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FSI Portuguese | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| josh_badgley Newbie United States Joined 4230 days ago 33 posts - 41 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Portuguese | Message 1 of 5 14 May 2013 at 4:33pm | IP Logged |
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After years of Spanish study, I have recently taken up the study of Portuguese, specifically European Portuguese. I am currently working through Colloquial Portuguese and have ordered Teach Yourself Portuguese and Teach Yourself Portuguese Grammar. I much prefer the sound of European Portuguese, but I understand most resources are for the Brazilian variety. This includes the FSI Portuguese Programmatic Course.
My question is, could I benefit from using the FSI course even if I'm concentrating on European Portuguese, or would it be a mistake? I really enjoy the Colloquial course, but my goal is basic fluency in Portuguese and I like the FSI method of drilling and pronunciation practice. I understand that the FSI Programmatic course is a different animal from their Basic course, but I think that with 2 volumes it would be quite comprehensive. And it has the added benefit of being free! So, any suggestions? I guess my biggest concern is...how to put this, contamination? I watch European Portuguese television and listen to radio from Portugal exclusively, so would using the FSI course make things confusing, or could I tailor it to suit my needs? Thank you and obrigadinho! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5261 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 2 of 5 14 May 2013 at 8:02pm | IP Logged |
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How well do you speak Spanish? If you are at a high intermediate level, say B-2, your knowledge of Spanish can be leveraged rather well. If not, you will have interference problems, in my experience.
I don't know much about Colloquial or Teach Yourself, but I'm pretty sure they concentrate on the Brazilian variety. I listen to European Portuguese everyday because I want to be familiar with it, but my grammar, vocabulary and accent are Brazilian. Since you wish to concentrate on the Iberian model, my advice would be to forgo the Brazilian resources and choose ones more related to what you wish to accomplish, despite the paucity of resources. Portuguese is the same language all over the world in formal usage (with some grammatical and vocabulary differences). In informal speech the differences are wider. How a Brazilian would choose to say things is a bit different than how someone from Lisbon might choose to say it. I would skip FSI altogether at the beginner stage, since you are concentrating on the Iberian variety. If you want to develop Iberian usage, grammar and Iberian pronunciation at this stage of learning, it will probably mess with you too much. After you've got the basics down, then have a look at Brazilian resources to get familiar with how the language is spoken in Brazil. You wouldn't want to be ignorant of how 200 million Portuguese speakers speak and write the language. Alternatively, if you really want to use FSI because it's free and has loads of drills. You could learn the Brazilian variety and familiarize yourself with the differences between the Iberian variety, but I think this method would be too much trouble. It would be best if you spend just a little money to get what you really need. Of course, I know everyone is broke- where there's a will there's a way. I would also get a good Portuguese grammar that covers Iberian Portuguese well. That way you could tailor Brazilian materials more to your needs, still the vocabulary choices of Brazilians can be quite different from Iberians. I started out with listening and reading African Portuguese, which is very close to the Iberian model, here: Deutsche Welle Learning by Ear/Aprender de Ouvido. These are "radionovelas" with about 10 episodes each per series. In all, there's over 70 hours worth of free downloadable text with audio available. Each episode lasts about 10 minutes and is free to download both the mp3 and the pdf transcript. You can also go to the English language site for the English versions and make your own bilingual texts. I'd start with "Fábulas Africanas". The language isn't overly complicated, is conversational and follows Iberian grammar. My knowledge of Spanish was a huge help. I made my own bilingual PT/EN texts which were also very helpful. It's the poor man's Assimil- without notes. Furthermore I highly recommend the beginners' reading section with audio at Centro Virtual Camões- A Aventura dos Descobrimentos. They also have a series about the kings of Portugal. These readings are intended for children but are very useful when you're just starting out. The other resources on the Centro Virtual Camões homepage will be quite helpful to you. If your knowledge of Spanish is at least intermediate level, I would try and get hold of a copy of Português sem fronteiras. This is a three volume monolingual series intended for foreigners learning Iberian Portuguese, with audio. There are plenty of drills and exercises in the books. They can be had used or new for under $100. You can always search. Lastly, there's always Assimil's El nuevo portugués sin esfuerzo which is based on the Iberian variety of both Portuguese and Spanish and can be had for fairly cheap. I don't know too much about Assimil, I haven't used it, but it is highly recommended here. Edited by iguanamon on 14 May 2013 at 8:25pm 6 persons have voted this message useful | |
| josh_badgley Newbie United States Joined 4230 days ago 33 posts - 41 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Portuguese | Message 3 of 5 14 May 2013 at 8:38pm | IP Logged |
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Obrigadinho, iguanamon!
My Spanish is at a pretty good intermediate level. I was lucky to have an excellent teacher in high school. Actually, it turns out I was very lucky, because so far my college teachers have been terrible. I haven't had a problem with interference, but I'm not actively studying both at the same time. I never was in love with Spanish...I've grown to like it more as I've gotten older but if I had to choose only one to learn I'd pick Portuguese in an instant. I appreciate your advice. I certainly don't want to be ignorant of the Brazilian variety, I would just prefer to speak with a European accent. For some weird reason, I like the sound better. And I'm much more interested in the culture of Portugal. The Colloquial and Teach Yourself resources I have are geared toward European Portuguese. Especially Colloquial...Teach Yourself supposedly teaches "both", i.e. it presents audio of both European and Brazilian speakers and then "allows you to choose which one to model", or so it says in the introduction. Both courses teach European Portuguese and then sprinkle in a few Brazilian words to show the differences. Luckily, Colloquial and Teach Yourself have versions specifically available for the Portuguese of Brazil (Colloquial Portuguese of Brazil 1 and 2 and Teach Yourself Brazilian Portuguese), which I might consult in the future. Again, thank you very much for the info. As a beginner, I'm going to try to narrow my focus like a laser beam, and then branch out later. Edited by josh_badgley on 14 May 2013 at 8:39pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5261 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 4 of 5 16 May 2013 at 3:13am | IP Logged |
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I forgot to mention História do Dia which is a children's story site in Iberian Portuguese with human narrated audio. By clicking the Union Jack at the top right, the English translations will appear, though not in a full page format. You have to click the little arrow at the bottom of the text to continue.
With a little effort and copying and pasting, you can make your own bilingual texts of these short stories- about two minutes or so of audio. Here's how to make your own bilingual text using your office suite. advice doesn't apply to long books- unless you really want to make that effort and take the time! a) Open a word/open office document. b) insert a table with two columns and one row. c) copy desired TL text (highlight and hit "CTRL C"). d) paste desired TL text on left (highlight and hit "CTRL V"). e) copy desired English (or other language) text. f) paste desired English (or other) text on right. g) you may have to highlight all text in one or both columns and change font size and font type so that they are equal. h) align as best as possible- some fiddling with font sizes can help. i) print to pdf and read on your tablet or e-reader (in pdf format, after cropping) It gets easier as you go along. To download the audio with Mozilla Firefox "ctrl u" to view "page source" then "ctrl f" and enter "mp3" and then search. You may have to click "find next" a few times. You'll be looking for a link that is something like this "http://imgs.sapo.pt/kids/kidspt2009/content/1412537045639hi story_0516.mp3". (remove forum software space in the word "history". Just copy and paste it into a new tab and then save page as mp3. The annoying intro music can be removed with the audacity software. Free, short, listening and bilingual reading in Iberian Portuguese. It just takes a little effort- perfect for a broke college student, even with the imperfect English translations (not word for word). By the way the page for Sapo.pt Kids-aprender could be quite useful for your beginner learning. Hope some of this helps. Boa sorte! Edited by iguanamon on 16 May 2013 at 3:45am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Random review Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5782 days ago 781 posts - 1310 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Yiddish, German | Message 5 of 5 16 May 2013 at 3:59am | IP Logged |
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I got pretty similar advice from Iguanamon and it proved to be excellent. The method he
details for downloading the audio on Firefox also works on Chrome btw. I notice you speak Spanish. I love parallel texts for most languages, but having studied Spanish previously I prefer to leave the stories at Historia do dia in my browser (Chrome). I find (and you might too) that I didn't really need to spend time making parallel texts for Portuguese: the pop-up dictionary in Chrome allows me to learn faster with Portuguese as with this language it is only a case of clicking on the odd word that doesn't ring any bells or occasionally to confirm suspicions. I suspect the register of Brazilian Portuguese taught in the FSI Programatic course is not too different from the same register in Portugal, so I think it could still be useful to you for the drills much further down the line when your European pronunciation is pretty much safely bedded in. Edited by Random review on 16 May 2013 at 4:01am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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