Portuguese: A Complete Course for Beginners (Teach Yourself (Book & Cassette))

Rating:
Summary: Incremental steps
Review: First of all, this is my first try at the Portuguese language, although I've studied other languages before. The book takes an awful approach to learning the Portuguese alphabet -- although the letters look the same, oftentimes they're stressed completely differently, depending on where the stress is, etc., but all this book is to lay it out in a 8 or 9-page table in the beginning of the book. For someone who doesn't pick up accents very easily, this book barely even tries to explain the difference between an accented e ("is") and regular e ("and"). This book takes the viewpoint (as far as vocabulary) of the tourist -- o aeroporto, etc. -- and does include useful phrases. To its credit -- as far as I know -- it does a fairly good job saying which phrases are Brazilian-only and which are vice versa, as well as pronounciation differences, but as I said earlier, it does such a bad job anyway on pronounciation: on the tape, to teach the alphabet it just has a native speaker reading a list of words which happen to have the letters in them. Nothing about how to pronounce them, the tapes don't even play the regular vocabulary words at a reduced speed, so it's entirely possible to miss whole syllables. I haven't read all of the book, but it does an OK job explaining word differences in general...althoguh it has a Portuguese-English dictionary of terms in the back, there's no vice versa. Especially for the intended audience -- a would-be tourist who suddenly forgets the word for "toilet paper"...It does a fairly mediocre job of explaining verb tenses and conjugations, too -- the main redeeming feature of the book is fast process. Yet because of the horrible job explaining pronounciation -- even with two tapes -- whatever process you may have may well be rendered unintelligible to an authentic native of Brazil, Portugal, Guinea-Bissau, etc. Buy it if you need a quick course -- especially in writing -- it's OK, and the exercises are adequate, although there's no space for writing. All in all, I'm going to use it... but if you're serious, get another book and do yourself a favor.

Rating:
Summary: Fine for a quick learn? Yes. Long term/fluency? No.
Review: First of all, this is my first try at the Portuguese language, although I've studied other languages before. The book takes an awful approach to learning the Portuguese alphabet -- although the letters look the same, oftentimes they're stressed completely differently, depending on where the stress is, etc., but all this book is to lay it out in a 8 or 9-page table in the beginning of the book. For someone who doesn't pick up accents very easily, this book barely even tries to explain the difference between an accented e ("is") and regular e ("and"). This book takes the viewpoint (as far as vocabulary) of the tourist -- o aeroporto, etc. -- and does include useful phrases. To its credit -- as far as I know -- it does a fairly good job saying which phrases are Brazilian-only and which are vice versa, as well as pronounciation differences, but as I said earlier, it does such a bad job anyway on pronounciation: on the tape, to teach the alphabet it just has a native speaker reading a list of words which happen to have the letters in them. Nothing about how to pronounce them, the tapes don't even play the regular vocabulary words at a reduced speed, so it's entirely possible to miss whole syllables. I haven't read all of the book, but it does an OK job explaining word differences in general...althoguh it has a Portuguese-English dictionary of terms in the back, there's no vice versa. Especially for the intended audience -- a would-be tourist who suddenly forgets the word for "toilet paper"...It does a fairly mediocre job of explaining verb tenses and conjugations, too -- the main redeeming feature of the book is fast process. Yet because of the horrible job explaining pronounciation -- even with two tapes -- whatever process you may have may well be rendered unintelligible to an authentic native of Brazil, Portugal, Guinea-Bissau, etc. Buy it if you need a quick course -- especially in writing -- it's OK, and the exercises are adequate, although there's no space for writing. All in all, I'm going to use it... but if you're serious, get another book and do yourself a favor.

Rating:
Summary: A good friend
Review: I owe most of my Portuguese to this course. It offers more than most. It explains the language better than usual in a course for beginners. It is also very friendly. The author always appears to have the learner in mind. For the words in the dialogues, a literal translation is given in addition to the normal translation; grammar is carefully explained; the words you learn come around again so you don't forget them; and so on. You feel that the author really cares. For me each page was a step forward. I progressed steadily and I can actually speak some Portuguese. I am a very satisfied customer.

Rating:
Summary: Incremental steps
Review: Perhaps the most striking feature in this course is the gradual progression from the known to the unknown, in easy incremental steps. Grammar is explained thoroughly and then practice is given in exercises (there could be more exercises, though, for extra practice).
Another good point is the everyday vocabulary, very practical. Brazilian variants are shown throughout, so you know to say 'comboio' in Portugal but 'trem' in Brazil.