Travel and Survival Portuguese

You are going to Portugal. You have a week, two weeks, maybe a month. You do not need to conjugate the future subjunctive. You do not need to place clitics correctly. You need to greet people politely, order food and coffee, ask where the bathroom is, catch the right bus, find your hotel, and survive if something goes wrong.

This path gives you the minimum grammar plus the maximum-utility phrases for travel in Portugal. It favours usable patterns over completeness. Where a grammar purist would insist on the correct form, a traveler can often get by with a slightly wrong but understandable version — and the Portuguese speaker will help you. Politeness and effort matter more than precision.

A few things will serve you better than studying hard:

1. Learn se faz favor, obrigado/a, and desculpe well enough to use them reflexively.
2. Smile and try. Portuguese people appreciate tourists who make the effort, even a small one. Most under-40s speak functional English and will switch if you struggle.
3. Carry a phrasebook or your phone. Written Portuguese is much more recognizable than spoken.
4. Learn a few PT-PT specifics (it is se faz favor, not the Brazilian por favor; it is bica or café for espresso, not cafezinho).

This page is organized by travel situation. Each section gives you the phrases you need and links to the fuller grammar pages for anyone who wants to dig deeper.

Part 1 — Greetings and courtesy

Hello, goodbye, thank you

Note on obrigado/a: the word agrees with the speaker's gender, not the listener's. A man says obrigado; a woman says obrigada. This is one of those details native speakers notice immediately.

"Please" and "excuse me"

PT-PT cultural note: se faz favor is the go-to polite marker in Portugal. You use it to soften requests (Um café, se faz favor) and to get a server's attention (Faz favor! or Se faz favor! across a café). Spanish por favor works but se faz favor marks you as someone who knows Portugal.

"How are you?" exchanges

See pragmatics/greetings for the full range.

Part 2 — Asking for things

The magic word: Queria

Learn this one word. Queria means "I would like" — technically a conditional form of querer, but learners can use it as a chunk without worrying about why. It is softer and more polite than the blunt quero (I want).

This is one of the highest-value patterns in travel Portuguese. Memorize it.

Asking if something exists or is available

Note: casa de banho is the PT-PT word for toilet/bathroom in public places. In Brazilian Portuguese it is banheiro. Use casa de banho in Portugal.

Asking for help or repetition

See questions/asking-for-help.

Part 3 — Cafés, restaurants, and ordering

Coffee — essential vocabulary for Portugal

Portuguese coffee culture is distinctive. A few terms you will encounter:

Pastries and snacks

Beer and wine

Water and soft drinks

Ordering a meal

Paying

Tipping note: tipping in Portugal is not obligatory. A tip of 5–10% is generous in a restaurant; rounding up to the nearest euro is normal in cafés. No one will chase you for a tip, and waiters are not dependent on tips as income.

See pragmatics/ordering-food.

Part 4 — Directions

Asking where something is — three options

Portuguese has three verbs that all translate to English "is" in location contexts. For travel you can use them roughly interchangeably; natives will understand all three.

PT-PT prefers fica for permanent geographic locations (shops, monuments, stations). É works too. Está is usually for temporary locations (where your keys are right now).

Directional vocabulary

See pragmatics/asking-directions.

Part 5 — Transport

Getting around

Buying tickets and asking about times

On the bus, metro, tram

Taxis

Trams in Lisbon

The famous Lisbon trams — especially the 28 — are a rite of passage for visitors. Specific vocabulary:

Part 6 — Lodging

At the reception desk

Lodging vocabulary

Problems in the room

See pragmatics/hotel-lodging.

Part 7 — Shopping

Part 8 — Emergencies

Essential phrases

Health

If something is stolen or lost

Emergency number in Portugal: 112 — for police, ambulance, and fire.

See pragmatics/emergencies.

Part 9 — Numbers, money, and time

Numbers to know

Note: the words for 1, 2, and 200–900 agree in gender. Um livro / uma casa, dois meninos / duas meninas, duzentos euros / duzentas pessoas.

PT-PT vs PT-BR: Brazil uses dezesseis, dezessete, dezenove where PT-PT uses dezasseis, dezassete, dezanove.

Money

Portugal uses the euro. Coins are called cêntimos (100 to the euro). Prices in shops and menus are in euros and cêntimos.

Time

Part 10 — Minimum-viable grammar

A week or two of traveling does not require the full grammar — but a handful of verb forms and patterns give you ten times the mileage of any vocabulary list. Memorize these in the present tense:

Key verbs in present tense (you + they forms)

The queria pattern — the most useful structure in travel Portuguese

Queria + infinitive / noun = "I would like to..." / "I would like..."

Use queria anywhere you would say "I'd like" in English. It is consistently polite and consistently understood.

Yes/no questions by intonation

Portuguese forms yes/no questions simply by raising intonation at the end. No word-order change required.

Asking "what?" / "how much?" — short forms

See questions/overview.

Part 11 — Cultural and register notes for Portugal

Não faz mal — "no problem"

One of the most common phrases you will hear. Use it when someone apologizes or when something small goes wrong.

Pois... — a discourse marker

Portuguese speakers use pois as a filler, as agreement, and as a pause. It is roughly equivalent to English "right..." or "well..." — you will hear it constantly. You do not need to produce it, but recognize that it is meaningful.

Tipping

Tipping is not expected in Portugal the way it is in North America. A 5–10% tip in a restaurant is generous. Rounding up in a café is normal. No one will chase you for a tip; servers are salaried.

Mealtimes

Portuguese mealtimes run later than Northern European ones:

• Pequeno-almoço (breakfast): 8–10am.
• Almoço (lunch): 1–3pm. Restaurants often do not serve outside these hours.
• Lanche (afternoon snack): around 5pm, often at a pastelaria.
• Jantar (dinner): 8–10pm. Restaurants may not open until 7:30 or 8.

Getting a server's attention

Raise your hand slightly, catch their eye, and say Faz favor! or Se faz favor! You do not snap fingers. You do not shout garçon! (that is French). You do not wave furiously.

Basic tu vs você

As a tourist interacting with servers, hotel staff, and officials, the safest pattern in PT-PT is to avoid both tu and você and simply use the third-person verb form (with o senhor / a senhora if you need to address the person directly). Você can sound cold or distant in Portugal — unlike in Brazil, it is not a neutral polite pronoun. Tu is for friends you have made, young people your age, children. If someone uses tu with you, you can return it; if they address you as o senhor / a senhora, stay formal.

See choosing/tu-vs-voce.

Part 12 — A starter phrase reference card

If you memorize nothing else from this page, memorize these twenty phrases:

1. Bom dia / Boa tarde / Boa noite — greetings by time of day.
2. Olá! — hi.
3. Adeus / Até logo — goodbye / see you later.
4. Obrigado / Obrigada — thank you (match your own gender).
5. Se faz favor — please.
6. Com licença — excuse me (passing through).
7. Desculpe — sorry / excuse me.
8. Como está? / Tudo bem? — how are you?
9. Estou bem, obrigado/a — I'm well, thank you.
10. Não percebo — I don't understand.
11. Fala inglês? — do you speak English?
12. Fale mais devagar — speak more slowly.
13. Queria um café, se faz favor — I'd like a coffee, please.
14. Tem...? — do you have...?
15. Quanto custa? — how much?
16. Aceita cartão? — do you accept card?
17. Onde fica...? — where is...?
18. A conta, se faz favor — the bill, please.
19. Socorro! — help!
20. Não faz mal — no problem.

Take these and go.

What to do next

If you catch the bug and want to continue studying Portuguese seriously:

• See paths/absolute-beginner for a structured first-weeks plan.
• See paths/english-speakers if you are an English speaker.
• See paths/spanish-speakers if you are a Spanish speaker.
• See paths/overview for the full guide navigator.

For travel-specific follow-ups:

• pragmatics/courtesy — deeper treatment of politeness.
• pragmatics/greetings — the full greeting repertoire.
• pragmatics/ordering-food — more restaurant Portuguese.
• pragmatics/asking-directions — the full direction vocabulary.
• pragmatics/emergencies — more health and safety language.

Portugal rewards effort. A tourist who says bom dia, se faz favor, obrigado with genuine warmth is treated very differently from one who speaks only English. The grammar does not have to be perfect. The politeness and the attempt are what matter.

Boa viagem!