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Portuguese from Scratch | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| jtdotto Diglot Groupie United States Joined 5221 days ago 73 posts - 172 votes  Speaks: English*, Korean Studies: Spanish, Portuguese, German | Message 1 of 26 28 May 2014 at 11:38am | IP Logged |
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Target: Brazilian Portuguese
My Goal: to reach B1 by the end of the summer. Background: I studied Spanish for five unfocused years throughout high school and into college. I've never been beyond an A2 with Spanish. Caveat: this was classroom Spanish, and I never really activated what I had learned beyond this. Thus, my listening never advanced beyond that of a sympathetic teacher, and any ability I had with the language was all done through slow translations in my head. My method of study with Spanish was purely passive, in that I was following the course laid out for me by the instructor, and did no more than was asked (and many times less than that). Although this gives me a noticeable advantage when it comes to Portuguese as far as grammar and vocabulary goes (compared to the absolute language beginner), I still consider myself having started this pursuit as a true novice in the world of Portuguese. Have spent 6 solid years of study in Korean, and have reached the threshold between B2/C1. This experience gave me the real knowledge and know-how I'll be using to study Portuguese. I've chosen Portuguese for a few reasons, the first and foremost being one of the most classic reasons - a woman. A total sweetheart. Whether it works out or not, I will always be grateful she introduced me to the world and culture of Portuguese. But more to the point of this journal, I've been looking for a second language to truly study for a while now. I've flirted with German, Japanese, Spanish (again), Arabic... The stars lined up and it looks like it is Portuguese. I love the rhythm and melody of the language, and being a guitar player and songwriter myself makes Portuguese incredibly attractive when I listen to Tom Jobim and bossa nova music. A perfect marriage of language and culture for me. My Materials: Living Language Complete Basics for Brazilian Portuguese as my grammatical foundation. I acquired a copy of Assimil's "le bresilien sans peine". I do not speak French, but an Australian friend does, as does my Brazilian lady friend (who also speaks great English and, obviously, Portuguese). With their help translating the dialogues into English, I've been able to put together an Assimil "hack", formatting the text so they fit right into the book (correct font and size!). I am also looking at various podcasts and other materials to start once I finish these two books. My Method: Conventional grammar study through Living Language and daily shadowing of Assimil. Online chatting with Sharedtalk.com, and real conversation with Brazilians in Seattle. Once I've ironed out my next set of materials, I will develop appropriate methods to get the most out of those. It's been just under one month now since I've started studying and it's been an incredibly fun journey so far. I've already had some great experiences using my limited Portuguese around town, even impromptu interpreting for a Brazilian couple whom I met a computer repair shop. Here is to the Pork'n'Cheese! Saúde! 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| jtdotto Diglot Groupie United States Joined 5221 days ago 73 posts - 172 votes Speaks: English*, Korean Studies: Spanish, Portuguese, German | Message 2 of 26 30 May 2014 at 1:26am | IP Logged |
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May 28th
I did my shadowing routine, 11-17 of Assimil. I worked through my Anki decks, 8 units worth of Living Language vocab lists. I spent some time reading through unit 8's grammar which introduces the preterite, and decided I needed some practice. I found two websites, www.conjuguemos.com and www.verbs-online.com that have conjugation exercises for multiple languages. I worked for about 30 minutes on preterite exercises, paying special attention to irregular verbs like ir/ser, estar, dar, pôr, vir, ver, etc. I spent some time chatting online in Portuguese, and that was it. I've thought about what advantage I have with having studied Spanish in the past, and it really shows when it comes to verbs and sentence structure. The entire idea of verb conjugation was well worked into my brain when I studied Spanish, so I felt like learning the present tense in Portuguese was generally like learning a variation on a theme rather than a whole new paradigm. There are differences, especially with the idea that você is the default second person pronoun, and irregular verbs are still just as quirky in Portuguese as they are in Spanish, but it felt like riding a new kind of bike - the feel of the handlebars and the ride is vastly different, but the mechanics and the movements are the same. When it comes to sentence structure, I have a great head start with having studied Spanish. Though I never truly activated my Spanish, I do remember writing page long essays in Spanish on somewhat simple topics, and the two quarters of Spanish I did take at the UW forced me to speak Spanish everyday (albeit with other American students), and so I believe that experience helps me when it comes to putting a sentence together in a Romance language. But I believe my experience with Korean helps me even more. With Korean, I learned how to think in another language. I learned how to hear something being said and take that as what it is in that language, or say something and have it mean what I want to say divorced from English. Now I can't do this all the time, I do have limitations when it comes to vocabulary and idiomatic expressions. But the bones of the language and the many words I do know and expressions I do know, they all live inside me. So when I'm shadowing Portuguese, I'm saying what I am hearing and am trying to "mean it" as best I can. My shadowing routine is a slightly modified version of Professor Arguelles'. I listen to 6 lessons in a day, using the previous 5 to warm up to the new lesson for the day, and will listen to that new lesson on repeat for about 20-25 minutes. I walk around my neighborhood speaking aloud as I listen, and reading for the first 20 minutes. Depending on how quickly my brain can assimilate to the new lesson, I may close the book and just shadow, or I may keep reading until I return home. I then will try to pick apart some of the sentences to find the logic of the language, or I may just know I'll need to spend some time the next day taking in that lesson. But that's the thing about shadowing and Assimil - it's less about trying to parse and understand, and more about taking in the chunk of language and owning it for what it is. It's this kind of semi-zen like approach that works best for me when using Assimil. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| kujichagulia Senior Member Japan Joined 4839 days ago 1031 posts - 1571 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Portuguese | Message 3 of 26 30 May 2014 at 1:44am | IP Logged |
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I started Portuguese from scratch almost 2 years ago... and I'm probably still A1 - certainly at the spoken level. Granted, my priority is learning Japanese (which I also started learning because of a woman!), and I have to juggle work as a teacher, marriage, an array of interests, etc. With the foundation you have, as long as you put in the time I think you can reach B1 before the summer is up!
I'm happy to see another Portuguese log here - we need more of those! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Cristianoo Triglot Senior Member Brazil https://projetopoligRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4113 days ago 175 posts - 289 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, FrenchB2, English Studies: Russian | Message 4 of 26 30 May 2014 at 5:58am | IP Logged |
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jtdotto,
Boa sorte e bons estudos! If I could help somehow, just send me a message. Portuguese is a lot easier for those who speak Spanish. Don't bother yourself too much studying complicated conjugations such as Pretérito Perfeito, but rather keep your focus on simpler ones, which are those we use anyway in spoken language... 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| jtdotto Diglot Groupie United States Joined 5221 days ago 73 posts - 172 votes Speaks: English*, Korean Studies: Spanish, Portuguese, German | Message 5 of 26 31 May 2014 at 10:06am | IP Logged |
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5/29 - 30
I started two new lessons with Assimil, 18 and 19. Shadowed for 30 minutes both days and worked my Anki decks both days. I've been going back to conjuguemos.com and working on the preterite again. I've been having a tough time getting the conjugations for ver and vir down... they don't lend themselves to being learned at the same time because they are similar, at least in my mind. Other than that, I'm slowly memorizing the preterite form for irregular verbs, which I think is key because I find I talk about the past a lot more than the future when I'm in the beginning stages of learning a language. I'm really enjoying Assimil. As long as I just allow it to work it's stuff, and just let my brain do the subconscious learning, I feel like it's a cruise and just a matter of sticking to the routine. If I become too focused on understanding every sentence and every reason for the conjugation being xy and z, I lose track of the conversation happening and it inhibits the subconscious assimilation. I truly believe you have to let yourself just take it in and concentrate on good pronunciation, and understanding as much as you can *at that time*. This method is invaluable because of this. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| fabriciocarraro Hexaglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Brazil russoparabrasileirosRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4707 days ago 989 posts - 1454 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, EnglishB2, Italian, Spanish, Russian, French Studies: Dutch, German, Japanese | Message 6 of 26 31 May 2014 at 6:18pm | IP Logged |
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Boa sorte! =)
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| FireViN Diglot Senior Member Brazil missaoitaliano.wordpRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5221 days ago 196 posts - 292 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, EnglishC2 Studies: Italian | Message 7 of 26 01 June 2014 at 11:39pm | IP Logged |
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Oh, I wish somebody would translate a few Assimil courses into English for me hahah (Le Suédois, anyone?). I'm seriously considering learning to (properly) read French just to use their courses.
Brazilians are used to think that Portuguese is super hard. It's actually quite simple, specially if you already know some Spanish and have someone to speak to you in colloquial BP, which is a lot simpler than the textbookish language. Bons estudos! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| jtdotto Diglot Groupie United States Joined 5221 days ago 73 posts - 172 votes Speaks: English*, Korean Studies: Spanish, Portuguese, German | Message 8 of 26 03 June 2014 at 8:21am | IP Logged |
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5/31 - 6/2
I brought in two more Assimil lessons, 20 and 22 (21 is a review lesson). I've decided to up the number of lessons I do in one day from 6 to 10, per Prof. Arguelles suggestion in his shadowing video. Once I hit lesson 15 the speed of speech and the time between sentences became a lot faster, which has brought a higher level of challenge to shadowing, thus calling for more review to get down each lesson. That being said, the lessons rarely top two minutes now (unlike the first 13, which would go upwards to 5 minutes), so doing 9 in a row and then the 10th one for 20 minutes is no big deal for me. I've moved into the 10th and final unit of Living Language. Here comes the infamous subjunctive. That being said, I still don't have down the preterite or imperfect to my liking, but I have confidence they will come with time (I also did more conjugation exercises this past weekend). I'm completely ignoring the LL dialogues. I know there might be nuggets of good stuff in them, but on the whole I find them to be too hokey, too practical, and just plain boring. I don't want to talk about financial reports and the expected quarterly growth of a small business, and I skip those vocab words when making my Anki decks. I want high frequency verbs, I want adverbs, I want common nouns. I guess I'm starting to really appreciate the humor in Assimil, and also the vast array of subject matter they touch on. That being said, Living Language really shines when it comes to a logical presentation of the grammar, and they do have a ton of great vocab packed into the book. Been keeping up on my Anki decks and have been speaking via Skype and Sharedtalk.com. Watched Xangô de Baker Street over the weekend. It was a bit ridiculous but a nice cultural milieu of Brazilian stereotypes it seems. I'd like to find some well written Brazilian/Portuguese movies (already seen Cidade de Deus, couldn't understand more than 20 words - I imagine it was like a foreigner to English watching Pulp Fiction to study). I need to buy a notebook to start compiling nice phrases and idioms I'm coming across. I also want to include a scriptorium routine in my daily study to help work these more challenging Assimil dialogues. Lastly, I am starting to research the next course I'm going to tackle. With LL almost done in terms of the grammatical presentation, and almost all the vocab programmed into Anki (someday I'll get to those untouched dialogues), I need to find something that will help me practice grammar. I'm thinking FSI, though I'm not so sure how great it will be.. I've been looking at Semantica's Portuguese online... If anybody has any suggestions, I'd very much appreciate them. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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