Portuguese food vocabulary
These are the Portuguese words about food that come up most often in real speech, ranked by how often they appear in film and TV subtitles. Start with the first ones, such as comida (food), resto (rest), café (coffee), because you will run into them on almost any page about the subject, and the rarer words make more sense once those are familiar.
Words in this list: 30
| # | Word | Pronunciation | Translation | Level |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | comida | /koˈmi.da/ | food | A2 |
| 2 | resto | /ˈʁɛs.to/ | rest | A2 |
| 3 | café | /kaˈfɛ/ | coffee | A2 |
| 4 | bebida | /beˈbi.da/ | beverage | A2 |
| 5 | carne | /kˈar.ni/ | meat | A2 |
| 6 | cerveja | /seɻˈve.ʒɐ/ | beer | A2 |
| 7 | almoço | /aɫˈmo.su/ | lunch | A2 |
| 8 | chá | /ˈʃa/ | tea | A2 |
| 9 | vinho | /ˈvi.ɲu/ | wine | A2 |
| 10 | restaurante | /ʁes.tawˈɾɐ̃.te/ | restaurant | A2 |
| 11 | leite | /ˈle.tɨ/ | milk | B1 |
| 12 | pequeno-almoço | /peˌke.no.awˈmo.so/ | breakfast | B1 |
| 13 | chocolate | /ʃu.kuˈla.tɨ/ | chocolate | B1 |
| 14 | pão | /ˈpɐ̃w̃/ | bread | B1 |
| 15 | queijo | /ˈkej.ʒu/ | cheese | B1 |
| 16 | álcool | /ˈaw.kɔw/ | alcohol | B1 |
| 17 | mel | /ˈmɛɫ/ | honey | B1 |
| 18 | açúcar | /ɐˈsu.kɐɾ/ | sugar | B1 |
| 19 | sopa | /ˈso.pa/ | soup | B2 |
| 20 | pizza | /ˈpi.tsɐ/ | pizza | B2 |
| 21 | molho | /ˈmo.ʎu/ | sauce | B2 |
| 22 | frango | /ˈfɾɐ̃.ɡu/ | chicken | B2 |
| 23 | sumo | /ˈsu.mo/ | juice | B2 |
| 24 | refeição | /ʁe.fejˈsɐ̃w̃/ | meal | B2 |
| 25 | uísque | /uˈis.ke/ | whiskey | B2 |
| 26 | manteiga | /mɐ̃ˈtej.ɡa/ | butter | B2 |
| 27 | salada | /saˈla.da/ | salad | B2 |
| 28 | laranja | /laˈɾɐ̃.ʒɐ/ | orange | B2 |
| 29 | maçã | /mɐˈsɐ̃/ | apple | B2 |
| 30 | bife | /ˈbi.fe/ | steak | B2 |
How to make these words stick
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Sources: translations and pronunciation from Wiktionary (wikdict, CC BY-SA 3.0) and ipa-dict (MIT), frequency from OpenSubtitles (FrequencyWords).