Customer Reviews

Teach Yourself Portuguese: A Complete Course in Understanding Speaking and Writing (Teach Yourself Language Complete Courses) ( With Audio)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

I particularly like the way the whole course is organised. It progresses gradually, in easy steps, with simple phrases and structures. Chapter 5 is the first revision unit, where you go through what you have learnt in different situations and add more vocabulary to it. Throughout the course, you learn, revise and expand on what you already know. Very efficient. Another good point is the Brazilian words, forms and short texts. Very useful. Portugal being a small country, it is good that when you buy a Portuguese course you can use what you learn in other parts of the world.

Manuela Cook, Teach Yourself Portuguese. A complete course in understanding speaking and writing. Publishers: Hodder & Stoughton, 2002 (with Audio)

What I particularly liked about this course is the useful vocabulary it gives you. This comes mainly in dialogues, then in exercises, then again in other units (there are 25 five units). The vocabulary is recycled several times in different situations so you remember it and know how to use it for different purposes. Very cleverly done!

I had to go on a five-day trip to Brazil and the timing didn't fit with taking conventional classes in Portuguese, so I tried this. I spent maybe 45 minutes to an hour with it, a few evenings a week. The lessons were well laid out and easy to follow. After several months I got on the plane down to Sao Paulo, and from there took a connecting flight that wasn't geared for passengers who spoke English. I found that I could (1) understand most of the in-flight magazine ... OK, those are not what you'd call heavy reading ... (2) get to my destination (3) understand what my hosts said to me (4) talk to them so they could understand me.

Disclaimer: I already have studied French, German, and Spanish. If you know French and Spanish you'll have little trouble with Portuguese.

Brazil is an interesting place, even if you aren't in Rio.

This course gave me what others failed to. I felt that the author was always with me, informing, guiding, anticipating my problems and providing answers. Dr Cook must be a very good teacher!
You can go as far as you want, use the first units just to get by or go through the whole book. You can stop where you want and still have learned something. Pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary are very clearly explained. I strongly recommend this course to anyone who wants to learn Portuguese, for Brazil, Portugal, and some countries in Africa or anywhere else where the language is spoken.