Customer Reviews

Colloquial Portuguese of Brazil: The Complete Course for Beginners (Colloquial Series)

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I think this is a poor choice for the total beginner. The audio starts with fairly advanced dialogue, spoken very quickly. While that may well be the way the Brazilians speak, it is useless to the beginning student. The book is comprehensive, but poor for self study - picture your high school Spanish text, without the teacher. I gave up on this one after two fruitless hours, and bought Pimsleur's Audio course. I may go back to Portuguese of Brazil - The Complete Course for Beginners, but only AFTER I finish Pimsleurs.

This book would be a nightmare for a beginner because it jumps into Portuguese in such a confusing way. It just throws lists of words for you to memorize, and introduces grammar that is hardly even practiced in the exercises.

This book is also very aloof, and hardly forms a "relationship" with the reader. All the explanations are not in-depth. New grammar and vocabulary is just explained with a sentence, and then the reader is left on his/her own.

Here's an example of an exercise:

Exercise 2

Can you remember what the following are in Portuguese?

duty-free, boarding card, departure board, non-smoking, passport control, departure lounge, departure gate

No, I can't remember what they are-all I was given was a list of words!

Compared to Colloquial Icelandic(which is an EXCELLENT Colloquial course), this book is severely lacking, and that is quite surprising. A language spoken by around 200,000 people is taught so much more in depth than one spoken by almost 200,000,000!

Although this book was a disappointment when I was first learning Portuguese six months ago, now that I am an intermediate plus Portuguese speaker/writer I find this book an invaluable reference. It is well indexed, making it easy to find the topic I need to review. It includes enough examples to make the point clear (but not enough when I was first learning).

I am a portuguese speaker (Brazilian) and don't know why ALL those colloquial books do not show the way people speak on the streets. As far as I could notice, those dialogues would never take place in Rio or Sao Paulo ou any other city in Brazil. For instance, the placing of an object pronoun deeply differs from Brazil to Portugal. In Brazil, it tends to be at the very beginning of a sentence:

Como e que voce se chama? (What's your name?)
ME chamo Esqualidus. (My name is Squalidus.)

In Brazil we tend to use gerunds, while in Portugal they love to use a preposition plus an infinitive:

For instace, let's see the sentence "What are you eating?":

O que e que voce ta COMENDO? (Br.)
O que estas A COMER? (Port.)

As you could notice above, Brazilian colloquial language is full of expletives. Those expletives are not found in those colloquial books.

It's a crying shame that a so widely spoken language do not deserve a good book for teaching very beginners this beautiful latin language.

I enjoy studying languages of my choice using self-study kits (books w/cassettes or cds), particularly Brazilian Portuguese. Out of the several language kits I own on this language, I'm sad to say that the 'Colloquial Portuguese of Brazil' is the worst!

The Portuguese spoken on the tapes is way too fast for a beginner to understand. Even intermediate students may have difficulty understanding, just the same. I tried listening to one tape without using the book to practice developing my listening skills. I didn't get far as the Portuguese, spoken so rapidly, was indecipherable. That is, unless you consult the book, of course. I had more fun, and fared better with, listening to the Pimsleur audio course (on cds).

In addition, there is audible background silence between the dialogues, and the English-speaking male explaining the lessons in a flat tone of voice. The background silence, combined with the conductor's flat voice, are sufficient to make the listener (who may already be suffering by using this course) nod off on occasion. I've already had my share with that.

As for the book, the text is flat, dry and impersonal. Even the illustrations in the book are humdrum and lackluster. After two years, I finally resolved to discard them both as they were sitting in my bookshelf taking up space. (Actually, I kept the case where the tapes were in. I could always use that when I'm carrying my other language tapes!)

Evite deste, pessoal! - In English: Stay away from this one, folks. It's no good, and is a complete waste of money. Check out, instead, other well-known book and audio kits, such as the Teach Yourself series, Living Language, Barron's and Pimsleur, among others.

My impression from having bought quite a few of them is that these DIY language courses are often done on the cheap by people without pedagogical backgrounds. For a beginner without any prior knowledge of a language, it's crucial that material is introduced slowly and deliberately, giving the learner time to absorb grammar and vocabulary. Doubly so if he/she is learning on their own. Unfortunately, few if any of the Colloquial or Teach Yourself titles aspire to meet any kind of pedagogical standard.

After a failed attempt at learning Portuguese using this course last year, I made another attempt this year with the help of Routledge's excellent "Portuguese - An Essential Grammar" and some Brazilian friends. The results have been good so far - I can hold a conversation and read beginner-level texts after about six months of learning.

Returning to this course, I can now appreciate the lessons and dialogs more fully since I have a foundation in vocabulary and grammar to build from. As a reference it is actually quite useful, and I see now that the authors wrote the book with good intentions, even though they may have fallen short of their expectations.

From a book that has ''Colloquial Portuguese of Brazil'' in its title you would expect something focusing more on colloquial, oral usage. But, this book got it all wrong: the focus is more on formal, written style that is close to Continental Portuguese and it's too formal for a colloquial style of Brazil (comparing it with English, it's like teaching you stuff like: It is I, or Whom shall we invite? It's too formal/bookish!). So, avoid it at any cost. The book 2 of this course is even weirder!

In my attempt to learn Portuguese, I've purchased quite a number of books available in the market. I have my favourites, however I find it's necessary to refer to at least 3 different publications in order to get a good overview of any given foreign language of choice.

There are 3 publications that are top of my list. Teach Yourself series, Hugo in 3 Months and the above, Colloquial Brazilian Portuguese. Teach Yourself Beginners, provides an easy and yet quite comprehensive start to the language. However, the accompanying grammar explanations are given in stages, which personally I don't prefer. Which brings me to the Hugo series.

Depending on each individual's learning needs, I utilised both books simultaneously. Where the grammar points lacked in Teach Yourself, I referred to Hugo to give me the complete picture. As an example, the few initial chapters of TY, would provide the verb conjugations for only the first two personal pronouns. Although this makes sense in terms of compartmentalising the information in managable chunks, my personal style of learning requires me to see the whole picture. I need to know the whole table of verb conjugations for the complete set of personal pronouns! Such is my style ...

On the other hand, if one only refers to Hugo for their initial exposure, they might find themselves, bogged down by technical grammatical information, rather clinical and sterile, which in turn can slow progress. Which was what happened to me. If this whole process of learning is like a woman's journey in dieting, inevitably when one is too strict in their approach, you would hit a plateau. Where it seems like your brain can't possibly absorb anymore then it already has! A couple of times that has happened to me, I take a step back and refer to my Teach Yourself Beginners Series. In fact, I'll even go for a few days hiatus of not learning at all! Going back and forth between these 3 books I referred to above, I always find myself at each juncture, progressing a lot further than I realised.

In summary, thumbs up to all the above save for one critique. The audio accompaniament for the Colloquial Portuguese of Brazil, is a STARK contrast to their other publication - Colloquial Portuguese. Whilst the latter's audio aid is excellent in terms of presentation and most importantly the SPEED of speech by the speakers, the former audio aid must've been done on a budget for studio recording time! Speech on audio CD was one step away from Alvin and the Chipmunks! Too fast for it to be effectively audible to facilitate my learning needs. If anything, it provided me with comic relief ... If any buyer out there is considering only one book to purchase however, I would recommend the Colloquial Series. It infuses both the lively approach of Teach Yourself and the complete grammar explanations as how Hugo does it. Quite good actually.

And finally, a special shout out to the Earworms franchise. Although a little bit far fetched for anyone to think it can be the only language tool needed to learn a new language, (learning grammer is still pivotal) it works! In fact, I'm still referring to it time and time again during my hiatus to further entrench the sounds and words deep in the recesses of my brain. Plus the background music is actually quite hip - spanning from latin acoustics to electronica funk. Ok maybe not Top of The Charts anytime soon, but very effective. Boa Sorte!

Very helpfl book if you already have knoledge of Portuguese. Personally, I think the conversation on the CD's are very fast for someone who's trying to learn Portuguese as a begginer. I consider they should speak more slowly on the first lessons, at least.
Over all, it's very helpful.

I wouldn't say that this course is for a total beginner. If you've already got some knowledge of the language (or if you've studied a different Romance language before and have an idea of how the grammar and syntax works), then this would be an excellent choice. It's a little intimidating at first -- the dialogues are almost all spoken at everyday speed, but this will help you develop an ear for what you'll really be hearing from native speakers. Each lesson includes dialogues, grammar notes, and exercises to test what you've learned. A small reference section at the end of the book includes grammar notes, an answer key to the exercises, and a short two-way dictionary of vocabulary used throughout the book.

For someone who already has a good foundation in the language, this is an excellent resource. Each lesson is themed for specific situations and includes vocabulary pertaining to each theme (eating out, travelling, using the Internet, etc.), and the accompanying audio, although not perfect, is accurate in portraying the intonation and speed of native speakers. This course can be your best friend if you know how to use it to its potential.

The dialogues, though plentiful, are short. There are a few reading texts scattered throughout, but these are also surprisingly short. On top of this, the review of the pronunciation guide is different from what's in the book; the book lists each letter and how it's pronounced, example words included, but the audio goes through the alphabet with different example words that a beginner won't know.

If this course seems too much at first, try something a little easier. "Living Language Portuguese : The Basics" also focuses on Brazilian Portuguese and would be a great start in learning the language. There's also "Colloquial Portuguese" for those who want a better understanding of literary Portuguese and its variations.