Is European Portuguese Different From Brazilian Portuguese?

Is European Portuguese different from Brazilian Portuguese? Yes, more than people expect. They are the same written language and speakers can read each other fine, but out loud they diverge fast. European Portuguese swallows vowels and stresses different sounds, so a Lisbon accent can be hard to follow even if you learned Brazilian. The pronouns differ: Portugal uses tu for "you" where Brazil defaults to você, and that changes the verb endings. Everyday words differ too. A phone is a telemovel in Portugal and a celular in Brazil, a bus is an autocarro not an onibus. You can read the European vs Brazilian Portuguese overview for the full breakdown.

On paper the two are close. In a real conversation, at speed, they are different enough that a Brazilian course leaves you understanding maybe half of what a clerk in Porto just said. That is the whole problem with learning the wrong dialect for where you live: you put in the hours and still freeze. If you are in or moving to Portugal, learn the Portugal one from the start with an app that teaches Portuguese from Portugal.