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My boyfriend speaks portuguese his whole family is from there.
I'm serbo-croatian but I took a portuguese basic class an learned some.

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Yeah, I know what you mean. For years, I couldn't spell anything in English either for pretty much the same reasons. xp
Well then, I don't know how good your writing already is, or what exactly you have trouble with, but since it came up, I might as well put here a quick list for everyone if I may!

Double consonants:
The only consonants ever to appear doubled are "S" and "S", and only when they have vowels before AND after them. "SS" guarantees the sibilant sound, whereas "S" would have been read as a "Z". Likewise, a simple "R" in between vowels is always read as the soft "R" from "agora" (now) or "atrás" (back/behind).

Nasals:
There are two ways to make a nasal: use "~" on the vowel or insert an "N" after the vowel. Note that before consonants "P" or "B", "M" is used instead.

Use of accents:

• When necessary, accents are only ever used in the last three syllables. If you have a word that has an accentuated syllable before that, too bad.
  
• Also, a word can have no more than one accent in it (there are exceptions, but they are so few... the only ones that are averagely used that I can think of are "sótão" (attic) and "órgão" (organ)).
  
• Words with the stress syllable on the third-from-last syllable, ALWAYS have accents. They're called "esdrúxulas", which, funnily enough, is esdrúxula itself. So it's a nice mnemonic.
  
• Adverbs that end in "-mente", however tempting they may be, are never accented.
  
• The accent "`" ("acento grave"), is only used in conjuctions of the preposition "a" with something else that start with "A". P.e:
  "Eu fui a a Europa." -> "Eu fui à Europa."
  "Eles deram-nos a aquele senhor." -> "Eles deram-nos àquele senhor."
  All other words requiring that type of tonic have the accent "´" (agudo). (They're both read the same way, that's why people confuse them sometimes.)
  
• Portuguese from Portugal doesn't use the "¨", but Brasilian does. You'll have to ask Calunio for uses of that one. I know that it appears when you need to pronounce the "u" in a syllable "que" or "gue", but that's pretty much as far as my knowledge goes... ^^

Special vowel-consonant combos:

• A "c" before an "e" or a "i" is always read as "ss". If you're going for the "k"-sound, use "que" or "qui" respectively. The combinations "qa", "qe", "qi" and "qo" are never used.
  
• A "g" is always pronounced softly (as in "great") before "a", "o" and "u". For the "g" in "genetic" before these vowels, use "j". Once again, "e" and "i" become troublesome because "ge" and "gi" are read the same way as "je" and "ji". Soft "g" with these vowels is spelled as "gue" and "gui".

Note: this is based off of Portuguese grammar from Portugal, which often has a different way of spelling from the Brasilian Portuguese!!

If I remember any other little "golden rules", I'll add them on later... =P
Cheers! wink

Ois, Forgedawn!
Desejo-te muito sucesso no teu estudo!

And btw...
Do português (masculino); da portuguesa (feminino).
We refer to the language itself in masculin.

biggrin

A-ha!! Thanks, Mivi! 3nodding
*corrected*