If you’re preparing to visit Portugal, mastering a few essential phrases will go a long way toward making your experience smoother and more enjoyable.
In this Unit, you’ll practice with simple phrases and vocabulary that could be useful on your first few days or weeks in Portugal. As you navigate the cities, see the sites, enjoy the cuisine, or simply interact with locals, the ability to communicate, even just a little, is often the key to more meaningful experiences, lasting memories, and sometimes even new friendships. 😊
We’ll go much more in-depth on each of these topics as you work through future Units, so don’t worry about understanding all the grammar and details right away. For now, it’s nice to have a few things memorized to help you “get by”. Practice Portuguese members: Don’t forget that you can add these phrases to Smart Review!
Greetings
If you haven’t finished these 3 units yet, we would also recommend them before your visit, so that you know how to say OláHello , Por favorPlease , ObrigadoThank you (male speaker) / ObrigadaThank you (female speaker) , and other essentials for polite communication:
Directions
Whether you’re lost or simply looking for a casa de banhothe bathroom , knowing how to ask for basic directions is invaluable. To ask where something is, you can say Onde fica...?Where is...? followed by whatever it is you’re looking for. For example:
Onde fica a casa de banho?Where is the bathroom?
Here are a few other things you might be looking for:
a ruathe street
o metrothe metro
a casathe house
a paragem do autocarrothe bus stop
a porta de embarquethe boarding gate, departure gate
saídathe exit, way out, checkout
Ideally, you should also be able to understand the answers and instructions you may get. (That said, gestures may suffice in the early days!). Here are a few phrases that could come in handy:
à direitaon the right
à esquerdaon the left
em frentein front, straight ahead
ao lado denext to
aquihere
perto denear, around
longefar
For more advanced directional phrases, check out these units:
Food & Dining
We could talk about food all day, but let’s keep it simple for now…
To order something at um restaurantea restaurant or café, just say: Queria...I would like... followed by the food or drink chosen from a ementathe menu . And of course, don’t forget to add a Por favorPlease or Se faz favorPlease on the end!
If you don’t know what to order, many restaurants and cafés have pratos do diadishes of the day, daily specials . Or, you could ask:
Que pratos recomenda?Which dishes do you(sing.,formal) recommend?
Here are a few potentially useful terms if you have food allergies or preferences:
pratos vegetarianosvegetarian dishes
pratos veganosvegan dishes
isento de glútengluten-free
intolerante à lactoselactose intolerant
In the following lessons, we’ll also cover the 2 questions you’ll be asked when you order water!
If you’re a foodie, make sure to bookmark these Units for later to help make your dining experience more enjoyable:
Payment
To ask the price of something, you can simply say:
Quanto custa?How much does it cost?
To ask for the bill/check at a restaurant:
A conta, por favorThe bill, please
What if someone asks you Vai pagar em dinheiro ou cartão?Are you going to pay by cash or card? or Como é que vai pagar?How are you going to pay? ?
Some of the most common ways to pay in Portugal are:
- o cartão de créditocredit card
- o dinheiromoney – Usually refers to cash
- o Multibanco – This refers to paying with the debit card associated with a Portuguese bank account, or making a Multibanco transfer online or at an ATM machine.
Another common question to hear when paying is:
Quer contribuinte na fatura?Would you like your tax number on the receipt?
They are asking if you want to include your NIF on the receipt. If you’re just traveling and don’t know what that is, you can say Não, obrigadoNo, thank you (male speaker) or Não, obrigadaNo, thank you (female speaker)
But if you’re moving to Portugal, or doing business there, you may want to read more here: What’s a NIF?
If you want to feel more comfortable talking about prices and/or saying your NIF, make sure to check out Introduction to Numbers in Portuguese. If you think you may forget, you could carry a pen and paper to write numbers down, or use your phone.
Hotel
When it’s time to check-incheck-in to o hotelthe hotel , you can go to the front desk and say Tenho uma reservaI have a reservation .
Then you’ll find o andarthe floor (of the building) and o quartothe room you’re staying in.
You may also need to ask for outraanother or maismore of these items:
os lençóissheets
a almofadapillow
a toalhatowel
For more hotel-related phrases, check out this unit: Hotel
Time
To ask the current time, you can go with Que horas são?What time is it? , or Tem horas que me diga?Do you have the time?, Could you tell me the time? , which sounds a little less blunt.
If you need to catch o comboiothe train or get somewhere else on time, you could ask A que horas...?At what time...? something happens.
For example, A que horas chega...?At what time does (something) arrive? , and then fill the space with o autocarrobus , or o comboiotrain , or o táxitaxi , and so on.
A que horas chega o comboio?What time does the train arrive?
Other useful words and expressions include:
agoranow
hojetoday
ontemyesterday
amanhãtomorrow
de manhãin the morning
à tardein the afternoon
à noiteat night
atrasadolate, delayed (sing.,masc.)
cedoearly
We’ll cover a few more in one of the lessons to follow, and later you can learn even more about dates and time in these units:
Help!
If you’re atrasadolate, delayed , you get perdidolost , or you just have a perguntaquestion , here’s a polite phrase to ask for assistance:
Pode ajudar-me?Can you help me? (sing.,formal)
Or, there are some more desperate alternatives that we hope you don’t have to use. Even without much language, you can probably get help in an emergency situation using these words:
Preciso de ajudaI need help
a políciathe police
os bombeirosfirefighters
o hospitalhospital
Let’s Go!
Vamos lá!Let's go! Ready to practice what you’ve learned in the following Lessons? We’ll introduce you to even more travel-related vocabulary as you go along.
If you’re looking to dive deeper into Portuguese travel-related phrases, feel free to skip ahead to the units below. Just keep in mind that these show up later in our series of Units, so the grammar will be more advanced.
Olá a todos!
I would have thought that can you help me is, ‘Pode me ajudar?’ and not ‘Pode ajudar-me?’
Estou errada?
Obrigada!
Ana
Olá 🙂 Under European Portuguese standards, we can have both “Pode-me ajudar?” or “Pode ajudar-me?”, while “Pode me ajudar?”, although also correct, follows the Brazilian Portuguese standard. The topic of clitic pronoun placement in these cases is discussed in this Learning Note: Verb Phrases & Clitic Pronouns | Practice Portuguese
The Portuguese is shown as “por favor” which I thought was Brazilian and that “se faz favor” was correct in Portugal – I’ve always used that on my visits to Portugal.
“Por favor” is not inherently Brazilian Portuguese and is also very commonly used in Portugal 🙂 But you’re absolutely fine sticking to “se faz favor”. We use both a lot!
If you do eat some of the bread or olives or something else, does the restaurant charge for the whole platter or just what you ate?
Thanks!
They’ll most likely charge for the whole platter, unless the menu lists items separately and you let them know in advance that you won’t want some of them. If you only finish half of your main dish, they’ll charge you for the whole thing as well 🙂
Is is a dialect issue or are my ears playing tricks on me? In some of the examples above, “que” sounds like “key,” and it others it sounds like like the French pronunciation, “kuh.” Am I missing something?
Your ears are working well! What you’re hearing are common pronunciation variations which might occur when an unaccented ending E vowel is followed by other medium or open vowels. This is discussed in detail in this Learning Note: Pronunciation Variations | Practice Portuguese.