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Portuguese

El Dante

El Dante

Les Ferdinand
can anyone give me good tips for learning Portuguese? My girlfriend is Portuguese, and learning English. She speaks English fairly well, so language isn't really an issue but...she has many Portuguese friends & so the whole thing becomes more difficult when they all start talking Portuguese and I'm left staring in to the air. I've tried learning, two weeks in, but beyond asking how they are, colours and the days of the week, my conversations are too limited.

What apps would anyone suggest? Any tips?

Thanks
 
watch a brazilian "serie A" game with some ex-pats, you'll be able to tell your g/f she's been sent off
 
Watch subtitled films like City of GHod, Bus 182 and Tropa Elite (all good films) to get a feeling for pronunciation although bear in mind, Portuguese from Brazil can be slightly different to the European version.
 
I tried several different methods to learn Thai (which is bloody difficult), and didn't really progress until I spoke with a British teacher in Bangkok who recommended me to try Pimsleur. It's the best course I've ever tried, and I got up to a fairly good level in 2 months! I can guarantee you'll be able to understand most in a couple of months, and make yourself understood in most situations very quickly. I highly recommend it!
 
Careful watching Brazilian films as the accent is massively different from Portuguese (re Tim Vickery) so you will be picking up bad habits.
 
I am learning Portuguese. My partner is a Brasileira. All advice above is good. The best thing I did was have 1-1 Skype lessons with a Brazilian in Rio for R$50 per hour (about £10). Good point about differences between Brazilian and Portuguese portuguese but frankly if you are at the stage where you are worried about the subtleties of Brazilian or Portuguese grammar you are in a pretty good place.
 
Somebody once compared Portuguese to what drunk Russian sounds like. Having been to both countries, I'm inclined to agree. :p But, overall, Duolingo and Memrise (as @Glenda's Legs and @spitshine have pointed out) are very good, so I echo their recommendations.
 
I learnt a lot of my Japanese via a podcast. There's probably something for Portuguese out there. It was extremely helpful.
 
DubaiSpur said:
Somebody once compared Portuguese to what drunk Russian sounds like. Having been to both countries, I'm inclined to agree. :p But, overall, Duolingo and Memrise (as @Glenda's Legs and @spitshine have pointed out) are very good, so I echo their recommendations.
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Had the very same observation when out in Lisbon last year having not heard much Portugese before.

Re the original post, I'm not sure what you can really expect after two weeks unless you are already endowed with 5 or 6 languages at a high level. Getting to the point of understanding native speakers in natural conversation and being able to contribute is simply not going to happen overnight unless you stumble upon a babel fish or some alien translation device.

Key thing to starting out in any language is to master all conjugations of "to have" and "to be" then 10 / 15 most commonly used verbs, alongside basic vocab areas like colours / animals / transport / jobs plus adjectives and prepositions; Then you'll be on the right track in no time. Think short practices regularly and set yourself tasks like learning 2 new verbs a day and run through all forms and start trying to create sentences. Memrise is the one for me when it comes to vocab as it's to easy to drop in and out of but I'm sure there's loads of good apps for it.

Another good one is to start attempting to translate your thoughts and general day to day conversations, start talking to yourself about what you're going to do today or describe the environment around you (in Portugese....). Having a missus that speaks the lingo is the best really, you've got someone who will be able to correct any issues pronunciation or syntax wise and hopefully she'll be patient enough to put up with you being brick in the meantime.

Google translate is useful when used sparingly.

Also, pics or GTFO.
 
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