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Real stories. Real Portuguese.

Brazilian Portuguese reading, from A1 to B2: stories, legends and articles

Free texts in Brazilian Portuguese, read aloud by a native voice, each with the English beside it and every word a tap away. Start at your level and move up when a story feels easy.

Not sure of your level? Take the free test

Choose your level

Pick the level where you understand about nineteen words in twenty.

Featured stories

The Brazilian legends every child knows, retold in short sentences, with art, and read aloud slowly.

View all legends

Browse all stories

Stories, legends and articles by level, easiest first. Every one is free, and most are read aloud.

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Portuguese short stories

Short stories to read in one sitting: the graded ones written for learners, and the classics of Artur de Azevedo, Lima Barreto and Machado de Assis as they wrote them.

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Collections

The library by kind, to find the stories that match your interests.

How to read a story in Portuguese

Three habits that turn a story into Portuguese you keep. The full guide is below them.

  1. Listen firstPlay the audio before you read, then again with the text.
  2. Read at your levelAbout nineteen words in twenty should be ones you know.
  3. Tap only when stuckGuess from the story first; every tapped word is saved for review.
Read the full guide

Listen first, without reading. You will not understand everything, and that is the point: your ear learns where the words begin and end before your eye fixes a spelling to them. Then play it again with the text, letting the highlight carry you from word to word.

Aim for the 95% rule: a story is at your level when you know about nineteen words in twenty. Below that you are decoding, not reading, and the pleasure that keeps you going is gone. Paste a page into the text level checker if you are not sure.

Tap a word only when the sentence has stopped making sense without it. Guessing from the story is itself the skill, and a word you worked out stays with you longer than one you looked up. In the Reader every tapped word is saved for review, so a story you finish becomes a list you learn.

Move up a level when a story feels easy end to end: you follow the audio without the text and you tap a word a paragraph or less. If the next level feels like work, read two more at this one. The 5,000 most common words and the Anki deck built from them cover almost everything in the A1 to B1 texts here.

Frequently asked questions

What people ask about reading in Brazilian Portuguese.

What are some good Portuguese short stories for beginners?

Start with the Brazilian legends told at A1: O Curupira, O Saci, A Iara and A Mula sem Cabeça. Each is about 280 words of short sentences in the present tense, read aloud slowly, with the English line by line. They are the stories every Brazilian child knows, so you learn the culture along with the words.

Where can I read Portuguese stories with audio for free?

Here. Every text on this page is free to read and listen to, with no account: the narration plays on the page and highlights each word as it is spoken. Open a story in the Reader to tap any word for its meaning in that sentence and save it for review.

What level should I start reading at?

The level where you understand about 95% of the words without help. If you are new to Portuguese, that is A1. If you have studied for a few months, try A2 and drop back if it feels like decoding. The free level test takes ten minutes and tells you where you stand.

How many words do I need to read a story?

The A1 stories use the first thousand or so words of Brazilian Portuguese, A2 about two thousand, B1 three to four thousand. The 5,000 most common words cover about 88% of everyday Portuguese (Nation, 2006), which is why the word list and the deck built from it go that far.

Are these Brazilian or European Portuguese?

Brazilian. The graded stories are written in the Portuguese spoken in Brazil today and recorded by a Brazilian voice; the classics are Brazilian authors of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, with their spelling brought up to date where the edition says so.

Can I download them?

Not yet as files, but every text is free to read and listen to here, and the stories you start are kept in your Reader to pick up on any device. The 5,000-words book is free to download as a PDF and EPUB under CC BY-SA 4.0.

How long is each story?

The A1 legends take about two minutes to listen to; the A2 and B1 stories five to ten; a short classic by Artur de Azevedo or Lima Barreto five to fifteen. The graded novels are read in sittings of a chapter, about five minutes each, over four to eight chapters.

Looking for whole books? Free Portuguese books: graded novels and the classics, with the 5,000-words book to download.