Customer Reviews

A Grammar of Spoken Brazilian Portuguese

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Thomas's grammar of spoken Brazilian Portuguese is, to my mind, the best grammar available for experienced language learners who want to tackle Brazilian portuguese. Not a grammar for the novice, this text will acquaint the learner with the differences and nuances between spoken and written Portuguese, and will survey the breadth of Brazilian vocabulary, usage, and language structure. I think this is the best. It's weakness is that no accompanying audio is available for those who do not yet know Brazilian pronunciation.

I currently use this book for 3rd and 4th semester Portuguese at the university level. The book does an excellent job at explaining grammer and expanding vocabulary. However, I would not recommend this book if you are simply trying to get by in Brazil. If your goal is to become fluent, this is the book for you.

This is a very helpful book for anyone who works with Brazilians or is dating a Brazilian. This is Brazilian Portuguese as it is spoken, not the formal classroom stuff. In combination with a decent vocabulary cassette, for example, Vocabulearn's English/Portuguese, you will get a good start.

If you are a beginner, this is not the workbook for you. I have been studying for a few years and knew most of the erly vocabulary and simple grammar. My purpose was to clarify certain technical grammar/usage issues so it will serve my needs. However, with no answer key, it is frustrating in completing and reviewing the exercises. If this is used as a workbook in conjuction with a course directed by a teacher, then exercise answers may be corrected in class.

This book is very well structured, explaining the nuances of Brasilian Portuguese in concise terms that are easy to remember and apply. I would specially recommend this book to anyone with a basic fluency in Spanish as learning the rules from this book will aid greatly in your transition to Portuguese.

This is a good book, but it was written 22 years ago, and language, especially oral language, changes a a lot in that kind of time. Even used it is over 20.00 on Amazon, and I am not sure if it is worth that kind of money. However, the basics of spoken Brazilian in grammar are in this boo, and I do not know if there is anything of a lower price that has that kind of information.

I like Pimsleur myself, also, but some people cannot learn anything that way. You might want also to check out Byki by Transparent language, which now has almost any language you might want to learn.

For an example, in English, "No problem" has now evolved for younger speakers in the USA to mean "thank you". I used to see this as rude, as if it were a problem to help me or something. But this is because I am an old f**t and did not grow up using "No problem in this way"

I am a teacher of Portuguese and I think that this book is the best for the students who already know how to speak the language but have a problem understanding the grammar. This book will take them to the Upper Intermediate Level or even to the Advanced Level in Portuguese. I recommend this book as the book which will wrap up the Portuguese Language.

Very efficient textbook. The first chapter is really an introduction with the different phonetics of the portuguese language (and believe me, they are very different!). Then it starts with basic vocabulary words that start get you going into portuguese. The only problem is that it is definitely more effective if used in class to get the words right. If you try to learn portuguese on your own just using this book, you need to be very gifted.

I purchased this book from Amazon in order to learn some Portuguese for an upcoming vacation in Brazil. I found it an excellent resource for learning some of this beautiful language beyond the most basic phrases. The book is divided into "Lessons", each a few pages long and introducing a couple of points of grammar together with some exercises. One problem is that there are no correct solutions to the exercises at the back of the book so you're not always certain that you got things correct.

There is a very useful section on pronunciation at the beginning of the book which does tell the reader everything they need to know: however it would have been even better to have audio examples on a CD, or at least some more help with pronunciation at the beginning of the book while the reader is still getting their bearings in the language. I would recommend using this book, and maybe combining it with another resource that also features audio to get more help with pronunciation.

The instructor for my husband's portuguese class recommended this book. It is very detailed and has been a lot of help to him, both studying for class and on location in Brazil. We have tried a lot of other books, but none seem to be as thorough for this subject. It is a paperback book and would be nicer as hardbound, but it has held up well with a year or so of use.