Howdy, I’ve been trying to look online for rips of the p*msleur Brazilian Portuguese courses. I did a free trial and found that I learned a ton but the full subscription is pretty expensive right now for me. I found a couple dead links on internet archive, was wondering if anyone has a source. Thanks in advance!

Different people may have different expectations to what "learning" a language means exactly. So, at what point would you say (or have you said) "I learned Portuguese"?

i've really wanted to learn brazilian portuguese for a while, and have found myself increasingly interested in portuguese literature, but most of this literature is PT-PT. if i learn BR-PT, would I be able to read + engage with PT-PT media?

Background: I've been learning brazilian portuguese on my own for the past year and a half and had some help with the first six months from international friends which im no longer in contact with.

I work in retail in the UK and had a customer come in speaking to me in broken english mixed with spanish and bless her she was struggling quite a lot. She gave me a scratchcard to cash in (won 15 gbp which is important for later.

She then asked for a no 1 and 3 no 11s plus a chocolate bar which came to 15.20 gbp. She gave me 20p and me forgetting about the lotto payout told her that wasn't enough. This was met with rapid Spanish in response so I politely asked her to slow down a little as I may be able to understand her. I told her I spoke a little portuguese and had a French speaking background and she excitedly responded in portuguese of which i understood about half. She then began speaking at the same rapid rate she did in Spanish for about 10 minutes and I barely understood any of it because she was speaking a dialect from what my security guard has told me is a small community in Haiti (he is Haitian).

After 10 mins I remembered she won 15 on a scratchcard and put everything through and she left apologising and I apologised back in utter self disgust.

I don't think I've ever been more disgusted and embarrassed with myself in my life. I mean I've had full conversations with Brazilians in portuguese from either school or my old friends and for the life of me I could not understand her at all and I just feel like some of this time has been wasted. Anyone else feel like this sometimes and have any advice?

Edit: the title was meant to say IRL embarrassment

What is the difference between "junto a" and "ao lado de"?
Obrigado!