Customer Reviews
Not the best - By: , 11 Dec 2003 
This course has nice pictures but poor teaching. Some dialogues are unrealistic. A lady has lost her handbag, goes to the lost property office, does not report the lost bag, but the officer promises to look for it. How did he know she had lost the bag?
The course is rather heavy on grammar but does not explain it well. It says that 'Faca o favor de trabalhar' means Please work. This is talking to one person. To ask more than one person you change the verb from 'faca' to 'facam'. Then it goes on to say that you may also hear another form, 'Faz o favor de trabalhar' with an identical meaning when talking to just one person. End of explanation, The book does not seem to be aware thatin this case you change the veb from 'faz' to 'fazem' to ask more than one person.
Some verbs appearin early units but are explained only fifty or more pages later. The future is introducedin dialogue 1 of unit 1 & explainedin unit 14. The past is introducedin dialogue 1 of unit 7 & explainedin unit 15. The reflexive verbs are introducedin dialogue 2 of unit 1. There is a brief explanationin unit 2 &in the Grammar Index there is a promise of a further explanationin unit 20. But there isn't a unit 20! The last one is unit 18.
This is all rather disappointing. I shall not be using this course with my students.
teach yourself brasilian portugese - By: , 09 Oct 2003 
This book & tapes set is brilliant! It gives you a basic overview of brasilian portugese & teaches you things that you will need if travelling to Brazil. I used this book to get some basic phrases & converstaional practice before I went to brasil for my gap year, & it was really useful.
I would recommend this book to anyone who is just starting out with portugese, or needing a top up & a reminder of how the brasilains sound.
It defies the basic rules of teaching - By: Mary Heath, 26 Aug 2003 
Normally material is presented; then it is explained; finally the learner is tested. It is differentin this course. In the dialogues of unit 1 & 2 you come across vai,vamos,vao plus infinitive. This verb construction is not explainedin the grammar sections. But you are tested on it at the end of unit 2. You are expected to produce the answer 'Vou te dizer...' This defies the basic rules of teaching. This is not the only way this course defies normal teaching practice. Material is not graded. A new dialogue may introduce a number of new grammatical features at the same time, not step by step, & only some of these features will receive a (brief) explanation anyway. I would not call this a course. I would call it a random selection of dialogues & grammar notes.
Excellent starter course, and fun to work through! - By: , 02 Jan 2002 
I actually enjoyed working through this excellent book/cassette pack. I found the various topics coveredin each chapter interesting & useful for real-life situations when I arrivedin Brazil. This course offers a good foundation for conversational & travel Portuguese, plenty of vocabulary & adequate explanations of necessary grammar. The best thing about the course is that it is specifically teaching Portuguese spokenin Brazil, where I found I was well understood by the local people. What more could you ask from a beginners' language pack?
Very good for written portuguese, less so for spoken - By: , 18 Oct 1999 
This is a very good book to learn the basic grammar, verbs & vocabulary. The lessons are centered on a particular activity such as travelling,checking into a hotel, eatingin a restaurant,going shopping, etc. These are very helpful. It also provides some basic information about brazilian culture. After doing all your lessons, you should be able to get byin Brazil. But that's only because Brazilians will generally make the effort to understand what you are saying, since the book is seriously lacking when it comes to spoken Brazilian. Your pronunciation will probably be all wrong! The 60 min. tape provided is of no use. If you wish to speak the language properly, you need an additional source such as tapes. It nonetheless is a very useful book that I recommend.
