Customer Reviews

Introduction to Portuguese Grammar (Dover Language Guides)

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

 

 

This is probably the best book on learning Portuguese (grammar) out there in English!

I found the lessons and explanations concise, comprehensive, and easy to understand. Each lesson comes with exercises at the end with the answer keys at the back of the book. The first chapter is dedicated to going over the orthography and phonology of the Portuguese language - a must as it works rather differently compared to the other Latin languages. And a complete glossary of the words used in the lessons is included, too.

This book is best accompanied by a collection of Portuguese and/or Brazilian music, and a book on Portuguese conversation (like Conversational Brazilian-Portuguese in 20 Lessons, also rather inexpensive) that has ample dialogue examples and practise.

The emphasis of An Introductory Portuguese Grammar is on the Portuguese of Portugal (pronunciation of Lisboa); but it includes examples and alternates found in Brazilian-Portuguese (pronunciation of Rio de Janeiro) for those who wish to study that form of Portuguese.

Those who have a Castilian-speaking background will find that learning Portuguese is a snap. :-)

The book is bound in signatures and is made to last with acid-free paper. The typography is warm and easy to read.

This is not a bad little book - don't be deceived by its thin size. It covers Portuguese grammar completely, including those thorny items that Spanish students have trouble with when taking on Portuguese, like the personal infinitive, the pluperfect and the future subjunctive. It even covers the proper rules for accents in the orthography, and I have rarely seen that even attempted in any work designed for English speakers. What it doesn't provide you with is a lot of illustrative usages and examples, so as a stand-alone course it has its limitations. As one other reviewer says, use it in conjunction with other conversational materials, and you should be fine.

Very informative, it starts where it should and continues with a good pace. Highly recommended for speakers of Spanish, who will find this book to allow them virtual fluency in a matter of a few dedicated weeks

This is an excellent value! I have spent a greay deal MORE money on other books that contained much less information.

This is a good reference and textbook for learning portuguese. I have found it very useful in my studies

Although this book is old (being originally published in 1942) and a little (very little!) out-of-date (see NOTE below), it is an excellent reference for the student of European Portuguese. This wee tome focuses primarily on European Portuguese, in stark contrast to the plethora of Brazilian Portuguese references on the market which treat European Portuguese as nothing more than a footnote. When a friend in Portugal learned that I had purchased this book, they went out and purchased it themselves, to be sure I had bought a good and accurate reference. I was told that I had.

Highly recommended for the student of European Portuguese!

(NOTE: Item 20, "Nasal Dipthongs", found on page 7, discusses briefly a change in the language that did not occur subsequent to the publication of this book. Aside from that, this is a great reference book!)

My son is living in Portugal and so is speaking European Portugese. He requested a grammar book and this one is fit all his requirements. It is small, lightweight, and he says it it is just what he needed.

WOW! I cannot begin to tell you how great this book is. I think of all the language books I have come across (and that is alot since I am a linguist), this is by far one of the best if not the best explanations of a language from beginning through other points of grammar, tenses etc. Plenty of excercises and lots of great vocabulary. VERY DETAILED section on the pronunciation at the beginning on both how it is pronounced in Portugal as well as in Brazil. If a word is different in Brazil it will let you know as well. Everything is very clearly described. I bought this book to learn Portuguese since I am already fluent in Spanish and I was amazed how fast I picked Portuguese up. Also even if you have no knowledge of Spanish you will still easily learn Portuguese from this book. In less than a month of studying about 3-4 hours a day, I was able to communicate with people from Portugal/Brazil with little problems :) Again a job well done with this book. It proves the saying "oldie but goodie" :)

Many others have said it much more eloquently, but this is a great little starter book. I've found that sometimes the best books for instructing are those that are a little on the "dated" side and tend to go more indepth than modern books.

I purchased this book so that it might help me understand sentence structure and thus help me decipher a much older work that is written in Medieval Portuguese. It has helped, along with online references.

So, if you're interested in learning Portuguese, this is a good place to start.

You will love that book! You will learn basic Portuguese in just few days.