Portuguese Memory Book: A New Approach to Vocabulary Building [Paperback]

William F. Harrison (Author), Dorothy Winters Welker (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: 1996 | ISBN-10: 029273106X | ISBN-13: 978-0292731066 | Edition: 1st

Mnemonics is an age-old device for remembering names, numbers, and many other things. The Portuguese Memory Book, by William F. Harrison and Dorothy Welker, makes use of this reliable memory help in a series of mnemonic jingles that are by turns playful, sardonic, touching, and heroic to help both students and independent learners acquire and remember Portuguese vocabulary.

The mnemonic jingles present both the sound of the Portuguese word (indicated by syllables in underlined boldface type) and its English meaning (given by a word or phrase in boldface type):

noite (f.) night

Don't annoy Chihuahuas in the night.
If you ignore their bark, you'll feel their bite.

This innovative approach to vocabulary building is simple, effective, and entertaining. The authors also include a general pronunciation guide to Brazilian Portuguese, particularly to the Carioca dialect of Rio de Janeiro.

Editorial Reviews

Review

To my knowledge, this is a unique and joyful approach to the teaching of vocabulary. The Portuguese Memory Book will be useful not only to beginners of Portuguese, but also to the many Spanish speakers in the U.S. who would like a quick and painless way to add Portuguese to their language skills. The authors know what they are doing. (Jon S. Vincent, Professor of Spanish and Portuguese, University of Kansas, Lawrence )

Language Notes

Text: English, Portugese

Product Details

• Paperback: 119 pages
• Publisher: University of Texas Press; 1st edition (1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 029273106X
• ISBN-13: 978-0292731066
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 1.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,457,655 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars An ineffective way to actually acquire another language, April 16, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Portuguese Memory Book: A New Approach to Vocabulary Building (Paperback)

I have studied 4 languages beside Portuguese and purchased this book thinking it might be useful. Actually, this book uses a vocab learning aproach that incoorperates the sound of portuguese words with English definitions of those words in English rhymes. For example, "early" ("cedo" in Portuguese) might be presented as "SAY DO you want to call Dave, and be EARLY for tomorrow's parade?" Anyone familiar with language aquistion knows the most effective way to learn vocabulary is to define words in terms of images or vocabulary already aquired in the language. The idea of remembering a Portuguese word using English rhymes is silly and inappropriate for anyone seeking lasting mastery of the language. A real disappointment.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars "Muito" Hard to Understand, May 30, 2000

By 

Luis Hernandez (New York, New York, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Portuguese Memory Book: A New Approach to Vocabulary Building (Paperback)

As a student of various Romance language, I purchased this book thinking it would allow me to learn Portuguese even more quicker, however, I was disappointed. The book uses mnemonics in order to help readers memorize words by using clever catch ryhmes, but instead of helping, it only confuses the student. I would pass on this series and any other books published by the University of Texas Press (e.g. "Simoes Com Licenca," etc..). Texas is a great place to learn Spanish, but if you really want to learn Portuguese, I highly recommend Georgetown University's "Travessia" series. It is an excellent book, audio, and video series that allows students to learn the language at an easy rate. Save your money and pass this book by!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Nice Adjunct Tool But Not Much Help if You're Starting from Square One, February 10, 2009

By 

John S. Gamble (Nyack, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Portuguese Memory Book: A New Approach to Vocabulary Building (Paperback)

This book is only about 100 pages, including a Final Exam and Glossary. So it doesn't go into that much depth as it is.

It's simply page after page of Portuguese words, their English equivalents and a couple sentences including mnemonic jingles to help you remember.

I bought the book about 10 years ago before I traveled to Brasil for the first time. Although I wouldn't say it's a waste, since you can learn some words this way, it leaves much to be desired as a complete language solution.

If you want to learn Brazilian Portuguese, the resource I found most helpful was the FSI programmatic course which is used by American diplomats. It's also the most comprehensive that I've found and extremely beneficial.

Since I bought every single resource I could find and immersed myself in them, I felt compelled to buy this book. But I don't feel compelled to recommend it unless you're like me and absolutely must cover all your bases.

This one won't help you all that much, but it won't hurt either.