Most Helpful Customer Reviews
48 of 48 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A better way of learning Portuguese, April 17, 2003
This review is from: Teach Yourself Portuguese: A Complete Course in Understanding Speaking and Writing (Teach Yourself Language Complete Courses) ( With Audio) (Paperback)
If more than five stars were available, I would give them to this course. Some courses specifically for Brazilian or European Portuguese teach you local expressions and colloquialisms that make learning harder for people like me who want to use the language on both sides of the Atlantic. After struggling with a couple of such courses, I was fortunate to find this one. In this course the starting point is the common ground between Brazilian and European Portuguese. The differences are then explained and you can pick what you need depending where you want to use the language. I bought this course last year and have gone through most of it. So far, I have used what I am learning in Brazil, Portugal and Angola. When I spoke Portuguese in these countries, it was a fantastic feeling to see that I was actually understood. The accompanying audio gives you different voices, which also helps with the various accents even within Brazil (they sound quite different in the north and in the south). Another feature I particularly like in this course is that it is very communicative. Everything you learn can be used straight away, in authentic situations: formalities on arrival, finding the way, hiring a car, hotel and other accommodation, food, shopping, health, meeting people socially or for business, and a lot more. This course is a superb buy.
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47 of 47 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Flexible Friend, December 12, 2002
By A Customer
This review is from: Teach Yourself Portuguese: A Complete Course in Understanding Speaking and Writing (Teach Yourself Language Complete Courses) ( With Audio) (Paperback)
My fiancé and I visited Portugal this year for a semester. Since neither of us spoke the language we decided to purchase a teach yourself course. Having reviewed all the available material, we found the above book and audio package to be the best value. Best because it also covers Portuguese as spoken in Brazil; our next target. What appealed to us about the book was the modern day approach which the author adopted. Its flexibility by allowing us to go as far into a topic as we wished. That the same book would serve us equally as well when we visited Brazil. Also and the number of different topics covered. Quite naturally, when you are a beginner, grammar can be the biggest obstacle. No problem here. The grammar is presented in small amounts, each piece being targeted to your progress. Dialogues used in the book to demonstrate model sentences use expressions which can be found in everyday situations. In fact, they too have been pitched to cater for your confidence in using the grammar. Equally the vocabulary used is very realistic and typical of everyday use. We particularly liked the vocabulary lists at the back of the book for quick reference of Portuguese to English and vice versa. The range of topics to was invaluable. In the early stages of our visit we pointed to the phrase or sentence in the book to get what we wanted but as we read and immersed ourselves in the environment we spoke more. You would have thought that because of the environment we were in, the audio assistance would not have been used so much. Not true, we found it very useful, particularly when we refer to our next target of Brazil. Having the ability to relate the daily Portuguese we heard to the audio aid and then relating it to Portuguese as spoken in Brazil made us feel comfortable over a next venture. There is little doubt, however, that we shall take our `Flexible friend' with us.
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51 of 52 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Absolutely super!, May 14, 2003
This review is from: Teach Yourself Portuguese: A Complete Course in Understanding Speaking and Writing (Teach Yourself Language Complete Courses) ( With Audio) (Paperback)
Fun, easy and very efficient. Excellent audio, slow enough for a beginner, excellent dialogues with the kind of words and structures you need in a foreign country. The language is explained in a way that makes it easy to understand. There are absolutely lots of exercises to practice what you are learning. This is a course I strongly recommend.
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