Featured App: Practice Portuguese
Most language apps that offer Portuguese teach the Brazilian version. For the expats, travelers and students heading to Portugal, that can be a real problem, from the closed vowel sounds to the subtleties of formal and informal speech. Practice Portuguese was built to solve exactly that. Its app teaches “European Portuguese from Portugal with interactive, step-by-step lessons and a massive library of dialogues,” and it is built with AppPresser.
In this featured app spotlight, we take a closer look at the team behind Practice Portuguese, what the app does, who it serves, and why it is such a strong example of what happens when a WordPress site and a mobile app work together.
Who Is Behind Practice Portuguese
Practice Portuguese is a Lisbon based language learning company, online at practiceportuguese.com, that focuses on only one language: European Portuguese. Since 2012, the team says it has helped thousands of expats, travelers and students worldwide, and its “small-but-mighty” size is a deliberate choice that lets it take a more practical, human approach to the unique challenges of learning the Portuguese spoken in Portugal.
The company was founded by Joel Rendall and Rui Coimbra. Joel was born and raised in Ontario, Canada, and spent years playing drums in a jazz trio on cruise ships before settling in Lisbon in 2012 and starting his own journey as a learner. Frustrated by how hard it was to find non-Brazilian learning resources, and craving more conversational Portuguese audio with transcripts, he teamed up with Rui, a Lisbon native who studied biotechnology and spent many years traveling the world as a flight steward for TAP. As Joel later told Portugalist, the two started a podcast “just to see where it would go,” running it on a default WordPress theme with a simple membership plugin to sell transcripts.
That podcast grew into a full learning platform. Today Practice Portuguese offers more than 100 step by step units from A1 (beginner) to B2 (advanced), more than 800 dialogues with translated subtitles, grammar and culture Learning Notes, verb practice and a members only forum. The company describes itself as 100% member supported, with no ads and no selling of data, and members pay for full access to lessons, transcripts and more. Its listing highlights a Trustpilot score of 4.9, and members’ reviews praise the blend of a native speaker’s pronunciation from Rui with the perspective and empathy of a fellow learner from Joel.
What the Practice Portuguese App Does
The Practice Portuguese app brings the whole platform to iPhone, iPad and Android. Learners can read, write, listen and speak their way to fluency, following the course step by step or jumping straight to the topics they need, from basic greetings and forming questions to practical situations like buying a home, ordering food or opening a bank account.
Here are the main areas the app covers:
- Units, more than 100 interactive lessons from A1 to B2 that cover listening, speaking and grammar.
- Dialogues, a library of 800+ Portuguese Shorties, videos and podcasts with translated subtitles, speed controls, vocabulary lists and comprehension quizzes, with new episodes added regularly.
- Learning Notes, grammar and culture lessons with real world insights and audio examples.
- Smart Review, which saves useful phrases to flash cards and uses spaced repetition, with Flash Card, Quiz and Audio Only modes.
- Verbs, conjugation practice for hundreds of popular Portuguese verbs.
- Instant translation, a European Portuguese translation tool with audio and examples.
- Offline audio, so learners can download dialogues and audio review sessions and listen on the go.
- Answers and support, with help from Portuguese natives and experienced learners, plus one on one support from the team.
The touches that make the app special come from the founders’ own experience as teacher and learner. Pronunciation lessons use video and audio from native speakers all over Portugal, so learners hear the language as it is really spoken. Dialogues are filmed on the streets of Lisbon, with episodes like asking passersby about their plans for the day or about Portugal’s minimum wage. Rui’s grandmother even appears in some episodes, which says a lot about the warm, personal style of the whole project.
Free users can explore Learning Notes, dialogues and offline audio and preview the Premium units, while a Premium membership unlocks everything. The app launched in March 2022 and is free to download on iPhone, iPad and Android, where it has been installed more than 50,000 times.
App Screenshots
Here is a look at the app. Use the arrows or the numbered buttons to move through the screenshots.
100% European Portuguese.
Choose your own path.
Communicate with confidence.
Immersive episodes.
Smart Review.
Instant translation.
Test Drive the App
The best way to understand Practice Portuguese is to try it. Download the free app, start a beginner unit, and listen to a few Shorties to hear European Portuguese the way it is spoken in Portugal.
Key Features That Stand Out
Choose Your Own Path
Learners can follow the units in order or explore freely based on their own goals and interests. Someone preparing for a move might jump to lessons on renting an apartment, while a beginner can work through the course one unit at a time. Each unit mixes listening, speaking and grammar exercises, so every session builds real skills.
Communicate with Confidence
Pronunciation is one of the biggest hurdles in European Portuguese, and the app tackles it head on. Learners hear video and audio from native speakers from all over Portugal, then practice listening to the audio and choosing the correct phrase. It helps them understand real conversations and speak with more confidence.
Immersive Episodes
The dialogue library is where learners really immerse themselves. Episodes cover engaging, relevant topics, offer PDFs and audio for offline listening, and include synced transcripts and translations that follow along as the audio plays. Speed controls and comprehension quizzes help learners move from understanding a few words to following whole conversations.
Smart Review
Smart Review turns useful phrases, vocabulary and expressions into flash cards. It uses spaced repetition, a proven, scientific method for memorization, to bring back each phrase right before it would be forgotten. Learners can review in Flash Card, Quiz or Audio Only mode, which makes daily practice quick and effective.
Instant Translation
The built in translation tool is designed for European Portuguese, not Brazilian, so learners get the words and expressions they will actually hear in Portugal. Results come with audio and example sentences, which makes it useful both for studying and for the moment a learner needs a word at the café or the bank.
At a Glance
- Free to download on iPhone, iPad and Android, with a Premium membership.
- 100+ units from A1 (beginner) to B2 (advanced).
- 800+ dialogues with translated subtitles and synced transcripts.
- Smart Review flash cards with spaced repetition.
- Verb conjugation practice and a European Portuguese translation tool.
- Offline audio, one on one support and no ads.
Who Practice Portuguese Serves
The first audience is expats moving to Portugal. Whether they are relocating for work, retiring or starting a new life, they need practical Portuguese for everyday situations like opening a bank account or buying a home. Practice Portuguese focuses on exactly that kind of real world language, taught in the European variety they will hear every day.
The app also serves travelers and people with family ties to Portugal. Visitors who want more than a phrase book can learn to order food and handle common conversations, while people reconnecting with their Portuguese heritage can finally learn the language their relatives speak. Short Shorties dialogues and offline audio make it easy to learn a little every day, even on a plane.
Finally, the app serves students and serious learners. With lessons that run from A1 to B2, grammar Learning Notes and verb practice, Practice Portuguese supports learners who want to go well beyond the basics. Its listing quotes educators and long time language learners who praise the care and planning behind the platform, which shows how much it offers people who take learning seriously.
Technology Behind the App
Practice Portuguese is powered by its own WordPress site, practiceportuguese.com.
The app is built from WordPress, and WordPress drives it. Lessons, accounts and subscriptions live on the WordPress site, and AppPresser carries that content straight into the app, so updates made on the site show up in the app without a separate system to manage.
Looking at the site itself, these are the platforms behind the experience:
WordPress, the foundation for the learning platform. WordPress is the open source content management system that powers more websites than any other platform.
WooCommerce, which runs the online store. WooCommerce is the open source ecommerce plugin that turns WordPress into an online store.- WooCommerce Subscriptions, for memberships. WooCommerce Subscriptions adds recurring payments to WooCommerce.
GamiPress, for points and daily rewards. GamiPress is a WordPress gamification plugin.
Beaver Builder, for page building. Beaver Builder is a drag and drop page builder for WordPress.
AffiliateWP, for affiliates. AffiliateWP is a WordPress affiliate plugin.
AppPresser, which turns the WordPress site into the mobile app. AppPresser is a mobile app builder that creates native iOS and Android apps from a WordPress site.
What Practice Portuguese Shows About AppPresser
Practice Portuguese is a great example of how AppPresser can bring a WordPress learning platform to mobile. The company has run on WordPress since its very first podcast, and today its site at practiceportuguese.com manages lessons, dialogues, member accounts and subscriptions. With AppPresser, that same platform powers native apps for iPhone, iPad and Android, so the team does not have to maintain a separate system for mobile.
That matters for language learners, because practice happens every day. Learners want to fit in a few minutes on a commute or during lunch, and an app on their phone makes that easy. Features like offline audio and spaced repetition reviews turn the platform into a daily habit, which is exactly what learning a language requires.
It also shows how far a small team can go with WordPress and AppPresser. Practice Portuguese grew from a podcast on a default WordPress theme into a member supported business with tens of thousands of app installs, using WordPress tools like WooCommerce Subscriptions and GamiPress behind the scenes. For any course creator, membership site or online school, it is proof that a WordPress platform can become a polished, successful mobile learning app.
Practice Portuguese in the Press
The story behind Practice Portuguese has drawn interest from the Portugal community online. In an interview with Portugalist, co-founder Joel Rendall described how he moved to Lisbon in 2012, how he and Rui saw a gap in the European Portuguese learning market, and how the project grew from a simple podcast into the platform it is today. Rui and Joel have also been interviewed together on the program Supermix, a conversation the team has shared as a learning episode on its site.
Congratulations to Joel Rendall, Rui Coimbra and the Practice Portuguese team on building an app with more than 50,000 installs on Google Play. We are proud to have AppPresser behind it.
Do You Want Your Own App?
If your organization already runs on WordPress, launching your app with AppPresser is simple. Your app pulls directly from the website you already manage, so every update you make to your site appears in your app automatically. Ready to get started on your app right now? Check out our pricing page.
Not on WordPress yet? AppPresser can still help. Our team can move your website onto WordPress and then set up your app, so everything works together from the start. And if you need something more tailored, from custom features to a completely custom app, our custom development services have you covered.
If you need help or have any questions, tell us about your organization and what you’d like your app to do, and we’ll get back to you with a clear answer on costs and next steps.
