The World of Languages · Indo-European
Portuguese · português
Spoken on four continents, from Lisbon to Rio, Luanda and Maputo. Brazil alone has more speakers than all other Portuguese-speaking countries combined.
- 252 million native speakers
- 269 million speakers in total
- Latin script
- FSI Category I · 24 weeks
- Official in 10 countries
Where Portuguese is spoken
Tap or hover over a country. Colours show the language's status, based on Unicode CLDR territory data (population estimates mix sources and years).
Top countries by speakers
- Brazil · BrasilOfficial language · 200M (91%)
- AngolaOfficial language · 25M (67%)
- PortugalOfficial language · 9.8M (96%)
- Mozambique · MoçambiqueOfficial language · 9M (27%)
- Guinea-Bissau · Guiné-BissauOfficial language · 2.1M (100%)
- Timor-LesteOfficial language · 889k (59%)
- Cape Verde · Cabo VerdeOfficial language · 464k (76%)
- São Tomé & Príncipe · São Tomé e PríncipeOfficial language · 190k (85%)
- Luxembourg · LuxemburgoWidely spoken · 107k (16%)
- Macao SAR China · Macau, RAE da ChinaOfficial language · 32k (5%)
- Equatorial Guinea · Guiné EquatorialOfficial language · 2 (0.0001%)
Key numbers
- Native (L1) speakers
- 252 million
- Second-language (L2) speakers
- 18 million
- Total speakers
- 269 million
- Source
- Ethnologue (2026), via Wikipedia
Portuguese at a glance
Portuguese (endonym: português) is a Western Romance language of the Indo-European language family, written in the Latin script. With approximately 267 million native speakers, it is the fifth-most spoken native language in the world, and the most widely spoken language in the Southern Hemisphere. It is the official language of eight countries — Portugal, Brazil, Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, São Tomé and Príncipe, and Timor-Leste — and is co-official with other languages in Macau and Equatorial Guinea.
Portuguese-speaking people or nations are known as Lusophone (lusófono). As a result of expansion during colonial times, a cultural presence of Portuguese speakers is also found around the world. Portuguese is part of the Ibero-Romance group, which evolved from several dialects of Vulgar Latin in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia and the County of Portugal, and has retained some Celtic phonology.
From the Wikipedia article Portuguese language (CC BY-SA 4.0).
- Name in Portuguese
- português
- Family
- Indo-EuropeanClassical Indo-EuropeanItalicLatino-FaliscanLatinicImperial LatinRomanceItalo-Western RomanceWestern RomanceShifted Western RomanceSouthwestern Shifted RomanceWest Ibero-RomanceGalician RomanceMacro-PortugueseBrazil-Portugal Portuguese
- Writing system
- Latin alphabet with accents (ã, õ, ç, é, ê and others)
- Direction
- Left to right
- Official in
- Brazil, Angola, Portugal, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, Timor-Leste, Cape Verde, São Tomé & Príncipe, Macao SAR China, Equatorial Guinea
- Codes
- ISO 639-3
por· Glottologport1283· Q5146 - Writing sample
Todos os seres humanos nascem livres e iguais em dignidade e em direitos. Dotados de razão e de consciência, devem agir uns para com os outros em espírito de fraternidade.
Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights…”
Linguistic profile
How hard is Portuguese for English speakers?
The US Foreign Service Institute puts Portuguese in Category I: about 24 weeks (600 class hours) of full-time study to reach professional working proficiency.
Source: FSI language learning timelines. See all languages ranked: hardest · easiest.
Feature values from the World Atlas of Language Structures (WALS Online, CC BY 4.0).
The Portuguese script
Latin alphabet with accents (ã, õ, ç, é, ê and others). Tap a character to hear it (your device reads the letter name or sound).
Standard letters from Unicode CLDR exemplar characters.
Useful Portuguese phrases with pronunciation
Numbers 1–10
- um
- dois
- três
- quatro
- cinco
- seis
- sete
- oito
- nove
- dez
Days of the week
- Mon segunda-feira
- Tue terça-feira
- Wed quarta-feira
- Thu quinta-feira
- Fri sexta-feira
- Sat sábado
- Sun domingo
Everyday words
- water água
- cat gato
- dog cão
- coffee café
- beer cerveja
- bread pão
- book livro
Phrases and words checked against Wiktionary; days and months from Unicode CLDR. Audio uses your browser's built-in Portuguese voice when available.
Dialects and varieties
Brazilian Portuguese
Brazil
“Você” for you; open vowels; final -de/-te often sound like “dji/tchi”: cidade ≈ “cidadji”.
European Portuguese
Portugal
“Tu” is common; unstressed vowels are often swallowed, so it can sound almost Slavic to Brazilians.
African Portuguese
Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde and others
Close to European spelling, with local vocabulary from Bantu languages and creoles.
Brazil vs Portugal vocabulary
Both
Bus: ônibus (BR) / autocarro (PT). Train: trem (BR) / comboio (PT). Breakfast: café da manhã (BR) / pequeno-almoço (PT).
Hear the dialects
Fun words, untranslatables and false friends
saudade
A deep, bittersweet longing for someone or something absent, possibly never to return.
cafuné
Brazilian: tenderly running your fingers through someone's hair.
desenrascanço
European Portuguese: improvising a last-minute solution to a problem.
False friends for English speakers
| Portuguese | Looks like | Actually means |
|---|---|---|
| puxar | push | to pull |
| pretender | pretend | to intend |
| esquisito | exquisite | strange, weird |
| parentes | parents | relatives |
Curious facts
- Brazil has by far the largest Portuguese-speaking population in the world.
- Portuguese has nasal vowels, shown with a tilde: pão (bread), mãe (mother).
- The 1990 Orthographic Agreement aimed to unify spelling across Portuguese-speaking countries.
- English words that came through Portuguese include marmalade, flamingo, cobra and fetish.
Famous Portuguese-speaking voices
Singers & musicians
Writers & poets
Film & TV
Other famous figures
Descriptions from Wikidata; photos from Wikimedia Commons under the licences shown.
Portuguese culture now
City of God (2002 film)
2002 Brazilian epic crime film by Fernando Meirelles and Kátia Lund
Bossa nova
Style of Brazilian music
Fado
Portuguese music genre
I'm Still Here (2024 film)
2024 film by Walter Salles
Funk carioca
Genre of hip hop style music
Brazilian telenovela
Brazilian teledramaturgy format
Learn Portuguese on YouTube
Free lessons from teachers and channels with Portuguese courses. Videos load only when you press play.
The story of the language
Quick quiz: how well do you know Portuguese?
Where to learn Portuguese
Learn Portuguese
LangMagic's guide to learning Portuguese.
LangMagicPortuguese Content Portal
Portuguese videos, with smooth progress from teachers' channels to native content.
LangMagicThe Endless Book
Read text you can understand, in the style of your favourite author and genre. About 30 languages.
LangMagicLangMagic Speak
Speaking lessons built around your topics, from materials you choose.
LangMagicLangMagic Meet
A virtual meeting platform built for language lessons, with follow-up exercises.
FreeWikivoyage Portuguese phrasebook
Free travel phrasebook with pronunciation guide
FreeWikibooks: Portuguese
Free, open textbook
FreeOmniglot: Portuguese
Script, pronunciation and useful phrases
FreeWiktionary: Portuguese dictionary
Free multilingual dictionary
Sources
- Speaker numbers: Ethnologue (2026), via Wikipedia.
- Countries, populations, alphabets, days and months: Unicode CLDR 46.
- Classification: Glottolog 5.3. Grammar features: WALS Online.
- Introduction: Wikipedia, Portuguese language (CC BY-SA 4.0). People and culture: Wikipedia and Wikidata. Images: Wikimedia Commons.
- Writing sample: Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 1, from the Unicode UDHR collection. Phrases and words: Wiktionary. Difficulty: US Foreign Service Institute.
- Map: Natural Earth via world-atlas (public domain).