Do you know anything about where the Russian-sounding, fast-paced language Portuguese came from? No, well today is your lucky day!

Living and working in Portugal is fantastic, but it does mean that you won’t hear your native language everywhere you go. Learning to live in a country where, in my case, English, is not the go-to language for communication can be tricky, but the Portuguese are super accommodating and even those who only speak Portuguese are happy to try and communicate with you if you haven’t picked up the odd word or two.

There are many blogs, videos, apps, schools and tutors out there to help you learn the language, but do you know anything about where Portuguese came from, how widely spoken it is and some other interesting facts about this Russian-sounding, fast-paced language? No, well today is your lucky day, read on to find out more.

It is a common misconception that Portuguese is only spoken in Portugal and Brazil. In fact, Portuguese is the 6th most spoken language in the world, it is spoken in 6 different continents and it’s the official language of 9 different countries: Portugal, Brazil, Mozambique, Angola, Guinea-Bissau, Timor-Leste, Equatorial Guinea, Cape Verde, and São Tomé and Principe. Furthermore, Portuguese is the official language of the Chinese autonomous territory of Macau.

The Portuguese language developed from Latin, but it’s also heavily influenced by Arabic and many words of Arabic origin remain in everyday usage including:

almofada - cushion

azeitona - olive

garrafa - bottle

Around 280 million people speak Portuguese worldwide and that number is growing fast, in fact, Portuguese is growing so much that it has the potential to be an “international communication language,” according to UNESCO.

Out of those 280 million speakers, why can I understand some so well, while others I have absolutely no clue what they are saying? Well, just like all countries the Portuguese accent is diverse. Every main city and region has its own pronunciation that, on one hand, makes it easy to recognize someone’s origins but on the other can leave you none the wiser about what they said after speaking to them!

Arguably the biggest stumbling block for English speakers who are trying to learn Portuguese is that each verb has a million or so different conjugations – well not quite a million, there are 5, but when you’re learning it feels like more! For example, the English verb “to have” has two conjugations in the present tense — I/you/we/they have, he/she/it has. However, the equivalent verb in Portuguese would be conjugated as follows: eu tenho, tu tens, ele/ela/você tem, nós temos, elas/eles/vocês têm. And, just to make things even more unique Portuguese has two different ways of using the verb “to be.”

While English’s “to be” is universal, I am a woman, I am happy. Portuguese has two different verbs for these situations: ser and estar. Ser is for permanent, unchanging examples, eu sou uma mulher while estar is for temporary situations such as mood or weather, eu estou feliz.

Up until 2009, the Portuguese alphabet only had 23 letters. Anyone with the letters K, W or Y in their name you would be up against it as these 3 letters were not part of the Portuguese language. In words such as kilogram, Portuguese would swap out the K for “qu” quilograma, while W and Y sounds were only ever found in foreign proper nouns. In 2009, Portuguese-speaking countries around the world got together to sign a new “Orthographic Agreement,” which standardized spelling forms across different variations of Portuguese and introduced the letters K, W and Y.

So there you have it, a few interesting facts about the language we are learning. Don’t get downhearted if you are struggling to master Portuguese it is a tough nut to crack, but when you do it is so amazing you will wish you started learning earlier.