Learn Portuguese (Brazilian) at the International Language Institute in Washington, DC

Register now for our 2025 winter term!

  • Multiple levels
  • Small class size – max. 12 students
  • Native-speaking & experienced instructors
  • Affordable tuition – $380 per level
  • 4 terms per year – each 10 weeks long
  • Convenient downtown location or online

Learn Brazilian Portuguese at the International Language Institute in Washington, DC, or online.

Learn Brazilian Portuguese at ILI consisting of four 10-week terms throughout the year. We offer 8 different levels from beginner to advanced. Our Portuguese classes take place once a week in the evenings or on Saturday mornings. Our teachers are all native-speaking and experienced. The Brazilian Portuguese Language Program integrates speaking, listening, reading, and writing. We maintain small class sizes to enable adequate time for conversation in every class. To find your level, please refer to the level description or use our self-evaluation guide. If you have further questions, please call Jane Edwards, ILI’s Foreign Language Coordinator, at 202-686-5610 extension 105. Enroll now!

Live, Instructor-led In-Person or Online Portuguese (Brazilian) Classes 

Learn Portuguese (Brazilian) in person or online from a live instructor using Zoom. All online classes are instructor-led, in real-time, allowing for the same live interaction as our in-person classes. Some of our classes are a combination of in-person and online students. We have 360-degree cameras in the rooms enabling online participants to feel part of the class. This hybrid class environment allows students to engage with each other and the instructor and to practice reading, writing, listening, and speaking the Portuguese (Brazilian) Language.

Schedule              Register Now!

2025 Term:Session Dates:Registration Deadline:
WinterJan. 13-Mar. 22, 2025Monday, Dec. 29, 2024
SpringApr. 7-Jun. 14, 2025Monday, Mar. 24, 2025
SummerJun. 30-Sep. 6, 2025Monday, Jun. 16, 2025
FallSep. 22-Dec. 6, 2025Monday, Sep. 8, 2025

Portuguese (Brazilian) Level Description

The emphasis of this beginner class is on pronunciation, vocabulary building, basic grammar and basic conversation. This course is for those students with little or no ability in the language. Introduction to basic listening, reading, speaking and writing skills will be addressed throughout the course. Previous Portuguese not required.

Offered on: Mondays: 6:15 - 8:45 pm. Enroll now!

Objective: To introduce the Portuguese language to students who never took Portuguese at school or had Portuguese in their lives at all. The students in this level will experience Portuguese for the first time and will enjoy learning word by word in a dynamic way.

Learning Outcome: Grammatical points covered in class will include the present of regular and irregular verbs; pronouns; articles; possessives; interrogatives; exposure to the phonetics of the language; expressions of time and quantity; family; friends; dining out; seasons; introductions; parts of the body; telling time; prepositions; cardinal numbers; months of the year.

Topics: Tones, initials and finals; names – surnames, full names; ordinal numbers; particles - “de” “ma” “ne” “ba”; nationalities; introductions; auxiliary nouns

Textbook: "Aquarela," by Tarcicio Buriti $82

Lessons: Phonetics, introduction, and lessons 1- 3
This course is the continuation of the Basic 1 level and for students who have taken formal instruction a while ago, or have previous informal exposure to the language. Building of the basic foundation provided in the introductory level, students will learn to introduce themselves and conduct simple conversations on a range of everyday subjects. Listening, reading, speaking and writing skills will be addressed throughout the course.

Offered on: Tuesdays: 6:15 – 8:45 pm.Enroll now!

Objective: To continue the introduction of the Portuguese language to students who took Portuguese Basic 1 or students who took some introductory Portuguese previously. The students in this level will learn to express their ideas spoken and orally in simple present tense of the most common regular and irregular verbs. The basic past tense will be introduced.

Learning Outcome: After completing this level, students will be able to engage in conversation with greater ease while increasing their use of more complex grammar such as the past and future tenses with focuses on, imperative and indicative forms. They will be able to say or express their ideas, sentences and desires easily at a basic beginner’s level and will also continue to build on vocabulary and are able to read and write longer texts. They will learn enough vocabulary to continue with Portuguese Basic 3.

Topics: Students will be introduced to the basic future and past verb tenses and will learn how to conjugate the most common action verbs. Grammatical topics will include demonstrative pronouns; possessive pronouns; irregular verbs; prepositions; contractions; adverbs; ordinal numbers; present continuous tense; the restaurant; idiomatic expressions; colors.

Textbook: "Aquarela," by Tarcicio Buriti $82

Lessons: 4-6
This level continues to build up necessary grammar skills that will enable students to understand, read, write and translate sentences and paragraphs. It continues to build on Basic 2 by adding vocabulary and more complex sentences. This course is well-suited for students that have completed at least one semester of college-level Portuguese or the equivalent in a language institute. Students will learn to correctly use present, past and future tenses, along with more complex vocabulary and grammar. Listening, reading, speaking and writing skills will continue to be addressed throughout the course.

Offered on: Wednesdays: 6:15 – 8:45 pm. Enroll now!

Objective: Students will continue with the Portuguese basic program with more difficult and much deeper structure for building sentences. To make students use Portuguese structures taught in the previous level by continuing to build and use more difficult and much deeper sentence structures. The students in this level will express their ideas by using a solid vocabulary foundation of adjectives and adverbs.

Learning Outcome: Building on the previous Basic levels, students at this level will rapidly expand their vocabulary and use expressions more precisely used in a wider range of situations. The students will be able to have a basic conversation based on daily activities. They will be able to say or express their ideas with a full command of adjectives and adverbs. The will be able to understand and be understood in three major tenses, present, past, and future. Students are now ready for the intermediate level courses.

Topics: The compound forms of all the regular and irregular verbs introduced so far, are introduced and practiced. Other grammatical topics will include the imperative mood; more idiomatic expressions; genders; comparatives and superlatives; conditional and imperfect verb tense; geography; immigration; history.

Textbook: "Aquarela," by Tarcicio Buriti $82

Lessons: 7-10
Offered on: Mondays: 6:15 – 8:45 pm. Enroll now!

This course is designed for learners who have already gained a sound grounding in Portuguese syntax and who have acquired a foundation in vocabulary. The intermediate level consolidates this foundation and develops further skills in listening, speaking, reading and writing. Learners will develop both oral and written skills and enrich their vocabulary. While the focus will continue to be on Brazilian Portuguese, learners will also encounter linguistic and cultural aspects of the rest of the Portuguese-speaking world.

Objective: To acquire vocabulary and structures enabling learners to discuss family relationships, describe routine activities, express opinions, preferences and feelings, talk about past events and ongoing situations, describe physical and emotional states, and express familiarity.

Outcome: Learners will be able to express opinions, plans and preferences, and when, where and how an action occurs. Learners will be able to describe the duration of activities, ongoing actions, physical and emotional states and talk about the past.

Topics: Topics will cover family and society, housing, domestic chores, shopping, clothing and consumer goods and markets. Grammatical structures covered will include faz and há with expressions of time; the Preterit tense; expressions with ter, estar com and ficar com; reflexive verbs and pronouns; demonstrative adjectives and pronouns; direct object nouns and pronouns; tag questions; use of por and para.

Textbook: Ponto de Encontro, Portuguese as a World Language, 2nd Edition Clémence M. C. Jouët-Pastré et al, Pearson, $140

Lessons: Lessons 4 to 6, pp. 152 to 265, plus supplemental material selected or generated by the instructor.
Offered on: Wednesdays: 6:15 – 8:45 pm. Enroll now!

This course is designed for learners who have already gained a sound grounding in Portuguese syntax and who have acquired a foundation in vocabulary. The intermediate level consolidates this foundation and develops further skills in listening, speaking, reading and writing. Learners will develop both oral and written skills and enrich their vocabulary. While the focus will continue to be on Brazilian Portuguese, learners will also encounter linguistic and cultural aspects of the rest of the Portuguese-speaking world.

Objective: To acquire vocabulary and structures enabling learners to discuss physical and leisure activities, sports and sporting events, weather conditions, holiday activities, religion, the work place and professions, interpersonal relationships and national, regional and global economies.

Outcome: Learners will be able to talk about ongoing past events and states, express how long ago events and states occurred, extend, accept and decline invitations, express intent, make comparisons, and give orders and instructions. Learners will also be able to discuss job skills and abilities and ask about professional qualifications and requirements.

Topics: Topics will cover sports and leisure, weather, religion, professional life, national, regional and global economies. Grammatical structures covered will include Indirect object nouns and pronouns, the Imperfect tense, há and faz meaning 'ago', comparisons of equality and inequality, the superlative, reflexive verbs and pronouns, se as an impersonal subject, interrogative pronouns, and the Imperative.

Textbook: Ponto de Encontro, Portuguese as a World Language, 2nd Edition Clémence M. C. Jouët-Pastré et al, Pearson, $140

Lessons: Lessons 7 to 9, pp. 266 to 373, plus supplemental material selected or generated by the instructor.
Offered on: Thursdays: 6:15 – 8:45 pm. Enroll now!

This course is designed for learners who have already gained a sound grounding in Portuguese syntax and who have acquired a foundation in vocabulary. The intermediate level consolidates this foundation and develops further skills in listening, speaking, reading and writing. Learners will develop both oral and written skills and enrich their vocabulary. While the focus will continue to be on Brazilian Portuguese, learners will also encounter linguistic and cultural aspects of the rest of the Portuguese-speaking world.

Objective: To acquire vocabulary and structures enabling learners to discuss food, shopping, and culinary traditions, to describe the body, health and medical treatments, and to compare healthcare systems, to make travel arrangements and discuss itineraries, and to ask for and give directions.

Outcome: Learners will be able to express wishes and hopes, opinions and doubts, give informal orders and instructions, express emotions and attitudes, and express collective decisions and requests. Learners will also be able to state goals and purposes, express denial and uncertainty, talk about past expectations, desires and demands.

Topics: Topics will cover food and cuisine, health and healthcare, and traveling. Grammatical structures covered will include the Present Subjunctive to express wishes and hopes; the Present Subjunctive with verbs and expressions of doubt; further treatment of the Imperative; the Subjunctive with expressions of emotion; additional uses of por and para; relative pronouns; the Indicative and Subjunctive in adjective clauses; the Subjunctive in adverbial clauses; the Past Subjunctive.

Textbook: Ponto de Encontro, Portuguese as a World Language, 2nd Edition Clémence M. C. Jouët-Pastré et al, Pearson, $140

Lessons: Lessons 10 to 12, pp. 374 to 477, plus supplemental material selected or generated by the instructor.
Offered on: Thursdays 6:15 - 8:45 pm Enroll now!

This course is designed for learners who have achieved an upper intermediate level and who wish to deepen their knowledge and understanding of Portuguese to express themselves in spoken and written communication with greater fluidity, clarity and precision. Learners will refine their knowledge of the tense system and tense agreement, gaining greater variety in syntactic structures and a richer vocabulary. Learners will begin to express more abstract concepts, opinions and beliefs, and further broaden their knowledge of the Portuguese-speaking world and cultures.

Objective: To acquire vocabulary and structures enabling learners to describe environmental issues, social conditions and political systems, to express political opinions, to discuss advances in science and technology, and to hypothesize and express subjective perceptions and attitudes.

Outcome: Learners will be able to describe states and conditions, give opinions, talk about the future and express hypothetical conditions, describe ongoing states and activities, communicate about object-oriented events, and express counterfactual conditions in the present.

Topics: Topics will cover environmental conditions, social conditions and political systems, and science and technology. Grammatical structures covered will include the Future tense, the Conditional tense, reciprocal verbs and pronouns, the past participle, the passive voice, the Present Perfect, the Past Perfect, the impersonal and personal infinitives, if-clause sentences, and diminutives and augmentatives.

Textbook: Ponto de Encontro, Portuguese as a World Language, 2nd Edition Clémence M. C. Jouët-Pastré et al, Pearson, $140,

Lessons: Lessons 13 to 15, pp. 478 to 561, plus supplemental material selected or generated by the instructor.
Offered on: Tuesdays 6:15 - 8:45 pm Enroll now!

This course is devoted to reading newspaper and magazine articles, listening to radio, and watching TV from various Portuguese media outlets about political/societal/ economic/business/scientific/cultural/ events. Discussion of related topics will follow elaborating on new vocabulary from the authentic Brazilian Portuguese materials. New items will be analyzed in content.

Objective: To acquire vocabulary and review grammar using authentic Brazilian Portuguese materials such as newspaper articles, and radio and TV broadcasts thus providing more sophisticated structure and vocabulary in Brazilian Portuguese. With this new, more advanced and complex vocabulary and syntax, students will become accustomed to communicating in the most advanced tenses and vocabulary. Through this mixture of media in Brazilian Portuguese, students will be able to analyze current events, and converse and think critically about them in Brazilian Portuguese.

Outcome: Upon completion of this course, students will be able to better understand not only straightforward news reports but also commentaries and opinion pieces in all forms of media. They will be able to hold complex conversations about the news in Brazilian Portuguese and give their opinions.

Topics: Topics will include Government and Politics, Society and Culture, Science and Technology. International Relations and Business and Economics. Grammar will be reviewed in context.

Materials: Various sources of newspapers, radio broadcasts and TV programs.

Program Details

$380 for a 10-week one level class per student. Au-Pairs can receive a 10% discount on tuition with proof of their status. Enroll now!
May be purchased at the time of registration or at the Institute before or on the first day of class. All prices quoted include a 6% DC sales tax and all prices are subject to change at any time. Tax-exempt organizations or individuals need to provide proof of sales tax exemption before being charged. No retroactive refunds of sales tax. Once received by the student, books and other materials are the property of the student and are non-refundable.
Regarding placement, we recommend that you go to our self-evaluation guide on our website. Kindly read through each description of each level. If you feel that you are able to fulfill all the tasks described in one level, then move on to the next level and so on, until you reach a description of tasks that you are unable to fulfill. That would correspond to the level of classes in which you should enroll. If, once enrolled, you should not feel comfortable at that level, you can transfer to another level, availability permitting.

We do not offer placement tests.
Regular group classes meet once weekly in the evening (6:15-8:45 pm ET) or on Saturday mornings (10 am-12:30 pm ET) for 10 weeks. Each session is 2.5 hours. All class hours are U.S. Eastern Time (Standard or Daylight Saving). Classes cancelled due to holidays, instructors’ sickness, or other unforeseen circumstances are made up at the end of the regular term unless the entire class can arrange for a make-up on another day of the week.
In-person at ILI and online via Zoom. Our classes are usually held in person at Rhode Island Ave NW, Suite 100, Washington, DC 20036. Classes are also offered online via Zoom. We are within walking distance from the Metro's Dupont Circle (South exit) and Farragut North stations. Parking garages are close by and parking on the street is available after 6:30 pm.
Minimum 3, maximum 12 students. We recommend signing up as early as possible so we can adequately plan for all classes. If the minimum enrollment of at least 3 students per class is not met, we will have to cancel that class after the registration deadline has passed. In case of a cancellation, students will be given the opportunity to change classes, postpone their enrollment or request a full refund.
Our program requires each student to participate in weekly quizzes, which will be graded, based on a “Pass” or “Fail” system. There will be a final quiz that will measure the sum of the instructional objectives for the course. Grades are verbally communicated to students at the end of each class/course, and are marked on the attendance/performance sheet. Students must have completed and passed at least 70% of the quizzes to move to the next level.
It is important for students to attend every class meeting. It is also important that they arrive on time for class. We cover a lot of material in each class. The instructor cannot repeat material for students who are absent or come late. Students will be marked absent when they do not come to class. Missed group classes may only be made up if the same level is being offered on another day and the class is not at full capacity. Students who arrive 15 minutes after the advertised starting time will be marked late. For every 3 times that the student is marked as late, it will count as a missed hour. If we notice that a student’s attendance is in danger of falling below 70%, we will issue an attendance report to the student.
Per request, we can issue certificates of completion after the term has ended. The certificate can be ordered at the front desk. In order to be eligible to receive a certificate or pass to the next level, you are required to attend a minimum of 70% of the classes and have a “Passing” grade. We will need a couple of days in order to verify your attendance and passing grade before issuing the certificate.
ILI’s foreign language group programs are accredited by ACCET (Accrediting Council for Continuing Education & Training), and we also offer 2.5 Continuing Education Units (CEU’s) per every successfully completed course, 5.0 for the accelerated courses. Upon request, our Certificates of Completion can include the CEU’s earned per semester.
No refunds are issued for any reason after the registration deadline for the term (see Schedule above). Classes cancelled due to holidays, instructors’ sickness, or other unforeseen circumstances are made up at the end of the regular term unless the entire class can arrange for a make-up on another day of the week. Individually missed group classes may only be made up if the same level is being offered on another day and the class is not at full capacity. Otherwise there is no make-up for individually missed classes.
The International Language Institute reserves the right to cancel any class if deemed necessary. Prior to commencement of class, students will be given a full refund. In the event of cancellation after the commencement of class, the pro-rata portion of the unexpended tuition will be refunded. The prorated amount of refundable monies will be determined by the ratio of classes completed to the total number of classes in the scheduled program. The International Language Institute reserves the right to assign substitute instructors whenever necessary.
Classes are cancelled in accordance with federal government closures for the entire day due to inclement weather. Please check public announcements on radio, TV and the internet; or call ILI at (202) 362-2505. Closures are also posted on our Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/ILIinDC. We rarely follow early dismissals.

ILI is closed for the following holidays: Martin Luther King Day, Presidents' Day, Memorial Day, Juneteenth, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day, New Year's Day. Group classes will not meet on these holidays and the missed class(es) will be made up at the end of the term.
Please contact our Foreign Language Coordinator, Jane Edwards, at (202) 686-5610 ext. 105 or at [email protected].