.

The book is composed of 72 pages and reads quite easily if you already have an intermediate level. The play format can scare at first, but it is interesting to discover the Portuguese language from this angle. The vocabulary specific to theatrical works is diverse, so you will have access to another aspect of the language.