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Learning Portuguese as a fourth..

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JW
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 Message 1 of 14
14 April 2008 at 3:02pm | IP Logged 
..romance language. Everytime I hear Brazilian music I want to begin learning portuguese immediately. What an incredibly beautiful language! I first need to get my Italian and Spanish up to basic fluency though (I think I'm close).

Anyway, what is the best way to learn Portuguese when one already speaks three romance languages? I.e., I can already more or less read it, to some extent, at a basic level, just from having read Teyssier's book "Comprendre les langues romanes". So, I am looking for an approach that assumes a strong grounding in the romance languages.
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Marc Frisch
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 Message 2 of 14
14 April 2008 at 3:49pm | IP Logged 
I'm in a similar situation, knowing French, Italian, and Spanish. I'm not planning to try Portuguese too soon, but I think Assimil would be a good choice (the French version, so you have an immediate transfer by comparing Portuguese and French). You should be able to work it through in 40 to 50 hours and at that point you will have seen enough of the grammar to start reading almost everything.

Or you can simply do it the hard way, memorize the essential conjugations and then just Listen/Read massive amounts of literature.

I seriously think that knowing three Romance languages, you could basically use anything to learn Portuguese fast. Don't worry too much about the method, you're likely to lose more time deciding what to use than you'll actually need to learn the language!
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isa!
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 Message 3 of 14
14 April 2008 at 4:29pm | IP Logged 
JW wrote:
..romance language. Everytime I hear Brazilian music I want to begin learning portuguese immediately. What an incredibly beautiful language! I first need to get my Italian and Spanish up to basic fluency though (I think I'm close).

Anyway, what is the best way to learn Portuguese when one already speaks three romance languages? I.e., I can already more or less read it, to some extent, at a basic level, just from having read Teyssier's book "Comprendre les langues romanes". So, I am looking for an approach that assumes a strong grounding in the romance languages.


Hey!
Do you really think you need a "special approach" to learn Portuguese? In my opinion, since you speak already 3 romance languages, it will be very simple to learn Portuguese and it will just come naturally!
If I were you I'd just try to learn it in the usual way... i think it will be easy for you!
I don't know, but I wouldn't really trust the kind of method you suggested
("Le lecteur pourra acquérir assez vite, en espagnol, portugais, italien et roumain"..i don't really believe these kind of things).
But it depends on what you want: If just want a basic knowledge,to be able to understand some songs and simple texts, go for it,but i think it will just mess up your mind! But if you really want to learn Portuguese there's no need to rush cause you'll find it quite easy anyway...
O

Edited by isa! on 14 April 2008 at 4:33pm

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JW
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 Message 4 of 14
14 April 2008 at 5:55pm | IP Logged 

Marc Frisch wrote:
I think Assimil would be a good choice (the French version, so you have an immediate transfer by comparing Portuguese and French). You should be able to work it through in 40 to 50 hours and at that point you will have seen enough of the grammar to start reading almost everything.

Or you can simply do it the hard way, memorize the essential conjugations and then just Listen/Read massive amounts of literature.

I seriously think that knowing three Romance languages, you could basically use anything to learn Portuguese fast. Don't worry too much about the method, you're likely to lose more time deciding what to use than you'll actually need to learn the language!


Thanks Marc. I was actually thinking of Assimil as I have never used it before and it seems to be highly esteemed on this forum. One question, could I do that 40-50 hours in one week (e.g., just take a week off from work and do 8-9 hours a day for 5-6 days) or would I not internalize it properly over such a short time period? It would be great if that would get me to the point where I could pick up some intermediate graded readers and read them using a dictionary and allverbs.com as well as download some intermediate level podcasts and start listening.

isa! wrote:
Hey!
Do you really think you need a "special approach" to learn Portuguese? In my opinion, since you speak already 3 romance languages, it will be very simple to learn Portuguese and it will just come naturally!
If I were you I'd just try to learn it in the usual way... i think it will be easy for you!
I don't know, but I wouldn't really trust the kind of method you suggested
("Le lecteur pourra acquérir assez vite, en espagnol, portugais, italien et roumain"..i don't really believe these kind of things).
But it depends on what you want: If just want a basic knowledge,to be able to understand some songs and simple texts, go for it,but i think it will just mess up your mind! But if you really want to learn Portuguese there's no need to rush cause you'll find it quite easy anyway...
O


Hi Isa:

I know I could learn it easily the same way I learned other languages but I was thinking of trying something more structured, accelerated and “scientific” this time.

Actually, the Teyssier book was quite interesting. I really only bought it as a fun read on comparative linguistics vis-à-vis French, Spanish, and Italian (I was actually a little upset that it included Portuguese and Romanian) but I was very pleasantly surprised on how the author was able to distill the essential points of French, Spanish, and Italian. It actually made me aware of some of my weak points in each of these languages and motivated me to go back and do some remedial study.

The Romanian seemed very strange to me and not something I am very interested in, but the Portuguese was riveting. I really did get enough to read basic Portuguese as I went to the Portuguese thread in the Multilingual Lounge and I can, in fact, follow along (although, I feel like a sixth grader auditing a high school class:)) . Of course it didn’t help with oral understanding or speaking..


Edited by JW on 14 April 2008 at 5:58pm

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zorglub
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 Message 5 of 14
14 April 2008 at 6:35pm | IP Logged 
JW wrote:

Marc Frisch wrote:
I think Assimil would be a good choice (the French version, so you have an immediate transfer by comparing Portuguese and French). You should be able to work it through in 40 to 50 hours and at that point you will have seen enough of the grammar to start reading almost everything.

Or you can simply do it the hard way, memorize the essential conjugations and then just Listen/Read massive amounts of literature.

I seriously think that knowing three Romance languages, you could basically use anything to learn Portuguese fast. Don't worry too much about the method, you're likely to lose more time deciding what to use than you'll actually need to learn the language!

(
I concur with this opinion. And forget the hard way ("hair shirt way")

And when you'll have a good mastery of brazilian portuguese, and you come across portuguese portuguese, that wil be a surprise ! it's quite difficult to understand it. Although the portuguese will understand yo perfectly.
I used to deem Brazilian very musical and elegant, but I confess that listening to "educated" portuguese portuguese, I find it very nice too. Maybe more elegant if less musical. besides, brazil does not produce any decent Port wine ;-)

Thanks Marc. I was actually thinking of Assimil as I have never used it before and it seems to be highly esteemed on this forum. One question, could I do that 40-50 hours in one week (e.g., just take a week off from work and do 8-9 hours a day for 5-6 days) or would I not internalize it properly over such a short time period? It would be great if that would get me to the point where I could pick up some intermediate graded readers and read them using a dictionary and allverbs.com as well as download some intermediate level podcasts and start listening.

isa! wrote:
Hey!
Do you really think you need a "special approach" to learn Portuguese? In my opinion, since you speak already 3 romance languages, it will be very simple to learn Portuguese and it will just come naturally!
If I were you I'd just try to learn it in the usual way... i think it will be easy for you!
I don't know, but I wouldn't really trust the kind of method you suggested
("Le lecteur pourra acquérir assez vite, en espagnol, portugais, italien et roumain"..i don't really believe these kind of things).
But it depends on what you want: If just want a basic knowledge,to be able to understand some songs and simple texts, go for it,but i think it will just mess up your mind! But if you really want to learn Portuguese there's no need to rush cause you'll find it quite easy anyway...
O


Hi Isa:

I know I could learn it easily the same way I learned other languages but I was thinking of trying something more structured, accelerated and “scientific” this time.

Actually, the Teyssier book was quite interesting. I really only bought it as a fun read on comparative linguistics vis-à-vis French, Spanish, and Italian (I was actually a little upset that it included Portuguese and Romanian) but I was very pleasantly surprised on how the author was able to distill the essential points of French, Spanish, and Italian. It actually made me aware of some of my weak points in each of these languages and motivated me to go back and do some remedial study.

The Romanian seemed very strange to me and not something I am very interested in, but the Portuguese was riveting. I really did get enough to read basic Portuguese as I went to the Portuguese thread in the Multilingual Lounge and I can, in fact, follow along (although, I feel like a sixth grader auditing a high school class:)) . Of course it didn’t help with oral understanding or speaking..

1 person has voted this message useful



JW
Hexaglot
Senior Member
United States
youtube.com/user/egw
Joined 5909 days ago

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 Message 6 of 14
14 April 2008 at 6:48pm | IP Logged 
zorglub wrote:
And when you'll have a good mastery of brazilian portuguese, and you come across portuguese portuguese, that wil be a surprise ! it's quite difficult to understand it.


Yeah, I have noticed that there seems to be quite a difference between Brazilian and Iberian (do you use that term in Portuguese?) Portuguese. It seems a much greater difference than between Iberian and Latin American Spanish but not so great a difference as between Hochdeutsch and Schweizerdeutsch (seeing you speak German)?
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Leopejo
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 Message 7 of 14
15 April 2008 at 3:16am | IP Logged 
JW wrote:
Yeah, I have noticed that there seems to be quite a difference between Brazilian and Iberian (do you use that term in Portuguese?) Portuguese. It seems a much greater difference than between Iberian and Latin American Spanish but not so great a difference as between Hochdeutsch and Schweizerdeutsch (seeing you speak German)?

I wonder what linguists say, in case one would like to learn both. Would "learn Portugal Portuguese first, then it will be easier to switch to the Brazilian one" be their suggestion?

Which ever you choose, focus your learning on pronunciation and listening comprehension! Spanish and Portuguese are deceptively similar in written form, aren't they?

Portugal is also full of magnificent singers, from the original fado ones to Madredeus to Mariza. One of the Forum members is learning Portuguese because of a Portuguese Metal band...

(only knowing obrigado, I apologize for talking about things I know nothing about)
1 person has voted this message useful



zorglub
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 Message 8 of 14
15 April 2008 at 6:13am | IP Logged 
JW wrote:
zorglub wrote:
And when you'll have a good mastery of brazilian portuguese, and you come across portuguese portuguese, that wil be a surprise ! it's quite difficult to understand it.

Yeah, I have noticed that there seems to be quite a difference between Brazilian and Iberian (do you use that term in Portuguese?) Portuguese. It seems a much greater difference than between Iberian and Latin American Spanish but not so great a difference as between Hochdeutsch and Schweizerdeutsch (seeing you speak German)?


Sorry , I don't know about Schweizerdeutsch, it's been a long time I have not been to Switzerland.

As to which to learn first, it's a matter of which sounds nicer to you.
I suggest you stick to one accent , but after all if you can switch from one to the other, do it. There are some minor syntax and vocabulary differences, too, and the POrtuguese are used to them through television series and films.

I started with Pimsleur Brazilian Portuguese, then Assimil Brazilian, and later I went through Assimil Portuguese, but while shadowing , I would shadow using the Brazilian pronunciation. Travelling in Portugal, I happen to concede some "ch" for some "s"s. My understanding is tha Assimil brazilian was mainly Paolista accent, with "s" pronounced "s".

Both brazilians and POrtuguese claim the "others" (Port. and Braz) speak very fast, isn't it funny ? How could it be. Maybe they speak grossly as fast as each other, but with the Brazilians pronouncing the whole words, while the Portuguese don't pronouce a lot of vowels, thus speaking fast without feeling they do. Talves.

But I'm not an expert.





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