How to teach your kids Portuguese before moving to Portugal

The most useful thing you can do before moving to Portugal is not to teach your children Portuguese grammar. It is to get European Portuguese into their ears every day, give them a few dozen words for the school day, and set honest expectations for the first term. Three months of that is worth doing. Twelve months can take an older child to a real beginner level.

Once they arrive, Portuguese public schools take over: a child who is still learning the language is tested and placed in Português Língua Não Materna (PLNM), a subject taught in place of regular Portuguese. Our PLNM guide explains how that works. Your job before the move is a head start, not a finish line.

What is worth doing in the months before the move?

If you only have a few weeks, skip straight to the survival words and the listening. They pay off on day one.

Which Portuguese words should kids learn first?

The words that let a child get through a school day without English. Learn them in European Portuguese, because several differ from the Brazilian ones children meet online:

Then build a small school kit, around 40 words and phrases:

• People and places: professor, professora, colega, sala de aula, recreio (recess), cantina, biblioteca, ginásio.
• Things in the backpack: mochila, caderno, livro, lápis, borracha, estojo (pencil case), lanche (snack).
• Needs: Tenho fome. Tenho sede. Dói-me a barriga. (My tummy hurts.) Preciso de ajuda.
• Classroom survival: Como se diz ... em português? Pode repetir, por favor? O que é isto? Não sei.
• Introducing themselves: Chamo-me ... Tenho oito anos. Sou dos Estados Unidos. Falo inglês.
• Words parents will hear too: TPC (homework), teste, intervalo (break), diretor de turma (class coordinator).

Notice the tu forms (queres, estás): that is how children speak to each other in Portugal. For more everyday vocabulary, see our European Portuguese vocabulary guide.

How do you do it by age?

Under 6: sound, songs and routine

Young children do not need lessons. They need to hear the language often, in a setting they enjoy, and to use a few phrases for real. Practical things that work:

• A daily 15 to 20 minutes of European Portuguese cartoons or songs, at the same time each day, so it becomes routine rather than homework.
• Portuguese for home rituals: bom dia, boa noite, obrigado/obrigada, counting stairs, naming colors at breakfast.
• Picture books read aloud, even if you read slowly. Your accent matters less than the habit.

Preschool (jardim de infância) is not part of PLNM, which starts in first grade, so a small child in preschool learns mostly from play and the adults around them. Tell the teacher which words your child already knows.

6 to 11: the school kit and stories

This age can learn words deliberately and enjoys doing it as a game. Aim for the school kit above before the move, plus daily listening. Flashcards with pictures, a “Portuguese dinner” once a week where everyone orders in Portuguese, and short read-along books. If your child reads well in English, let them try simple Portuguese texts: Portuguese spelling is fairly regular, and reading gives them words they cannot yet catch by ear.

Most children in this band will be placed in PLNM at a beginner level, and their first weeks will be about the playground and the classroom routines. That is normal.

12 and over: a real course, and an eye on exams

Teenagers benefit most from a structured beginner course before the move, because the stakes are higher for them: history, geography and science are taught in Portuguese, and grades 9 and 12 have national exams. Arriving at A1 rather than at zero means starting PLNM a step up, with more of the first year left for the other subjects. Useful steps:

• 20 to 30 minutes a day of a European Portuguese course, not a Brazilian app.
• Look at the DGE’s public PLNM positioning tests for the third cycle and secondary. They show what the school will ask on arrival.
• Series and YouTube channels made in Portugal, with Portuguese subtitles once they can follow a little.
• For 12- to 15-year-olds who want a certificate, CAPLE offers CIPLE-e, a school version of the A2 exam (see our CIPLE guide).

If your teenager plans to go to university in Portugal, read the exam section of the PLNM guide early: the 12th-grade PLNM exam does not replace Portuguese where a program requires it as an entrance exam.

Where can kids watch and hear European Portuguese?

• RTP Zig Zag.The children’s service of RTP, Portugal’s public broadcaster, free on the web and in iOS and Android apps, with cartoons, science shorts and podcasts. Coming from the Portuguese public broadcaster, it is the safest default; still listen to an episode before making a show the daily habit.
• RTP Ensina. Short educational videos and articles organized by school cycle, from first grade to secondary. Good for older children who want school-style content.
• Portuguese radio and music in the car, even as background.

How do you avoid Brazilian-only materials?

Much of the free Portuguese content for children online is Brazilian, often without saying so. Popular Brazilian channels such as Galinha Pintadinha are charming, but a child raised on them will say você where classmates say tu, and estou brincando where they say estou a brincar. Quick checks:

• Look for Portugal in the credits, the channel description or the audio track label.
• Listen for the sound. European Portuguese drops many unstressed vowels and sounds clipped; Brazilian Portuguese is more open and sing-song.
• Watch for the giveaway words in the table above, and for estar a + infinitive.

Brazilian material is not harmful, and a child who learned from it is not starting over. But the school teaches and marks European Portuguese, so that is where the daily habit should sit. Our European vs Brazilian guide lists the differences.

What should kids read? The Plano Nacional de Leitura

Portugal’s National Reading Plan (Plano Nacional de Leitura, PNL) recommends children’s books twice a year, and recommended titles carry a Ler+ seal on the cover. Portuguese schools use it, so books with that seal are a safe bet for European Portuguese and for the kind of text your child will meet in class.

As of September 2026, the PNL says its online catalog is suspended while the plan is restructured, so you cannot search it by age right now. In practice, look for the seal when buying from Portuguese bookshops online, and once your child is enrolled, ask the school about the PNL digital library, which lends ebooks and audiobooks free to students and teachers.

What should you expect in the first school term?

Honest expectations protect everyone. For most children who arrive with little Portuguese:

• A diagnostic test in the first days,then placement at a PLNM level, possibly “level zero” if they have no Portuguese yet. That is a starting point, not a verdict.
• A quiet period. Many children understand far more than they say for weeks. Do not push them to perform in Portuguese at home.
• Adapted grades. For new arrivals at level zero, A1 or A2, the first term or semester can be assessed with a written description instead of a number.
• Tired children. A full day in a new language is exhausting. Plan quiet afternoons in the first weeks.
• Playground Portuguese first, school Portuguese later. The rules let a pupil spend up to two years at each early PLNM level, which tells you the pace the system itself expects.

Enrollment itself (documents, the matrícula, choosing a school) is covered in our school enrollment guide. For how the whole household can learn together, see learning Portuguese as an expat family.

Should the parents learn too?

Yes, and before the move rather than after. Children in Portuguese school usually overtake their parents, and the risk is that they become the family interpreter. If you can read the school’s messages and follow a parent-teacher meeting, they can stay children. PoisPois gives each family member a login and level of their own in European Portuguese, with a shared household board, so a parent at A1 and a teenager at A2 can practice side by side.