You probably mean Continental Portuguese. Brazilian Portuguese is really much better for learning. They don't eat syllables and they take their time to pronounce and emphasize words. You still need to know a few rules but they are sufficiently regular to eventually start guessing words (e.g., "ue" within a word -> "o", ending "dad" -> "dade", ending "ion" -> "ão").

Source: I've had at least half a decade of frequent contact with both dialects and I still have way more difficulties with the continental version.