Portuguese of Brazil - The Complete Course for Beginners (Colloquial Series) [Paperback]

Simőes Osborne (Author), Joăo Sampaio (Author), Barbara McIntyre (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 8, 1998 | Series: Colloquial Series

Colloquial Portuguese of Brazil Is specially written by an experienced teacher for self-study or class use, the course offers you a step-by-step approach to written and spoken Portuguese of Brazil. No prior knowledge of the language is required.
What makes Colloquial Portuguese of Brazil your best choice in personal language learning?
* interactive - lots of exercises for regular practice
* clear - concise grammar notes
* practical - useful vocabulary and pronunciation guide
* complete - including answer key and special reference section.
Cassettes accompany the course to help you with listening and pronunciation skills. By the end of this rewarding course you will be able to communicate confidently and effectively in a broad range of situations.

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English, Portugese --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Routledge; 1 edition (January 8, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0415161398
• ISBN-13: 978-0415161398
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.7 x 2.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,085,905 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not enough audio, October 2, 2000

By 

Hunter W. Wolcott "hwolcott" (Stuart, FL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Portuguese of Brazil - The Complete Course for Beginners (Colloquial Series) (Paperback)

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.

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Horrible!, July 23, 2002

By 

eddi (Niskayuna, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Colloquial Portuguese of Brazil: The Complete Course for Beginners (Colloquial Series) (Audio Cassette)

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!

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good reference book, November 6, 2000

By 

N. D. Allen (New York USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Portuguese of Brazil - The Complete Course for Beginners (Colloquial Series) (Paperback)

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).