The short version

I am Irineu De Oliveira Jnr. I was born in Brazil, I have spent my life learning languages, and I write books and record podcasts to help other people do the same. Today that work covers more than sixty books and five podcast shows across eleven languages.

How it started

At seven years old I decided, entirely on my own, that I was going to learn English. Nobody asked me to. I simply wanted to understand what people were saying in the films and songs I loved. That decision shaped everything that came afterwards. It took me around the world, and it let me talk to people I would otherwise never have been able to reach.

English led to Latin, and Latin turned out to be the key that unlocked the rest. Once you understand where Portuguese, Spanish, Italian and French all come from, they stop looking like four separate mountains to climb. Today I can communicate in more than six languages, and every one of them was learned the same way: by listening to how people really speak, and then using it.

Why I write the books

Somewhere along the way I noticed that the materials I was given rarely matched the way I actually learned. Textbooks were full of conjugation tables and sentences no human being would ever say. What helped me was hearing real conversations, seeing words attached to real situations, and reading stories I could actually follow.

So I started writing the books I wished I had been given. Conversation Practice puts you inside real dialogue. Verbs in Pictures attaches each verb to a scene from everyday life. Short Stories give you something worth reading at your level. The Shortcut series shows you how much of the language you already know through English. And the podcast transcripts let you read along with every episode.

None of it is complicated. It is all built on one idea: you learn to speak by hearing and using real language, not by memorising rules.

Where to find everything

The podcasts are free to listen to, wherever you get your podcasts. The Portuguese books and the other language collections are all on Amazon. If you want to get in touch, the contact page has my email and I answer every message myself.