Talking about languages in Portuguese is easy once you absorb three small facts that English gets very wrong. First, language names are lowercase — português, inglês, espanhol — never capitalized the way Portuguese, English, Spanish are in English. Second, after the verb falar ("to speak") you use no article — falo inglês, not falo o inglês. Third, the language word is usually identical to the masculine demonym — alemão is both "German person" and "the German language." This page walks through all three, plus how to say something is written or said in a language.
Language names are LOWERCASE
This is the single most common spelling mistake English speakers make. In English, language names are proper adjectives and get a capital letter. In Portuguese they are ordinary common nouns, so they stay lowercase — exactly like the nationality adjectives they come from (see adjectives/nationality-adjectives and nouns/proper-nouns for the capitalization rules).
Eu falo português, inglês e um pouco de espanhol.
I speak Portuguese, English and a little Spanish.
Ela está aprendendo japonês na faculdade.
She's learning Japanese at college.
Quero estudar alemão antes de me mudar pra Berlim.
I want to study German before I move to Berlin.
Reference table: the main languages
The language name is shown lowercase, as it always appears in running text.
| English | Portuguese (language) | Related country / demonym |
|---|---|---|
| Portuguese | português | Portugal / o Brasil; português(a) |
| English | inglês | a Inglaterra; inglês / inglesa |
| Spanish | espanhol | a Espanha; espanhol / espanhola |
| French | francês | a França; francês / francesa |
| German | alemão | a Alemanha; alemão / alemã |
| Italian | italiano | a Itália; italiano / italiana |
| Japanese | japonês | o Japão; japonês / japonesa |
| Chinese / Mandarin | chinês / mandarim | a China; chinês / chinesa |
| Russian | russo | a Rússia; russo / russa |
| Arabic | árabe | (various); árabe |
| Korean | coreano | a Coreia; coreano / coreana |
After "falar": no article
When falar takes a language as its direct object, the language goes bare — no article. This matches how English works (I speak French, not I speak the French), so it feels natural, but it is worth stating because the rule flips when the language becomes a subject (next section).
Você fala francês?
Do you speak French?
Meu avô falava italiano em casa.
My grandfather used to speak Italian at home.
Eles não falam inglês, mas se viram com gestos.
They don't speak English, but they get by with gestures.
The same bare-language pattern shows up with entender (to understand) and saber (to know how): entendo um pouco de alemão, ela sabe russo.
The reason the article disappears here is that the language is being treated as a mass — a skill or medium you possess some amount of, not a bounded object. It is the same instinct that lets you say tomo café (I drink coffee, no article) rather than tomo o café. You are not speaking about the English as a specific thing; you are reporting a capacity. This is why um pouco de inglês ("a bit of English") feels so natural — the de there is partitive, measuring out a portion of an uncountable skill.
As a subject or object of study: with article
Here is the twist. When the language is the subject of a sentence, or the object of studying / learning / liking, it takes the definite article — o inglês, o alemão, o japonês. This is because the language is now being treated as a thing in itself, a topic, rather than a skill you simply "do." English drops the article in both cases; Portuguese keeps it here.
O alemão é difícil, mas o italiano é bem mais fácil.
German is hard, but Italian is much easier.
Estudo o japonês há três anos.
I've been studying Japanese for three years.
O português brasileiro tem uma melodia muito própria.
Brazilian Portuguese has a very distinctive melody.
So the contrast to internalize is: falo inglês (skill, no article) versus o inglês é uma língua global (topic/subject, article). In practice, after estudar and aprender both versions are heard — estudo japonês and estudo o japonês are both fine — but the article is obligatory when the language heads a subject phrase like o japonês é difícil.
"em + language" = "in that language"
To say something is written, said, sung, or filmed in a particular language, use em + the bare language name. No contraction here, because the language after em is article-less in this construction. This is the medium sense of "in" — the channel the message travels through — and it stays bare for the same reason falar takes no article: the language is a mass, not a bounded object.
It is worth contrasting this directly with English, which uses the same little word "in" for two different jobs: in Brazil (location) and in Portuguese (medium). Portuguese keeps them apart only by whether an article shows up: no Brasil (location, with contraction) versus em português (medium, bare). So if you ever find yourself wanting to write no português for "in Portuguese," stop — the medium sense never takes the article.
O artigo está escrito em português.
The article is written in Portuguese.
Ela cantou uma música em francês.
She sang a song in French.
Prefiro assistir aos filmes em inglês, com legendas.
I prefer to watch movies in English, with subtitles.
Languages match the masculine demonym
For most languages the word is identical to the masculine singular demonym: o japonês (the language) is the same word as um homem japonês (a Japanese man). This is why alemão covers both "German person (male)" and "the German language," and russo covers both "Russian man" and "the Russian language." The feminine demonym (japonesa, alemã, russa) is only for people, never for the language.
Ele é alemão e, claro, fala alemão perfeitamente.
He's German and, of course, speaks German perfectly.
A língua portuguesa é falada em quatro continentes.
The Portuguese language is spoken on four continents.
That last example shows the alternative, more formal way to name a language: a língua + feminine adjective — a língua portuguesa, a língua inglesa, a língua árabe. This is the (formal / academic) phrasing you'll meet in textbooks and official documents; in everyday speech people just say o português.
Common Mistakes
❌ Eu falo Português e Inglês.
Incorrect — language names are lowercase
✅ Eu falo português e inglês.
I speak Portuguese and English.
❌ Ela fala o francês fluentemente.
Incorrect — after falar, no article
✅ Ela fala francês fluentemente.
She speaks French fluently.
❌ Japonês é difícil.
Incorrect — as a subject, the language needs its article
✅ O japonês é difícil.
Japanese is hard.
❌ O livro está escrito no português.
Incorrect — 'in a language' uses bare em, no contraction
✅ O livro está escrito em português.
The book is written in Portuguese.
❌ Eu falo ingles.
Incorrect — missing the circumflex
✅ Eu falo inglês.
I speak English.
Key Takeaways
- Language names are lowercase in Portuguese: português, inglês, espanhol, alemão.
- After falar (and entender, saber) the language is bare: falo inglês.
- As a subject or topic, the language takes the article: o alemão é difícil.
- em + language = "in that language": escreve em português.
- The language usually equals the masculine demonym (alemão = German person and German language); a língua portuguesa is the formal alternative.
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Start learning Portuguese→Related Topics
- Nationality AdjectivesA1 — How Brazilian Portuguese forms nationality and city adjectives — they agree in gender and number, stay lowercase, and double freely as nouns.
- Countries and Nationalities: OverviewA1 — How country names in Brazilian Portuguese lexically take (or drop) the definite article, how that choice drives the preposition, and how nationalities and languages stay lowercase.
- Proper Nouns and CapitalizationA2 — What Brazilian Portuguese capitalizes and — crucially — what it lowercases: months, days, languages, nationalities, and religions that English would capitalize.
- Lusophone CountriesA2 — The nine Portuguese-speaking countries of the CPLP — their names, articles, prepositions and demonyms — from Brasil and Portugal to the African PALOP and Timor-Leste.
- When BR Omits the ArticleA2 — The patterns where Brazilian Portuguese drops the article: fixed prepositional phrases (em casa, a pé, de carro), bare professions, exclamations with que, vocatives, and telegraphic registers like headlines and proverbs.