Online Portuguese courses for university, from Celpe-Bras to your thesis

Most international students who study in Portuguese go to Brazil or Portugal, for a full degree or an exchange semester in cities such as São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Lisbon, Coimbra or Porto. The two countries differ in their language proof, their variant and their academic texts. A variant is one of the two standards of Portuguese, Brazilian or European.

Portugal follows the Bologna structure, with a first degree called licenciatura, usually three years, followed by the mestrado. In Brazil a bachelor's degree usually takes four years or longer and often ends with the TCC, a final paper written under supervision. Students from EU universities usually reach Portugal through Erasmus+, the EU programme for study exchanges, and both the home and the host university then agree on a recommended language level.

CAPLE is the University of Lisbon's centre for Portuguese as a foreign language, and its exams cover the levels A1 to C2 of the CEFR, the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages.

Brazilian universities ask foreign applicants for the Celpe-Bras as language proof for undergraduate and graduate programmes. The Celpe-Bras is the only Portuguese certificate officially granted by the Brazilian government, and Inep, Brazil's education testing institute, runs it twice a year in Brazil and abroad.

The exam has a written part of three hours, with four writing tasks based on a video, an audio recording and two texts, and an oral part of 20 minutes with two examiners. You need at least the level Intermediário, 2.00 points on a scale from 0 to 5, in both parts, and the lower result counts. The certificate has no fixed expiry date, but universities may set their own validity period.

Portugal has no single national language test for university entry. Each university states in its regulations which level and which certificates it accepts, and CAPLE exams such as the DEPLE for B1 or the DIPLE for B2 are common proof. Exchange students should ask the host university's international office which level it expects.

Academic Portuguese sounds more impersonal than everyday speech. Four features mark a scholarly text in both variants.

1. Impersonal constructions with se carry the argument, such as verifica-se que (it can be seen that) or observa-se (one observes).
2. Authors avoid eu (I) and write in the first person plural or impersonally.
3. Spoken forms such as a gente for we, common in Brazil, and você do not belong in academic texts.
4. Nouns carry much of the content, as in a implementação do projeto instead of implementar o projeto.

Citation rules differ by country. Brazilian universities usually follow the standards of ABNT, the Brazilian Association of Technical Standards, with NBR 6023 for reference lists. In Portugal, the department or the supervisor usually sets the citation style. Brazilian theses usually open with a resumo, a summary in Portuguese, followed by an abstract in a foreign language, so you write the same content twice in two registers.

The Orthographic Agreement of 1990 unified much of the spelling, and some differences remain. In Portugal a fact is a facto and fato means a suit, while in Brazil fato means fact.

Lectures challenge learners more than reading does. In Lisbon or Coimbra, unstressed vowels almost disappear, so fast lectures sound compressed. In Brazil, accents differ by region, and in Rio de Janeiro an s at the end of a syllable sounds like sh.

Seminars ask you to present a text, defend a position and answer questions. Emails to teaching staff follow conventions that a course should practise.

• In Brazil, a formal email to a professor often opens with Prezado Professor or Prezada Professora.
• In Portugal, formal emails often use the full academic title, as in Exmo. Senhor Professor Doutor.
• In both countries, a short, polite request with your course and student number gets answered sooner than a long message.

Plan backwards from the application deadline of your target university.

1. 12 months before: Take a placement test, fix the variant and set a CEFR goal, usually B1 or B2.
2. 9 months before: Read academic texts in Portuguese and listen to recorded lectures every week.
3. 6 months before: Practise the exam format, for the Celpe-Bras with integrated tasks that turn a video, an audio or a text into your own piece of writing.
4. 4 months before: Sit the exam in a session that still leaves time for a second attempt.
5. After admission: Take a course in academic writing and ask the international office about Portuguese courses for international students.