Our little Trans-Americas Journey road trip has been on the road through the Americas since 2006 and the majority of that time has been spent in Spanish-speaking countries–until now. In January, we entered Brazil where the official language is Portuguese. Our first order of business? Spend a month learning Portuguese in Rio de Janiero. Here’s what we learned including tips for choosing a Portuguese school in Rio and an exclusive discount for you in the box at the end of this post.

Going to Portuguese School in Rio

The last time we studied a foreign language was about 15 years ago when we attended classes at the IMAC language school in Guadalajara, Mexico to shore up our Spanish. That experience created a good foundation that allowed us to communicate and continue to improve our Spanish on our own through everyday usage. We wanted the same base to work from with Portuguese and we knew we needed to go to language school to get it.

After a quick language skills evaluation on the phone, administrators at the Rio & Learn language school in Rio de Janeiro agreed that we were definitely in the beginner category. No surprise there. Though our Spanish is solid, we’ve never warmed up to Portuguese. Yes, there are distinct similarities between Portuguese and Spanish, but there are also confounding and pervasive differences. During a previous brief visit to Brazil, for example, we were baffled by the quirky pronunciation of the language. However, with many months of exploration in Brazil in front of us, it was time to get a grip on Portuguese.

And so we started our first week of Portuguese school with Rio & Learn where energetic teachers and students from around the world (including a surprising number of students from the US) mingle to create a high-energy vibe in a relaxed but professional environment that says “Sure you’re gonna have fun, but you’re here to learn too.”

The Rio & Learn teaching model is about immersion, so no other languages are permitted at school. We struggled with this, often defaulting to Spanish in a pinch. Eric became infamous for his persistent use of the word pero (which means but or except in Spanish) instead of the word’s Portuguese counterpart.

Unlike our language school experience in Mexico, there were no tests or homework at Rio & Learn, just a mandate to hear and speak Portuguese in the real world as boldly and as often as possible. Technology has changed enormously since our days in Spanish school as well. For example, Google can be used in the classroom to call up images that go along with vocabulary words, phrases, or colloquialisms. And lessons at Rio & Learn are all shared via PDFs and links.

Classes at Rio & Learn are led by a cast of Brazilian native-Portuguese speaking teachers who rotate from day to day. This ensures exposure to different teaching styles (most of which we clicked with) and different accents and speaking styles. The whole Rio & Learn program is also extremely open to feedback and evaluation including a daily anonymous class evaluation that students submit online and weekly student evaluation by teachers to evaluate progress.

What is RioLIVE?

Group field trips led by an instructor are also an important part of language education at Rio & Learn. Called RioLIVE, these excursions include after-school group outings to top attractions and activities in Rio like taking a samba class, or SUPing off Copacabana Beach, or visiting Pedra do Sal for live samba and caiprinhas on a bustling Friday night. These activities are mostly free except for transport, entry costs, and onsite purchases. On weekends, RioLIVE offers longer excursions such as hiking in Tijuca National Park and taking a favela tour. These weekend excursions incur an additional fee.

The RioLIVE activities are designed to get students at various levels into the world together to speak and hear Portuguese with a teacher there for guidance and they’re an integral part of the Rio & Learn program.

Here are some highlights from our month of Portuguese school in Rio with Rio & Learn.

Rio & Learn week 1 highlights

Our first two days of Portuguese school in Rio were led by an experienced Rio & Learn teacher skilled at getting us to speak simple Portuguese. These small wins gave us confidence that kept us motivated and relaxed through the duration of our instruction.

We also joined our first RioLIVE activity: a field trip to visit the Leme Fort. Along with other students, we did the short hike up to the fort chatting and listening along the way during an enjoyable and educational afternoon at a Rio landmark.

By the end of week 1, we were able to introduce ourselves and explain where we’re from and what we do in Portuguese. More importantly, we’d gotten over our automatic shudder at the sound of Portuguese pronunciation and began to be able to follow spoken Portuguese more easily. We also realized that cariocas (people who live in Rio) put their own spin on an already complicated language by adding zooshed-up pronunciations that Brazilians in other states don’t use.

Oh, and Eric’s name is pronounced Erikee in Portuguese…

Rio & Learn week 2 highlights

During our second week in Portuguese school in Rio we experienced our first foray into the street to talk to real live cariocas. In this case, we accosted an unsuspecting waiter standing outside a restaurant next to the Rio & Learn school and asked him–in halting Portuguese–which dish he’d recommend for lunch. It’s awkward, but interactions like that forced us to speak the language and deal with a real person’s response vs. the careful and slow communication our teachers used when speaking to us. From here on out, most days of class included some form of interaction with people on the street, on the beach, or in the small park near the school.

We spent the last two days of week 2 focused on rules of pronunciation, verb conjugation, and commonly used vocabulary words which felt like just the kind of nuts and bolts that we needed to gain confidence.

By the end of week 2, we were getting familiar enough with the sound of Portuguese that we could pick out specific words and phrases when dealing with people in the supermarket, in the metro station, etc.

Also, fun fact: the letters K and Y do not exist in the Portuguese alphabet…

Rio & Learn week 3 highlights

Monday of this week was a Brazilian holiday, so an hour was added to each remaining day’s class schedule to ensure our 20 hours of instruction per week. This meant an 8:30 to 1:30 schedule instead of the usual 9-1 schedule. An extra hour didn’t sound like much, but after five hours of class we were exhausted each day and ready to go back to a four-hours-per-day schedule.

During this week it was also decided that Eric and I should be split up into different classes to curb our tendency to default to Spanish. Overall, this was a good call that took away a crutch–though Eric is still saying pero…

In addition to classroom work, we also packed in a couple of field trips during this week including a weekday student group trip to Cristo Redentor (possibly the most iconic symbol of Rio de Janeiro and of Brazil) and a Saturday night trip to the Sambadrome to watch samba schools rehearse for upcoming Carnaval parades. We certainly would have gone to Cristo Redentor on our own, but we didn’t even know about the Sambadrome rehearsals, which are free to the public. And because both field trips were guided by Rio & Learn teachers, we gained a lot of locals-only knowledge along the way.

By the end of week 3, we were able to follow some overhead conversations in Portuguese on the street, which felt like a small miracle.

Rio & Learn week 4 highlights

By the end of week 4, we were feeling much more able to understand overheard Portuguese on the street, on TV, etc., and we were beginning to think more frequently in Portuguese as our minds tried to arrange what we’d learned into questions and responses in Portuguese. We were, however, still feeling hesitant about speaking/pronouncing Portuguese, but we’ll get over that with practice.

At the end of our final day of classes, we both got a certificate of completion, which was satisfying. And we’re glad we did a full month of classes. Some students signed up for less than that and we think we would not have acquired a strong enough base if we’d cut out after just one, two, or even three weeks.

Our favorite thing about Portuguese school in Rio

• the energy, quality, and patience of the teachers at Rio & Learn
• not being afraid of Portuguese anymore

Our least favorite thing about Portuguese school in Rio

• we certainly will not miss prowling the park or the beach or the sidewalk on the hunt for unsuspecting cariocas to torture with our garbled random questions in Portuguese…

Top tip we learned in Portuguese school in Rio

On day 12, a teacher shared a trick that helped us with a very common quirk of Portuguese pronunciation: when a word is spelled with an “lh” combo–as many words are–replace the h with i and you’ll know how to pronounce the word correctly. For example, the word trabalho (which means work in Portuguese) is pronounced trah-ball-yo.

Why we chose Rio & Learn as our Portuguese school in Rio

Here are some key factors to consider when choosing a Portuguese school in Rio.

Student reviews: The experiences and perspectives of previous students can be helpful. We found overwhelmingly positive reviews of Rio & Learn (the school has 4.9/5.0 stars with nearly 500 reviews on Google and on Tripadvisor it has a perfect 5 with more than 300 reviews). As with any crowd-sourced information, we recommend disregarding the most negative and the most positive reviews. The truth often lies in the middle ground.

Location: Rio & Learn is located in Copacabana in the Zona Sur of Rio which is an area of the city that’s very popular with tourists because it’s full of restaurant and accommodation options. This is important because we recommend that you find a place to stay that’s close to your language school. Our classes started at 9 am and continued through 1 pm and because we’d booked accommodation just a few blocks away from the school our commute back and forth was nothing more than an easy stroll. This made getting to class and getting to the meeting point for afternoon RioLIVE excursions much more convenient. Another plus of the Rio & Learn location: the school is half a block from Copacabana Beach. This means that you could jump in for a quick swim during the 30-minute break each morning and still be back in time for the resumption of class.

Class size: Rio & Learn guarantees a maximum class size of six students. This means teachers can concentrate on each student and there’s plenty of time to talk and participate during lessons.

Cultural field trips: Does the language school you’re considering offer out-of-classroom extras that further your language skills? At Rio & Learn, teacher led RioLIVE field trips to top city sights are a great opportunity to take your Portuguese into the real world with a teacher right there to provide encouragement and corrections. We did not fully take advantage of RioLIVE activities because we often had work to do after class. We recommend that you plan to devote plenty of afternoons and weekends to your language learning, not just classroom hours, to get the most from the experience.

Ongoing access to digital learning tools: All Rio & Learn students have access to links, PDFs, and digital learning tools including slides that detail the information covered in each day’s classes. And students retain access to these tools even after their classes are over.

Other services: Rio & Learn offers a homestay accommodation service if you need help finding a place to stay. And if you want to get serious about studying and apply for a student visa, they can help with that too.