Portuguese · English · C1–C2
Advanced Portuguese stories, with the English alongside (C1–C2)
Poe, Bierce, Hawthorne, Melville and Twain in Portuguese: dense, stylish prose, with the English original there for the sentences worth a second look.
13 free advanced stories in Portuguese
Each one opens in your browser with no account, the Portuguese and the English side by side, paragraph by paragraph, shortest first. Every story is also a free Portuguese–English ebook for Kindle, Kobo or any e-reader: downloading needs a free account, no payment (which file to pick).
Open the advanced Portuguese–English stories in the library, where you can search them and switch to another level or pair.
- C1
O Retrato Oval
The Oval Portrait
Edgar Allan Poe · Portuguese · 5 min
- C1
O Coração Delator
The Tell-Tale Heart
Edgar Allan Poe · Portuguese · 10 min
- C1
O Barril de Amontillado
The Cask of Amontillado
Edgar Allan Poe · Portuguese · 10 min
- C1
A Máscara da Morte Rubra
The Masque of the Red Death
Edgar Allan Poe · Portuguese · 15 min
- C2
A Célebre Rã Saltadora do Condado de Calaveras
The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
Mark Twain · Portuguese · 15 min
- C1
Tobermory
Saki · Portuguese · 15 min
- C1
A Bela Adormecida no Bosque
The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood
Charles Perrault · Portuguese · 20 min
- C1
Ocorrência na Ponte de Owl Creek
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
Ambrose Bierce · Portuguese · 20 min
- C1
O Experimento do Dr. Heidegger
Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment
Nathaniel Hawthorne · Portuguese · 20 min
- C1
O Gato Preto
The Black Cat
Edgar Allan Poe · Portuguese · 20 min
- C1
O Papel de Parede Amarelo
The Yellow Wallpaper
Charlotte Perkins Gilman · Portuguese · 35 min
- C1
A Lenda do Cavaleiro sem Cabeça
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
Washington Irving · Portuguese · 1 h 15 min
- C2
Bartleby, o Escrivão
Bartleby the Scrivener
Herman Melville · Portuguese · 1 h 15 min
What advanced Portuguese stories are like
Advanced stories are dense on purpose: Poe’s narrators circle their own guilt, Bierce bends time, Melville’s Bartleby prefers not to. The Portuguese carries that style with long sentences, rare words and a literary register.
At this level you rarely need the English for the plot. It is there for the phrases that are hard to pin down, and for comparing how the same effect is achieved in two languages.
How to read Portuguese at C1–C2
Read the Portuguese as literature
Read at your normal pace and let unfamiliar words go when the meaning is clear. Stop only where the style or a turn of phrase interests you.
Use the English for nuance
When a word could mean two things, the English shows which one the story needs. That is where advanced readers still learn the most.
Read aloud
Literary Portuguese has rhythm. Reading a paragraph aloud, then checking its English, trains your ear as well as your eye.
More on the method in how to read a parallel text.