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Summary: jam
Review: Although now,you may find this material in mp3 format and a lot cheaper at various auction sites, the material while overpriced is excellent. I have all three levels. I have only completed levels 1-18 along with other phrases that I learned from friends in Brasil. I have been speaking for only one year and travel to Brasil often. Already I leave my translator behind when going to Brasil. I simply don't need it anymore. It does help if you understand Spanish rules of speach. They are simple to learn.
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Summary: Same O Same O Very Good!
Review: I am a gringo now living in Brazil. I use most everything I learned from these tapes. If you want to sample it, buy the 8 lessons first. If you learn from it....jump right up to the big ones. You can get them cheaper off ebay. Pimsleur is the absolute best course for me. I tried alot of other audio courses and they didnt do what Pimsleur did. I would get a Portuguese/English dictionary or the Portuguese in 10 minutes a day book as a help tool. Same as all the other reviews...its awesome and works.
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Summary: This worked for me!!
Review: I bought these tapes about 10 months before I went to Brazil and slowly, at my own pace, went through the entire 30 lessons. I looked forward to doing them which I managed to do about 3X a week. I have a hard time learning new languages, but I thought this program was excellent. They forced you to think and repeat what you learned back in different ways. It was also a lot of fun. There are no real Portuguese classes around here, so this was great. One thing though, is that it helps to have some backround in Spanish to figure out how the language is put together. They don't really explain those details very well.
In Brazil, I was able to read things and pronounce them correctly, even though I may not have known what they meant. I was able to get my point across, although perhaps crudely. But I was not afraid to try to talk to people. And they really appreciated the effort. A Brazilian woman at the airport even told me I had "no accent" when I told someone the time, but she just didn't hear me talk enough.... One time I was able to call to the tour bus driver to slow down (in Portuguese) as he screeched around corners in the tour van scaring us gringos to death. It worked! All the people in the van thanked me later! I wish I'd had time to do the 2nd group of lessons and will do so if I go back. My advice is - go for it! ...
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Summary: High quality tapes - misleading info on web page describing
Review: I bought this product because I was very happy with intro Pimsleur Portuguese purchased from another source.It would appear that the comprehensive program advertised here encompasses 3 levels of thirty lessons each, based on commentary of Amazon web page. Actually, you only receive thirty tapes of level one Portuguese, with no assurance that further levels even exist. Hence the label "Comprehensive" is misleading. Perhaps a deal "too good to be true". I hope this misinformation is not typical of Amazon.com. Or perhaps I still have two boxes of tapes on the way! Somehow I doubt it. See other reviewers commentary on other Pimsleur Portuguese products. This being one of my first experiences in buying over the Internet, I can only say let the buyer beware!
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Summary: Brazilian Portuguese (Pimsleur)
Review: I ordered this course because I married a brazilian girl and knew that I would be vacationing in Brasil with her, etc. After receiving the tapes, I think I listened to the complete course 2 or 3 times in about a 3 month period. Since then, I have been to Brasil, and have had many opportunities to speak portuguese with my brazilian in-laws. They've all asked why I am the only gringo in the family that can speak portuguese! My "Pimsleur Brazilian Portuguese Part I" tapes are now sitting on the shelf collecting dust, because I have moved onto "Pimsleur Brazilian Portuguese Part II", which is the follow-up course to Part I. Part II builds on everything that you learn in Part I. I went to Brasil about 2 months after I finished listening to Part I. I was able to practice my portuguese in Brasil for 3 weeks. I called cabs, ordered food in restaurants, talked to the brazilians about os Estados Unidos (the United States), etc. I am very pleased with both Pimsleur products that I've purchased. I have to go now and listen to my tapes......I am going to Rio de Janeiro in 2 months!
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Summary: Brazilian Portuguese (Pimsleur)
Review: I ordered this course because I married a brazilian girl and knew that I would be vacationing in Brasil with her, etc. After receiving the tapes, I think I listened to the complete course 2 or 3 times in about a 3 month period. Since then, I have been to Brasil, and have had many opportunities to speak portuguese with my brazilian in-laws. They've all asked why I am the only gringo in the family that can speak portuguese! My "Pimsleur Brazilian Portuguese Part I" tapes are now sitting on the shelf collecting dust, because I have moved onto "Pimsleur Brazilian Portuguese Part II", which is the follow-up course to Part I. Part II builds on everything that you learn in Part I. I went to Brasil about 2 months after I finished listening to Part I. I was able to practice my portuguese in Brasil for 3 weeks. I called cabs, ordered food in restaurants, talked to the brazilians about os Estados Unidos (the United States), etc. I am very pleased with both Pimsleur products that I've purchased. I have to go now and listen to my tapes......I am going to Rio de Janeiro in 2 months!
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Summary: Absolutely the best choice available!
Review: I've used this product and am now ordering it for my son. I had tried several others including the best known one and was struggling. When I got this course I was SO disappointed. It was ONLY TAPES. But I thought, "Oh well, I'll try it!" It was the best thing I did. There were no picture books with it and no text books. BUT IT WORKED!
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Summary: An Outstanding Approach to Language Acquisition
Review: If you are serious about communicating orally in a foreign language, you'll want to consider the Pimsleur Language Program. My own experience with the program has far exceeded my expectations: after learning two foreign languages in high school and college classroom settings, I decided to tackle Portuguese on my own, and was told to purchase the first "course," which consists of sixteen CDs and a short reading booklet. After having completed it, my feeling is that I've made more progress speaking the language over the course of a month just by listening and responding to the thirty hours of recorded conversations than I made in a year of formal classroom instruction.
The premise is simple: each thirty-minute lesson consists of a series of conversations between a man and a woman, and occasionally you're asked to anticipate the response of one or the other and in that way participate in the conversations. By introducing new vocabulary and sentence structures slowly, and reiterating old material in each subsequent lesson - and above all, by frequently asking you to REPEAT ALOUD the native speakers in order to make the physiological connections required to reproduce the language and make sense of it by yourself - you are supposed to feel comfortable speaking in a range of more-or-less basic social situations by the end of the first level. Granted, the program may not work for everyone, although one of the advantages it has over a classroom is that you are able to set your own pace, revisiting older lessons for review ("live," rather than from notes) as many times as necessary until you feel ready to proceed. Thus even the linguistically impaired can feel comfortable learning an admittedly daunting language.
I believe that the most significant and effective aspect of the program's innovation is that it introduces the written word only after several lessons of introduction to the pure articulated sounds of the language. The idea behind this method seems is to give primacy to what is said and heard, so that learners in difficult speaking situations are prevented from trying to translate the written word instead of generating sentences from actual prior conversations. It makes sense given that speakers of language all over the world, including the United States, begin to speak well before learning to read and write (if in fact they do the latter at all). For me, the approach has worked brilliantly.
That said, if learning composition or trying to read in a foreign language rather than communicating with other Portuguese speakers is your primary concern, you should know that this program may not be for you, or at the very least you would want to consider a good textbook for written exercises to complement the Pimsleur program. I can say without hesitation, however, that Pimsleur beats hands down the other audio programs currently on the market - Living Language and Teach Yourself don't touch it. Especially for a language where books of verbs, good dictionaries, and even decent textbooks are few and far between, it's fortunate that Pimsleur has included Portugues in its growing library of audio courses. Best of luck speaking!
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Summary: Express learning
Review: The Pimsleur method is fantastic! Their method isn't perfect, but it is very effective. I've studied several languages and never have I been so fluent in such a short time (about 23 days). I have all three levels, but have just completed Lesson 22 (Level I). I can count to over a hundred, greet people both formally and informally, ask and tell the time, tell someone he/she is speaking too quickly (or too slowly), understand gender and person, and have acquired many other functional words. The speakers' dialogues are at conversational speed and I understand every word. The lessons are increasingly more complex and a few times I've had to listen to a lesson more than once (on the same day). However, I began to "cheat" at about Lesson 16 or 17. I am a visual learner and, with the exception of the reading practice, the program is all aural. You aren't supposed to use other materials, but I bought a Portuguese-English dictionary. If a new word is introduced and I just can't recall it, I look up the English. Once I see the Portuguese word in print, I can remember it. Pimsleur is "pricey," but if you consider the cost of college tuition and your expected oral fluency at the end of a semester, this is a real bargain.
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Summary: Great System; Clarification re: Level I
Review: The Pimsleur system is really wonderful. It is enjoyable, well-paced, and because you can tell you're making progress, it is self-reinforcing. I highly recommend it. Today I am on Portuguese II lesson 22, and already have Port III on my shelf ready to go. A few caveats, though:
(1) The "30-min per day" claim is misleading. I do cover one lesson per day as Pimsleur advises, but I need to listen to each lesson about 3 times to really feel that I've mastered it.
(2) I also sometimes review the previous day's lesson.
(3) For myself, it has helped to "cheat" on Pimsleur's audio-lingual approach (with a small Dover publications $. grammar book and a Port-English dictionary). In total, I probably spend about 2 hours per day on Portuguese.
(4) My neighbors probably question my mental stability, as I talk to myself while jogging or walking the dog!
(5) NOTE: A mistake I made was starting w the older Pimsleur comprehensive Portuguese tape set (16 tapes) for about $... created before they had the whole 3-level series. Nothing wrong w it, but it isn't quite consistent with I-II-III (that is, it's not the same as Portuguese I). If you think you want to do I-II-III, that is what you should buy. Some reviewers have complained about the price. But really, when compared to the value of the time you'll invest, or the cost of a reasonable alternative (like college tuition) the price isn't bad. If you put in the effort, this product works.
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