Customer Reviews

Ultimate Portuguese (LL(R) Ultimate Basic-Intermed)

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

 

 

This set is by far the best product available for the intermediate student of Portuguese on the market. It combines a complete review of grammer with extensive vocabulary and idiomatic expressions presented as an introduction to numerous cultural notes. The cassettes are indispensable to the course since Portuguese pronunciation is certainly somewhat trickier than that of other Romance languages for native speakers of English. The accents on the tapes focus on the Brazilian variety and are very easy to understand with sufficient time to repeat for the non-beginner. The set also devotes sufficient time to the culture and accent of Portugal. It even discusses the use of Portuguese in Africa. The book starts with the basics and proceeds to an advanced lever; however, the recorded material may be spoken far too fast without sufficient pause to respond for the absolute beginner. Nevertheless, the course as a whole is fantastic. I especially was impressed with the way that it builds upon materials presented and laps back to repeat certain lessons without becoming boring. I would recommend this set as the best available grammatical review and practice of the spoken language for any student beyond the beginning level.

This is a great course and value for the money. The speakers and recording quality are excellent. After taking Pimsleur Portuguese I and Barron's Portuguese, I found the approach in this course to be fun and interesting with lively, relevant dialogs.

If you already know Spanish, you can pick up Portuguese very quickly after learning the rules of pronunciation, because so many of the words are exactly the same or nearly the same as Spanish. However, be forewarned, Portuguese has several sounds that don't exist in English or Spanish. Also, the same word can have different pronunciations, so herein lies challenges of learning Portuguese. However, the tape series provides you with a realistic experience of the various pronunciations that you will encounter with different Portuguese speaking people.

If you are a raw beginner with foreign languages, then the pace of the spoken dialogs and the rapid introduction of new words and tenses in this series may be challenging, but don't become discouraged. Repetition is the mother of all language learning, so review each chapter and tape several times before proceeding. You will find that it gets easier each time that you review.

My only criticism is the number of typos. I saw 5 in the first 185 pages, e.g. pg. 185, "agora = know", but it should = "now". The book was just published in 2000, so hopefully the editors will correct the errors in future editions. But don't let a few typos stop you from buying and enjoying this course. I have purchased several of the Living Language Spanish tape series in the past, and I found this Portuguese course to be the best and most enjoyable one to date.

Since there aren't as many courses available in Portuguese as some other languages, I just hope that Living Language will soon publish an "advanced" series by the same authors as a sequel.

My wife and I are moving to Brazil for two years this month, and neither of us speak Portuguese. We plan on spending the first few months of our trip focusing on language learning, but we wanted a head start before we left. So we spent hours in bookstores this week looking for the right program. We settled on this Living Language set and we're happy with it.

We put the first tape in on the way home from the bookstore. The tapes are ONLY Portuguese, which allows you to be saturated with the sounds of the language. The book lets you follow along with the tape and read the English translations. Once you've gone through a lesson on the tape and have read the lesson in the book, you can play the tape over and over again without the book to practice pronunciation and memorize the words and phrases.

Perhaps what I liked best about this program is that you can use the book without the tape. The book is a real language textbook which can be read and used without listening to the tape. So, when you can't listen to a tape, you can still be reading dialogues, memorizing vocabulary, and learning grammar.

The lessons are paced well, accomodating any level of learner. If you want to focus on one lesson you can do that easily. The lessons are broken up into 10 minute or so chunks. If you want to keep going and soak up several lessons at once you can do that, too.

The vocabulary and grammar is immediately practical. From the very first dialogue you are learning everyday conversation. It's not just a "phrase book" however since the book also covers the grammar that is introduced in each dialogue.

We're happy with Ultimate Portuguese, and I'm sure that it will be a worthwhile investment.

I don't recommend this book because it is very confusing. It tries to put Brazilian portuguese and continental Portuguese into one. Therefore, you're learning a mixed dialect and won't be able to fully understood in either places. Also, you're pronunciation is going to be awful. The tapes switch from Continental portuguese to Brazilian Portuguese without even indicating it and the two different kinds of Portuguese languages are pronounced differently. For people looking for strictly Brazilian Portuguese or Continental Portuguese this isn't the course.

This is a valuable and beneficial book. It contains relevant and up-to-date information, but there were many typographical errors. These ranged from incorrect spelling (in both English and Portuguese)to obvious mis-translations of basic and familiar words and phrases. I have only a slight background in Portuguese, and was able to spot many mistakes. These may go unnoticed by a novice reader of the language. Nonetheless, when completed with this course you should have no problems in conversing with Brazilian and European speakers.

Portuguese is my native language. I just want to help the reviewer from Bradford who is curious about the use of the word MEIA when we refer to number six on the phone. "Meia" is short for "meia-dúzia" that means "half-a-dozen". The pronunciation of numbers 3 and 6 are nearly similar, and could be easily mistaken one for another it the line were bad. Remember, in English, many say, for instance, two-oh-oh-9 and not two-zero-zero-nine, for 2009, where we certainly mean the number and not the letter of the alphabet, and so on. I hope that can help.

This is by far the best Portuguese program I've ever used--and I've used a few. My husband is from Lisbon and I've tried to learn the language 3 times. I carried it with me EVERYWHERE in Portugal. The dialogues are very realistic and flowed well and the culture sections are interesting and fun. It's the only program that I've ever used that includes various African countries as Portuguese-speaking. My instructor uses it in class and he detected accents from Portugal, Brazil, and Angola in the tapes. They even identify the country and city the speakers are from. Unfortunately, I had to buy-and throw out-two other programs before I bought this one.

It is somewhat a good set, but it has a lot of typographical errors.
There is a section that does not give people an explanation as to why they use the word "meia", instead of the number 6, when making phone calls. I do not recommend the Living Language Ultimate Portuguese book and cassette set to anyone.