Chris Denyer

My name is Chris, and I am passionate about everything Portuguese! I started learning 20 years ago to join a volunteer project supporting the migrant community in the Littlehampton/Bognor Regis area of England, and quickly fell in love with the language. There I met my wife, a 'portuguesa' from the Rio Douro region of Portugal, and I've never looked back!

Through my charitable work within the Portuguese community, I have had the opportunity to deliver talks and speeches in Portuguese ranging from ten to thirty minutes in length, for small audiences in one room, up to 2,000 in the ExCeL conference centre in London. This experience has exposed me both to European Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese, allowing me to speak and teach either.

When I started learning, I had very few resources at my disposal. But I quickly discovered an array of different tips and tricks that can accelerate language learners and get you speaking as quickly as possible. For instance:

Did you know?
- The hardest sounds in Portuguese are actually in everyday English words!
- You can convert literally hundreds of English words into Portuguese just by learning a few simple tricks.
- Learning the *right* words first can massively level-up your ability to communicate!
- The Portuguese have versions of our most common sayings. Storm in a teacup? Raining cats and dogs? A picture paints a thousand words? They've got phrases for all those and many more.
- Verbs are not as bad as they seem. With a few simple tricks, you can avoid the more complex forms until you feel ready to start using them.

I'm really looking forward to meeting you, and setting you on a journey that will last a lifetime! Learning a foreign language is one of the greatest and most enduring gifts you can give yourself. See how it could change your life!