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Portuguese-Language Instruction

The LAI is committed to supporting the instruction of less commonly taught Latin American languages as a means of training the next generation of Latin America specialists. Spoken by over 200 million people in Brazil, Portuguese is the world's eight most-spoken language.



Portuguese is the official language of eight countries on four continents, including Latin America's largest, most populous country, Brazil. 

The LAI is a longtime partner of UCLA’s Department of Spanish and Portuguese, which is dedicated to research and teaching related to the languages, literatures, and cultures of the Hispanic and Lusophone worlds.

The department's Language Program offers beginning, intermediate, and advanced courses in the Portuguese language, linguistics, literature, and culture. Their approach to language instruction is performance based and utilizes communicative and task-based methods. Students have the opportunity to develop communicative competence in all four skill areas (listening, speaking, reading and writing), as well as cultural competence.

The following courses are offered:

Portuguese 1-3 are introductory courses in Portuguese language and culture.

Portuguese 11A-11B are accelerated introductory courses in Portuguese language and culture, designed specifically for speakers with proficiency in another romance language.

Portuguese 25 and Portuguese 27 are advanced courses in Portuguese composition, conversation and culture.

For more information, please contact:

Juliet Falce-Robinson
Director of the Language Program
Rolfe Hall 4333
jfalce@humnet.ucla.edu