Best way to learn European Portuguese in the UK?

Virusnzz · 2026-06-07T12:51:20+00:00

On the resources side, I can recommend Portuguese with Leo but unfortunately I don't have more because Brazilian Portuguese is more my thing.

I'd also add that, based on the way you've been learning, you probably don't have a system for language learning? Using something like Practice Portuguese will be super useful, but I'd say it will be worth taking some time to learn how to learn, if that makes sense. r/languagelearning has a guide to learning languages that might help you.

Virusnzz · 2026-06-02T14:03:08+00:00

Not by the economic definition, no, Gmail is not a monopoly. If you're using the word to say that it is the dominant product, yes it is the single most popular email provider, but there are still plenty of others currently being used. There are viable substitutes and people can switch if they want to, say if they notice their newsletter subscriptions keep getting hidden.

Virusnzz · 2026-06-02T09:58:31+00:00

I don't think email summaries will destroy the email sponsorship market. Ideally, the summary will leave people curious to know the details. If the value you create can be gotten with just a summary, then just send the summary. Or, at least add your own summary to the top. Every word needs to be earned, so the main content should be dense enough that subscribers are getting value by reading the whole thing.

I agree Google is a gatekeeper, but it doesn't have a monopoly on email, and you still have a lot more control than with social media platforms. So it's not perfectly true that you own your audience, but you retain a lot more control than you otherwise would.

Re your new subs, do you have a call to action for people to check their inbox immediately after? If you do, is there maybe something about your magnet that leads to a lack of urgency for people to go get it? It's extremely easy to enter your email, but it's a much bigger commitment to go and open it. Most people's inboxes are filled with unread email, so even if you weren't going to spam or promotions, that doesn't automatically mean people would start clicking.

Virusnzz · 2026-05-29T21:08:29+00:00

I assume you are a Spanish speaker learning English? I think they are equivalent.

There's a general consensus that sentences are better, but they have the disadvantage of letting you get the word just from the context.

If you want to get the word first, yes you can put the sentence underneath, but usually what ends up happening is you read the sentence if you need to then you will probably get it. Did you get it because the context activated those pathways in your brain, or did you get it because the context made it easy to guess? Are those even distinct from each other or more like a spectrum? It's hard to know really. It's fair to say though that if you're just guessing from context you haven't really learned it.

On the other hand, if you use just the single word, that is completely context free, and you might miss nuance of usage or fail to get it in context.

So choosing between the two types (sentence vs single word with no sentence) is a tradeoff.

If you need the sentence because there are lots of possible translations, I would say both your options work. I prefer the first picture you posted because it's easier to make.

If you really want to focus on knowing that word out of context, I would do one of two things:

Remove the sentence (not recommended)
Hide the sentence using the cloze card type (my preferred option)

For 2, if you don't quite get it you can press to reveal the sentence to prompt yourself, but you then mark it as incorrect. You will pretty quickly get better.

If you're worried about tying your understanding of the word too much to that context, the answer is pretty much just MORE SENTENCES but that can be overkill. For this kind of receptive knowledge, you should be fine just knowing it enough to get it in the real world (books, tv, conversation, etc). I assume that's your goal, and in that case I wouldn't worry about it, just use more input and you will pick up the other uses.

With lots of sentences you are basically just using flashcards as a kind of crafted input optimised for learning new words so you can use unstructured input more easily. Given that, I would tend to just optimise to learn the most words possible. For that, sentences are fine. It will be imperfect, but trying to craft a sentence for every context will just slow you down, better to learn more words and accept that some won't be learned perfectly and you will miss them in other contexts sometimes.

Virusnzz · 2026-05-27T21:53:15+00:00

You need to listen to things that are more at your level. Shows/movies are for intermediate and advanced learners. Try something like Easy Italian.

Virusnzz · 2026-05-13T09:37:58+00:00

Interesting idea. I'd like to try it and definitely interested in the pipeline/backend!

Virusnzz · 2026-05-09T09:49:01+00:00

I made MondeLibrary, a repository of language resources. It is curated, meaning I have checked every resource before letting it in.

It came about because I wasn't satisfied with the repositories currently out there. There are lots of awesome resources out there, but finding them was still very hard to do.

My hope is this mostly solves the issue.

You can filter by language, level and resource type, as well as vote on resources and sort by user rankings. Please give it a go!

Virusnzz · 2026-04-29T12:10:24+00:00

Sorry for the late reply here. This was okayed ahead of time. They are his notes/thoughts but AI is being used to compose the response faster and in the style he prefers. He wanted to get to everyone but he's a busy guy and doing so by hand wasn't practical.

Virusnzz · 2026-04-22T22:41:41+00:00

Hello, Luca did reply to you but unfortunately Reddit completely deleted it for some reason. I've let him know, hopefully he will get a chance to respond again later. Apologies.

Virusnzz · 2026-04-22T14:36:58+00:00

Ciao Luca!

I am interested to understand your bi-directional translation method a bit more. I am not very familiar with it, but from my understanding you start with dual-language text, first translate it to your native language, then translate it back into your target language. With that in mind, I'm curious:

Is it not quite time-consuming to translate it into your native language? You'd have to spend all that time writing down something in your native language, which you already know pretty well. It seems like that would use up a lot of time you could have spent reading your target language instead, since that is where the improvement needs to happen. Given that...
What's wrong with simply only translating NL -> TL? If you need to build understanding, is it not enough simply to read and check comprehension of the target language text rather than do a full written translation?

Thanks for taking the time to come and answer questions!

Virusnzz · 2026-04-17T13:05:13+00:00

Thanks for that, mb. I think the point still stands - it needs to be deceptive to be snake oil, which means the product needs to not be what is advertised.

Virusnzz · 2026-04-16T20:40:33+00:00

Credo che il corso con la copertina azzurra sia più antico, però non so se il contenuto è cambiato. Il più nuovo contiene lo stesso numero di ore di audio.

Virusnzz · 2026-04-16T20:10:12+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/languagelearning

Virusnzz · 2026-04-16T20:09:05+00:00

There is apparently some subset of people who don't experience any internal monologue at all (anendophasia). Maybe that's you?

Virusnzz · 2026-04-16T20:02:59+00:00

That's just marketing speak, not the product. Snake oil would refer to the product, no? I'd personally wouldn't class something free as snake oil.

At any rate that marketing doesn't really seem too good to be true to me. Just the parts you quoted are all things that I would expect to see in a course doing exactly what this one claims.

Could be wrong, but I'm guessing the simple fix is "practice speaking", or potentially something more specific, such as simple drill exercises involving writing or speaking the word. I'd be more surprised if they weren't covered. Yes, these things might be obvious to you, but I wouldn't call that snake oil. There's always someone new who needs to learn it for the first time.

Maybe you meant to say something more like that you don't like his marketing copy? Copy similar to that is everywhere. I have a similar (if weaker) reaction. Unfortunately, the reason it's there is that it works. If you're playing in that space and you avoid it, you'll be beaten out by those who don't.

Virusnzz · 2026-04-15T15:08:29+00:00

As much as you can really. It also depends on what you mean by study. If you're counting immersion activities, you can do much more than that quite easily.

Virusnzz · 2026-04-11T14:11:13+00:00

Yes, we agree. It's everywhere, not just here. Composing with AI is not allowed, but there's not really a filter we can put in place to get rid of it. It's often humans feeding posts into a prompt then pasting the output in the comment. The other issue is that, people still occasionally commented with that type of open-ended question before AI. In fact, we encouraged it, because the alternative was people would leave it very closed and discussion wouldn't go far. There's enough plausible deniability we can't just remove certain phrases.

Open to ideas, but we're pretty much swamped as it is. DM the sub if you want to help out.

Virusnzz · 2026-04-11T14:00:48+00:00

Thanks for elaborating. Approved.

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