Portuguese Pod 101 Review

Thursday, January 23rd

2025 Portuguese Lesson Reviews

Portuguese Pod 101

• Plenty of free content
• Lots of membership options, priced from $4 to $23/month
• 60-day money-back guarantee
• Personalized lesson plans, instruction and feedback with Premium+ subscription
• Content ranges from Absolute Beginner to Advanced (CEFR C1)
• Great for audiovisual learners
• Content refreshed every week

Innovative Language Learning has something for everyone, with lessons covering 40 different languages and all fluency levels from total beginner to advanced. All of their lessons are structured as "Pod 101” or "Class 101”, and that includes their Portuguese Pod 101 platform. They call it "pod” because much of the way they teach you Portuguese is through short podcast-like audio lessons, so that you can start training your ear to the language as it's actually spoken, not just an isolated sentence or audio clip here and there. (We're looking at you there, Bird App.)

You'll get a lot for free

We'll be honest: jumping into Portuguese Pod 101 can feel a little overwhelming at first. You won't be able to preview much about these lessons in advance, so expect to create your "Free Lifetime Account” pretty early on if you want to see for yourself. Helpfully, they've added a little video right at the top of the dashboard to show you how to get the most out of your no-cost access. There's quite a bit to use for free, from 3-5 new lessons a week, the first 3 lessons in every learning "pathway” (more on that later), Portuguese Word of the Day, access to the Language Learning app, and vocabulary/phrase lists for common topics, holidays, and other themes.

Broadest range of proficiency levels on the market

Portuguese Pod 101 is one of the only lesson options we've found that gives you the full fluency spectrum, from 100% newbie to advanced (C1 on the CEFR scale, for those who are interested). You can set that level on your own to get a recommended learning pathway: a series of lessons designed to move you smoothly from one topic and skill to the next. For example, the Absolute Beginner starts you with Level 1 Portuguese, with 75 lessons and 57 assessments (which you can toggle off if taking little quizzes makes you queasy). You'll learn about greeting people, hospitality, and much more, many with cute lesson titles like "A Meaty Situation in Brazil” and "Little House, Big Brazilian Plans”. Most of the lessons are audio-based, but Portuguese Pod 101 also includes opportunities for watching videos, writing, and speaking exercises, though many of those are only available to paid subscribers.

You might be overwhelmed by all the choices

Where Portuguese Pod 101 both shines and maybe struggles a little is in the other available pathways for learning. There's almost too much to choose from. If you veer off the recommended learning course, you'll find things like Survival Phrases (60 lessons in Season 1 alone), Lessons for Your Flight to Brazil, Talk About Your Hobbies, and so on. It's all really useful, and you could learn on Portuguese Pod 101 for, well, forever. But it has the potential to leave you feeling a bit stressed, like there's just too much to tackle (even if you don't choose to use most of it).

3 paid tiers of features

With your free membership, you'll be able to try out the first lessons of most learning pathways, and remember that you can switch your level (or work on multiple levels at once) at any time. But, you'll frequently be encouraged to sign up for a paid membership here, to get access to many more tools and all of the lessons in each pathway. Let's take a look at the various membership tiers on offer for Portuguese Pod 101:

• Basic: This lets you access all of the lessons in their library, including the in-depth lesson notes. You'll also be able to use their Portuguese Core 100 Words & Phrases study tool. Subscribing lets you use Portuguese Pod 101 on Android, iPhone, or iPad as well.
• Premium: This tier adds to the Basic package with line-by-line audio dialogue, HD video, plus many more study tools: 2,000 core words and phrases, daily dose of Portuguese lessons, seasonal vocabulary, interactive lesson quizzes, voice recording tools, vocabulary slideshows, word and grammar banks, spaced repetition flashcards, and a Portuguese audio dictionary.
• Premium+: This tier is where you'll find one-on-one learning. You get assigned a teacher who develops your personalized learning program, gives you regular assignments and assessments, and who will analyze your Portuguese from spoken accent to written fluency. This membership includes all of the features from the first two packages. If you want an assessment to determine your current fluency level, this is the only option on Portuguese Pod 101 that provides it.

Lowest prices come with a 24-month plan... paid upfront

Sounds great, right? You'll definitely not be lacking for options if you look to Portuguese Pod 101 for lessons. But, we hear you thinking, what does it cost? You might see advertising on the site for $4/month for Basic, $10/month for Premium, and $23/month for Premium+ - and that's true... if you want to pay for two years of access upfront. Yikes. True, you've got a 60-day satisfaction guarantee for some peace of mind, so if you bite the bullet and pay for 24 months, you can get a refund within that window. And, you're not required to pay for any long-term service: Basic's month-to-month plan is $8, or you can subscribe for 3 months at $21, 6 months at $36, you get the idea. The same goes for the two higher tiers of Portuguese lessons as well, with options for saving money by subscribing for longer timeframes or going month-to-month.

Watch for promotional savings

Another way you can save money is by waiting for a promo. At the time of this review, Portuguese Pod 101 was offering a 40% savings on both Premium tiers when subscribing for that 2-year plan: $144 for Premium and $329.40 for Premium+. That last package is an incredible deal: where else will you get access to two years of help from a Portuguese tutor/teacher for that dollar amount?!

Thousands of 5-star reviews for the company overall

How about feedback from students? You won't find much of that on the Portuguese Pod 101 platform itself, but taking a peek at the Innovative Language Learning app's reviews is exciting: a 4.5-star average across more than 40,000 ratings on Google Play and 4.7 spanning 32,000+ ratings on the Apple App Store. You could safely say that, overall, people have a good experience with this company's approach to language learning. But, we'd really like to hear more from those who specifically use it to study Portuguese, because user reviews also highlight problems with specific languages. For example, one person found content issues with Afrikaans, while others said that this was the most effective way they'd found to learn Korean (even compared with several well-known language learning options on our list).

Recommended for learning Portuguese at any level

There's a lot to love about Portuguese Pod 101. It's one of the only options out there with truly advanced-level lessons, available 1:1 help from an assigned teacher, and content that refreshes on a regular basis. You could theoretically use this service forever (or until you reach your desired level of fluency). If you can get past the overwhelm of having so many pathways to choose from, and you pay attention to the numerous billing options (so that you're not caught off guard by a two-year upfront payment to get the lowest price), there's no reason you won't have a fantastic experience using Portuguese Pod 101 to learn.