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Specific FSI Courses for Br. Portuguese

  Tags: Portuguese | FSI
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jae
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 Message 1 of 5
30 June 2012 at 5:14pm | IP Logged 
About a month ago, I began using FSI Portuguese for my TAC study of Portuguese. I've now actually started researching it more (probably should have done this first...), and I just realized that there are a lot of different FSI courses. I have been using "Spoken Brazilian Portuguese: Basic Course, Units 1-18" but now I see that there is also "Portuguese Programmatic" (Volumes 1 and 2) as well as "Portuguese FAST" (Volumes 1 and 2). I am now wondering if I am actually using the best course. The Portuguese Programmatic wouldn't be high on my list if I considered switching since it seems that this one is oriented more toward foreign service officers and also isn't as Brazil-centric as I would like. But "Spoken Brazilian Portuguese" and "Portuguese FAST" both focus on conversational Brazilian Portuguese, so does anyone have a recommendation as to which would be more useful? I have about 2 months for intensive study and then afterward I hope to continue as well, but I won't have as much free time. I'm studying on my own, but will have the opportunity to go over dialogues, if necessary for the flow of the course, with a Brazilian Portuguese speaker. Any feedback would be appreciated!
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iguanamon
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 Message 2 of 5
30 June 2012 at 5:45pm | IP Logged 
FSI FAST is for short term familiarization- more like a ramped up phrase book. The same goes for the Defense Language Institute's "Head Start"- which is actually Iberian Portuguese.

I'm not familiar with the FSI Portuguese courses. If I might suggest a slightly different tack, I found DLI Portuguese Basic to be 100% Brazil-centric with little to no military terminology. The course dates from 1970 & 1989 but still, the drills, vocabulary, and focus on Brazil were quite helpful to me. Each lesson has a dialog with two speakers and a segment where you take the role of both speakers alternating. The lessons have a perception drill and comprehension drill relating to the dialog. Substitution drills and pattern drills also relate to the dialog and concentrate on grammatical features. After the audio, there is a narrative page followed by comprehension questions- ideal to use with a native speaker who has read the article. This is followed by grammar explanations and a Portuguese-English vocabulary glossary.

The good thing about DLI is it comes in 8 volumes with a ton of audio and drills. Yeah, drills can be boring but they worked for me. The pdf's work better with an ocr clean up and pdf optimizer. You don't have to start at the beginning. Jump in where you feel your level to be.

Boa sorte com a lĂ­ngua portuguesa!   

Edit: You want the pdf's labelled Volume 1- Volume 8. The illustrated material for conversation is also useful. If you have a tablet- the course is more efficient and user friendly.

Edited by iguanamon on 30 June 2012 at 5:51pm

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jae
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 Message 3 of 5
30 June 2012 at 6:09pm | IP Logged 
Iguanamon, thanks for the suggestions! Having looked over the content in the DLI units, I really like the topics covered. Since I've already put a decent amount of time into the FSI course, I think I'm going to continue with it for now, and then switch to DLI when I'm done (for the more advanced units with more complicated topics). I think FSI will be fine for covering the basic pleasantries, etc. of daily life, but DLI looks great for covering texts about news, etc. in later units. Thanks again!
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dbag
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 Message 4 of 5
02 July 2012 at 9:19pm | IP Logged 
@jae do you have audio for the FSI Portuguese basic course?

I notice it isn't on the FSI site.
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jae
Triglot
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United States
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 Message 5 of 5
06 July 2012 at 6:00pm | IP Logged 
dbag wrote:
@jae do you have audio for the FSI Portuguese basic course?

I notice it isn't on the FSI site.


No, I haven't been able to find the audio for that FSI course. I'm just using the text and then also using Pimsleur on the side for conversation practice.


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