Customer Reviews

Behind the Wheel Portuguese (Ten 60 minute CDs) (Behind the Wheel) (Portuguese Edition)

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

From beginning to end I was impressed by the method used in Behind the Wheel Portuguese. I had tried Living Language and Berlitz, both of which had me guessing at meanings as I drove in my car.
No guessing here. The American instructor gives you the English and the native Brazilian speaker repeats the Portuguese twice.
Most important for me. Besides the pronunciation of Brazilian Portuguese which can be tricky, I was most impressed with the structure this course gives in learning how to truly speak the language in a natural way.

Although Behind the Wheel Portuguese features a native Brazilian speaker, I got very good results with my communication in Lisboa, Portugal with the natives there.
The cool part is that they sometimes thought I was at least related to someone from Brazil because some of the words and accent are different. Still, the similarites must be great because I was clearly understood and I understood them too most of the time.

The format of this audio learning cd is very good. Good repetitive used of a verb in different tenses with different nouns. Good repetition in a well thought out way. That is to say a saying is repeated at different times so as not to be to monotonous.

A word / saying / sentence is said in English and the Portuguese speaker repeats it in Portuguese two times.

Unfortunately when the Portuguese speaker says the translation the first time, there is no pause when she repeats it again. Furthermore after the Portuguese speaker finishes repeating the sentence for the second time, the English speaker starts with the next sentence to be translated almost immediately. If you are trying to repeat what the Portuguese speaker has just said you are talked over by the English speaker. Every time you try to repeat a saying in Portuguese weather it is after the first time the Portuguese speaker says something of the second time you do not have enough time to repeat the saying.

I can not understand how a seemingly intelligent person cannot understand that a learner is trying to repeat what was just spoken. I have listened to In Flight Portuguese and Portuguese for Dummies and these are professionally done. There is ample time to repeat a saying. Because there in not time allotted to repeat a saying I would not recommend this to anyone

On the surface, these CDs seemed like a bargain. $55 for 10 CDs filled with Portuguese Language instruction compared to 3 times that amount or more for Pimseleur Brazilian Portuguese. Yet, after listening to the first 6 CDs, I came to the conclusion that these CDs were getting me nowhere. They are a low budget production of the same English and Portuguese speakers doing the same routine over and over and over. An example of their routine is, the English speaker will ask, how do you say, "It costs an arm and a leg". The Portuguese speaker will then repeat the statement twice in Portuguese. The English speaker will then ask how to say something totally different in Portuguese, and the Portuguese speaker will repeat it twice in Portuguese, and on and on....

One of the few useful parts was an explanation and examples on how to add "ing", "will" and past tense to verbs. If the entire CD set would have been this structured, I would have been happy with the set. As it was, I certainly can't listen to sentence after sentence of statements that I would never need in Brazil and try to remember them. It was also hard to understand the Portuguese speaker as she talked fast and none too clearly.

My best results for beginning to learn Portuguese was getting a copy of Pimseleur Brazilian Portuguese I. The Portuguese speakers were very understandable and pronunciations could be learned, the book "501 Portuguese Verbs",and my favorite learning guide, "Portuguese in 10 Minutes a Day" by Kershul.
Boa Sorte !!! on your Portuguese language development.

I bought this CDs for my husband because he is going to Brazil with me for the first time and I thought it would be nice if he could practice and learn new words while driving since he drives for hours every day. The method is great, it's a very smart idea and he learned some new words like the months of the year, days of the week, and some other basic stuff. The only VERY DOWN SIDE of it is the Brazilian girl's accent!!! Oh my gosh! It's really heavy (and annoying). The narrator (who is American) speaks the portuguese words (whenever he does) WAY BETTER than her, who is a native speaker! I was frustrated!!! Even my husband noticed that there was something wrong with the way she was speaking the words, because some of them he already knew.
Unless you're going to Rio de Janeiro or the Northeast I wouldn't recommend this product just because of the horrible accent that sounds even funnier when spoken by Americans.
Bummer!

After getting ripped off by Living Language, Berlitz and Learn in Your Car Portuguese, this is an awesome breath of fresh air.
No baloney here. They really get you speaking Portuguese right away, and enjoying it.
My suggestion (to eliminate all doubts) is to buy 2 or 3 courses, use them and compare with Behind the Wheel Portuguese.
I sent the others back.

I live and work in Brazil, and for that reason have a huge reason for learning to speak the language.
I have learned most of what I now know (from a structural standpoint at least) from Behind the Wheel Portuguese.
I would give this course a 100 star rating if I could because it took me from knowing virtually no Portuguese to conversing in the language in a few weeks to now semi-fluency.
This is not an easy task to achieve, and I did have help.
First of all, being in Brazil, I was able to immediatly practice what I learned on the CDs every day.
Second, I bought a wonderful little grammar guide called 'Essential Portuguese Grammar'
which assisted me in learning to read and write the language a bit, and also to understand as well as comprehend the intricacies of the Portuguese language.
If you really wish to learn Portuguese then I would highly recommend you buy and use both daily.
I have gotten wonderful results.

After reading previous reviews of this, I made the purchase. But I kind of regret it. Actually I only went through one CD of this program, because I couldn't bring myself to continue. The lessons were taught by a native English speaker asking a native Brazillian Portuguese speaker "how do you say..." I thought the lessons were way too frustratingly random to learn. I've tried Living Language, and I think its better because it comes with a book to really learn the language, while listening to pronounciations. Although the CD by itself for the Living Language program would not be sufficient because at times it can be confusing listening in the car, it is a nice supplement to the book that comes with the program. I believe the best conversation learning tool is by Pimsleur. I learned to speak Brazillian Portuguese pretty quickly, and its amazing if you just want to get around in Brazil, but the downside is that without a book to go along with the CD, you won't be able to really learn the language in depth, in the reading and writing portions of language.

I have wanted to learn Portuguese for a long time, but didn't know the right way to tackle it. I searched high and low on amazon.com, which took a long time. The language books in general are not well sorted nor easily accessible.

My purchase consisted of Behind the Wheel Portuguese and the Essential Portuguese Grammar (Prista). As a team they work well together. The only recommendation is to look up pronounciation before even touching the cds/book. (Prounounciation is key in Portuguese!!!)

Behind the Wheel Portuguese is pretty good so far. I speak semi-fluent spanish and have a good grasp of the other romantic languages, which is definitely a benefit.

The downside to this product is the layout. It started with simple phrases, but then progressed into harder, more complex phrases (some of which will not be useful unless you want to sound completely crazy)
i.e. It's July and it's very hot too, but it doesn't matter.
My name is Teresa and I'm with my umbrella in the rain.
The translator was very fast and did not anunciate enough to fully comprehend the first time (but this can be solved by listening to the track again, which I highly recommend).

Without knowning the pronounciation or the spelling, it's sometimes hard to decipher what she is saying.

You might be wondering why I gave this product four stars even though I have outlined the flaws.
1) Pretty decent price for 10 cds (compared to other language helpers like Plimseur)
2) Even though the packaging isn't spectacular, it doesn't need to be. It is the material that matters.
3) The cds are easy to listen to and portable. (You could even change it it into MP3 format so you could label them...)
4) In conjunction with other grammar books, previous knowledge, online help, the Behind the Wheel Portuguese is extremely helpful.

I hope this helps anyone who is curious to learn a new language!
Don't be afraid to at least try, it'll be worth it in the end.

I bought Teach yourself brasilian portuguese and I was NOT impressed. I didn't learn anything. The book was hard to follow and it just sucked.
I ordered Behind the Wheel Portuguese after I read what other people said about it on here... they weren't lying about it being a good product.
I listen to the Cds before bed every night and I wake up with new vocabulary each day. So Buy this if you really want to learn. It's totally worth the money.