How to Learn Brazilian Portuguese
Learning Brazilian Portuguese is like learning any other language — with access to great resources and a healthy amount of time, you can teach yourself Brazilian Portuguese easily and on your own.
This recommended resource page for Brazilian Portuguese introduces you to the best tools available for teaching yourself the language. If you’re not already familiar with the LanguageJot learning philosophy, please visit How to Learn Any Language and Needed Tools for more information.
Grammar Book / Audio Course
Sonia-Portuguese.com offers two excellent resources for learning the Brazilian Portuguese language: Sonia’s Portuguese Course and Grammar Book. This combo is a bargain for the amount and the quality of learning material obtained for the price.
Sonia’s Portuguese course, a complete and practical language course on contemporary Brazilian Portuguese, is offered on CD-ROM. The course is a result of Sonia Celegatti Althoff’s two years of hard work put into this course. She has 14 years of experience as a private tutor to back the material.
For language learners interested in the method of language learning promoted on LanguageJot, this course is amazing. It is designed for self-study and intended for people whose aim is to gain a good command of the Portuguese language. I only wish courses such as this existed for other languages.
There are 50 lessons total, each revolving around a particular topic. Each lesson includes: dialogue with accompanying audio, vocabulary in Portuguese and English to explain the dialogue, grammar with explanation (when necessary), a conversation section with accompanying audio and vocabulary; and a variety of interactive exercises to aid in your learning of the lesson.
The grammar book is a complete, concise and practical reference to the Brazilian Portuguese language. This grammar book is also designed as a self-study tool, written for use without a teacher. It is intended for students who are learning Portuguese as a second language and need a complete, clear, simple and practical grammar handbook for reference.
Dictionary
The Larousse Concise Dictionary: Portuguese-English/English-Portuguese is one of the best two-way dictionaries available for Brazilian Portuguese / English use and boasts over 120,000 translations with 90,000 words and phrases. It also includes extensive, up-to-date coverage of general and professional Portuguese, as well as many idioms and grammatical constructions, hundreds of abbreviations, acronyms, and proper nouns.
Useful for language learners in terms of keeping interest in learning the language, the dictionary includes a guide to life and culture in Brazil. The dictionary also includes a communication guide with model letters, faxes and emails to help in your communication with Brazilians.
It does have a few minor flaws. One, it uses newspaper-like quality paper. Other dictionaries use bright white paper that is easier on the eyes. Two, the headwords are printed in bold black. A few other dictionary publishers use bold blue for headwords; again, the use of two colors is easier on the eyes. And finally, the header of each page includes only the first word on page, not the first and last. Merely a usability issue, but worth noting nonetheless.
Phrase Book
Vest Pocket Brazilian Portuguese is the best phrase book for Brazilian Portuguese I have found. It offers a wonderful array of features, including a key to pronunciation, basic sentence patterns, everyday conversations, outline of grammar, and even a small bilingual dictionary (4000 words).
The best part of this book — the part that comprises the majority of the work — is the “Everyday Conversations” section. This section is divided further into situations such as basic expressions, getting acquainted, plane travel, driving in Brazil, renting a room, food, shopping, and more. In these everyday conversations, you are presented with both the English and Portuguese phrases, but the Portuguese version is bolded to make things easier to read. For the language learner, this is excellent as it allows you to block either version out easily and quickly for study.
If I could only bring one book with me anywhere to study Brazilian Portuguese, it would be the [Vest Pocket Brazilian Portuguese] book.
Newspaper
Folha Online is one of the most comprehensive online Brazilian newspapers available. It covers a wide variety of subjects including worldly news. You won’t need most of what it has to offer at first, but it will prove to be just as useful of a resource in the future as it does in the beginning.
Language Exchange
SharedTalk is a wonderful resource for language exchanges, especially for Brazilian Portuguese learners. A large number of Brazilian people exist on this site, just waiting for great English language exchange partners to arrive. Try it out, but only when you’re ready. You should be able to speak a fair amount of Portuguese before venturing into this territory (unless you can find an English / Portuguese speaking partner who is willing to help a newcomer).
Travel
Coming soon!
LanguageJot
New to LanguageJot? Please visit How to Learn Any Language and Needed Tools. If you would like to browse a larger selection of recommended Brazilian Portuguese materials, visit the Brazilian Portuguese Resources page.
This page was last updated on Thursday, June 5th, 2008.
