The whole of the Portuguese language can be broken down into several different structures. If you take any sentence from any Portuguese book or any utterance, you will see that it fits into one of these structures.

I remember one weekend, I was writing some lessons for the week ahead, when I suddenly realised this. I noticed that there are a certain number of structures in Portuguese, and that every sentence follows one of these structures. I spent the rest of the weekend working out all the structures, and I wrote them all down.

Every structure you learn gives you the ability to say a huge amount. Some structures are used more than others, but all the structures together make up the whole Portuguese language. Once you’ve learnt how a structure works, all you have to do is insert different words into the slots and you have a sentence.

This course introduces you to structure 1. I’ve limited each course to one structure so as not to overburden you. By looking at just one structure at a time, you can really get to grips with it and understand its usage. It will help to clarify the Portuguese language and make it more like a reflex rather than something you have to think about as is it were a maths equation.

Each structure can also help to propel you to fluency; if you can manipulate the structures at high speed, you can start to say anything you want without having to thing about how to say it.

This course contains plenty of practice opportunities for you to revise what you’ve learnt and it also contains some hints and tips on how best to learn and memorise the structures and the vocabulary that goes with them. You’ll learn how to make questions out of structure 1, how to make statements and how to turn positive statements negative.

The Building Structures in Portuguese series is set out using the same learning techniques as the 3 Minute Portuguese courses. You can work through the course in three minute chunks, enabling anybody to learn Portuguese, no matter how little time you have.