Customer Reviews

Portuguese: Start Speaking Today! (Language 30series)

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Being my very first book in Portuguese, I found intimidating the first section: the portuguese alphabet. Seven pages of rules about different sounds for the same letter plus a collection of strange diphthongs. When I finally made it to the "general expressions", I had already forgot all the rules. Listening to native speakers is great. Each sentence is repeated twice with a pause between so you can say it loud. But the sentences are spoken too fast and the pause becomes too short for a first timer. Even though all sentences are accompained by an easy phonetic spelling, not always the native speakers pronounce them the way they were written. There also some brief omissions (printed sentences never spoken).

Good repertoire of survival phrases, very comprehensive. Nice introduction with a hint of the history of the language. Very practical "social customs and polite expressions". Very useful life saving section of "important signs". Basic grammar is just that, three small pages with the most basic of the basics: nouns, genders, singular, plural, personal pronouns and present tense of 5 sample verbs.

You will not get to converse in portuguese with this book but you'll get a basic foundation for further studies. My advice: pay extreme attention to the haunting pronounciation section. Spend one week studying it until you master it. Then you will rejoice in the phrases section as you realize that there is some consistency after all.