Customer Reviews

Conversational Brazilian-Portuguese: The Easy Method

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Page 115 tell us the capital is Rio de Janeiro. Hello! Brasilia has been the capital since 1960!

If it was only that the book spends too much print teaching us how to ask the barber for a shave, or looking for a milliner to make me a new hat, I wouldn't be too upset, but the grammer and pronunciation the book is NOT Brazilian.

My wife, born, raised and educated in Sao Paulo, has forbidden me to use the book. There are too many things (placement of objects, the selection of second person pronouns, pronunication and more) that she had to un-teach me after I studied the book.

Do yourself a favor and look elsewhere.

I first became acquainted with Conversational Brazilian Portuguese in Boston years ago and it was a valuable guide to a new, strange and wondrous language. It has been updated in the years since its first publication yet it retains the essential elements of the language. Most chapters contain interesting dialogue sections as well as new vocabulary. Many exercises use repetition of different verb forms . One of the best features is the way that grammar is incorporated into the text rather than being isolated from the conversations. The book has a Portuguese-English index, a guide to pronunciation, an explanation of verb usage (including 20 very commonly used irregular verbs), and also a grammatical reference that clearly explains hard-to-grasp items in the chapters. Unnecessary english is avoided which helps the student to stay in the language while studying. Occasionally some rather formal constructions are used that you may not encounter much in spoken brazilian. Slang and idiomatic patterns are kept to a minimum as the focus here is on getting a good foundation in the fundamentals of brazilian. For someone new to this language or wanting a solid brush-up this book is a fine tool.

Oi, Este livro é útil se você falar algum português. If you did not understand what I said, then maybe you should start with a beginner's text. The Cortina method is not properly organized and lacking an audio tape. But, if you are familiar with a couple tenses, this book might be a good review. Lonely Planet phrasebook is a good start and 501 Conjugated Portuguese verbs is great for those desiring business fluency or intermediate students.

Boa sorte! -Lisa

Just like other books in its' catalogue, Cortina's "Conversational Brazilian-Portuguese" is a good way to brush up on your language skills. Whether studying the language or brushing up on it before a trip, this book is a compact lesson made easy by the use of dialogue, illustrations, and exercises.

While there are better books to learn Portuguese out there (specifically the "Teach Yourself!" series), "Conversational Brazilian-Portuguese" is a good book to have around if you want to accelerate your language-learning skills. While not a great book, it is a good source of reference for those wanting to brush up on their Portuguese.

The reviews of this book on this site are very mixed. That's probably because the book assumes some context. If you already know Portuguese but have gotten rusty, this IS a good book. It focuses on your most likely scenario: casual conversation. It makes it especially easy to shore up verb tenses (my problema). However, it doesn't convey pronunciation. To supplement this book, try to locate a local Brazilian group (start with a university's language department) and meet new people in the process. Or watch a Brazilian film and try not to peek at the subtitles. Another fun approach for conversational Portuguese is to pick up a Brazilian novela (although you'll also need a dictionary for this).

Some will find this course a little difficult for those first learning the language. Some of the lessons are outdated, but the saving point in this course is that it still teaches all the main verbs you'll be using and how to use them within a conversion. It teaches all the tenses of the verbs you'll be using, but I would recommend getting a good grammar book to go with this. It's difficult to find the grammar reference you need in the back of the book and it is sometimes too brief to be of much help. The 501 Portuguese Verbs book is also nice to have with conjugations in all the tenses. This course makes for a good foundation for learning the language, but I have finished the book over the course of a year, and it would still be difficult to get by in Brazil. After finishing the book, you'll still need to expand your vocabulary quite a bit.

Also of note, there is a corrections and changes booklet about 6 pages long that does not come with this book. It includes updates for words that are no longer used the way they are in the book along with many corrections. This booklet is included with the complete Cortina package sold with the audio cd's from their website. I would suggest you contact Cortina for a copy of these corrections if you are purchasing only the book from Amazon. Besides.. you wouldn't want to ask how many cruzeiros something is when the currency is now reais.

The cover states 20 lessons: contains 14. Guide to Pronunciation: where?? Bilingual Dictionary: only 12 pages of Portugues-English. I imagine this book is useful as a supplement to recordings but I will treat it as an addition to some other course. It may be of use - yet.

Although the instructions are devoted to a more relaxed form of Portuguese language, it may work well in Portugal where Portuguese is carried in a more formal environment. Due to several factors involving regional, social economical factors Brazilian have a tendency of degrading their language, making learning by experience more difficult than would be without any obstacle. In theory this book is very realistic, As far as grammar it is the closest to the real thing I have ever seen in any other book, keeping in mind that the author will not deviate from the correct grammar to give you a first hand experience of the reality you will face asking for directions. Anyone trying to communicate in Portuguese with Brazilians will notice that the author does not include a bad habit developed by Brazialians which is to minimize their words ex: esta approximadamente perto da banca de revista, when talking to an average person, it would be said: esta bem "pertinho" da baca de revista. pertinho = perto. Any word carrying "inho" "inha" just replace "inho" for "o" or 'A" and you find it in the dictionary...did not see this explanation in this book, but I was not too thorough, who said that learning another language would be easy?