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Colloquial Portuguese

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DaraghM
Diglot
Senior Member
Ireland
Joined 6153 days ago

1947 posts - 2923 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish
Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian

 
 Message 1 of 3
29 September 2011 at 4:06pm | IP Logged 
Having dabbled very briefly in the past with Portuguese, I thought I'd do some revision using Colloquial Portuguese. Here's my opinion on this course,

Pros

- Clear grammatical explanations.
- Detailed pronunciation guide compared to some other courses.
- Clear audio with multiple speakers.
- Covers both Continental and Brazilian Portuguese.

Cons

- Compared to other Colloquial courses, there's a huge amount of English padding on the audio recordings.
- Like other Colloquial courses the audio is restricted to 2 CD's.

Anyone else used this course, and what are your opinions ?





2 persons have voted this message useful



KimG
Diglot
Groupie
Norway
Joined 4979 days ago

88 posts - 104 votes 
Speaks: Norwegian*, English
Studies: Portuguese, Swahili

 
 Message 2 of 3
02 October 2011 at 12:05am | IP Logged 
Did you use "Colloquial Portuguese", the european version? I've used the "Colloquial Portuguese of Brazil", and it seem to cover both Brazilian and Continental Portuguese to an extent, too.

for this version of the course:
Pros:
- The speakers on the 2 CD's speak as Brazilians would speak in Brazil. No slow or artificial language.
- Covers every basic part of the language, verbs and pronouns, and the most used words, and a lot of usefull rules for understanding the written language.



Cons:
- The language on the course, seem to be a little formal, 'continental' ish, in some ways, if one would simply speak using all the formal rules for placement of pronouns after the verb, etc. Very little 'informal' language.
- Most complex verb tenses are simply never used in the course book. No samples or practical examples, no mention of how the conjugations form conditional sentences, the "conditional tense" example just say it means would or should, could be it would be a bit too much for such simple an beginner book, but since all the verb forms (Vos is mentioned in the back, its there too) are there, it would be nice having them used in a audio track or two.
- While the pronounciation guide seems good, the written guide simply was unintillegible for me until I had used Pimsleur and gotten a foundation in spoken language. Now it's usefull for me, at the start it was not. Specially since it seem to assume some American accent English I think, and I'm a foregin learner in Brittish.

I'd say it's good, but, at least for the Brazilian edition, id suggest for total newbies, to either use an audio set of sort first (Pimsleur or other CD set), or get help of an native speaker who can help a bit getting the pronounciation right. For an book with 2 cd's, it really good, but limited in scoop to an really thorough newbie book.

Edited by KimG on 02 October 2011 at 12:05am

2 persons have voted this message useful



DaraghM
Diglot
Senior Member
Ireland
Joined 6153 days ago

1947 posts - 2923 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish
Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian

 
 Message 3 of 3
03 October 2011 at 11:11am | IP Logged 
KimG wrote:
Did you use "Colloquial Portuguese", the european version?


Yes. I used the European version. When I get a chance, I'll look at the Brazilian course and see if there's much of a difference.


1 person has voted this message useful



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