Learn 360 B1 Portuguese Words: A Flashcard Study Guide from Connectors to Irregular Preterites

Most B1 Portuguese learners have the same gap: they can order a coffee and talk about their weekend, but the everyday words that hold a sentence together — embora, ainda, atrás, em direção — still come out in English. The Portuguese Vocabulary B1 — Expanding deck on Flip It (deck code IF0038, 360 cards) targets exactly that layer: high-frequency verbs, connectors, adjectives and concrete nouns you meet in any Brazilian text or conversation.

What the 360 cards cover

One English word on the front, its Brazilian Portuguese equivalent on the back, no sentence to decode.

• Core verbs: precisar, tentar, seguir, agir, perguntar, mudar, colocar, manter, deixar, cobrir, carregar, parecer, acontecer, decidir, verificar, trazer, esperar, segurar, alcançar, acreditar, escolher, incluir, dividir, provar, pegar, dirigir, desenvolver, governar, caçar
• Irregular preterite forms as separate cards: foi (went), viu (saw), levou (took), começou (began), conseguiu (got), disse (told), trouxe (brought), deu (gave), ficou (stood), ouviu (heard), sentiu (felt), manteve (kept), correu (ran), sentou (sat)
• Connectors and adverbs: através, embora, ainda, atrás, talvez, em direção, entre, frequentemente, de novo, em breve, uma vez, sempre, acima, menos, vários, suficiente
• Adjectives: pequeno, velho, alto, difícil, último, próximo, ocupado, comum, profundo, distante, escuro, repentino, selvagem, solitário, pesado, largo, lento, provável, verdadeiro, correto, capaz
• Nouns by field: geography (fazenda, montanha, rio, planície, ilha, oceano, floresta, estrada, região), science and school (ciência, célula, energia, matéria, fração, sílaba, vogal, substantivo, verbo, padrão), objects (navio, roda, pneu, motor, máquina, tábua, vidro, caixa), weather and seasons (vento, neve, chuva, gelo, calor, verão, inverno)
• Measurement: milha, polegada, libra, metade, comprimento, peso, tamanho, unidade

Sample cards

Three things to know before you start

This is Brazilian Portuguese. Trem (train), grama (grass), cachorro (dog) and fato without the European c all point to Brazil. If you are studying for Portugal, note the European variants (comboio, relva, cão, facto) on your own cards rather than fighting the deck.

Watch the false friends and ambiguous fronts. Fine is translated as multa (a penalty), not bem. Stead becomes lugar. Pose, real, base, usual, final and material are identical in both languages, so treat those cards as pronunciation drills rather than vocabulary.

Pair the past-tense cards with their infinitives. When saw → viu comes up, say the infinitive aloud too (ver, viu; trazer, trouxe; dar, deu; manter, manteve). Fourteen irregular preterites are hidden in these 360 cards, and reciting the pair is the cheapest way to fix them.

A realistic schedule

At 30 new cards a day the deck takes 12 days; keep reviewing the misses for another week. Study English→Portuguese first (recognition is easy at B1, production is the bottleneck), then flip the deck to Portuguese→English for a final pass to catch the near-synonyms the deck deliberately includes: pequeno for both little and small, grande for great, large, big and grand, começar for start and begin, certo for right, sure and certain.

Log in at flip-it.app, search deck code IF0038 in the library, and start with the connectors block: it is the part of B1 vocabulary that changes how your sentences sound the fastest.