Hi,

I want to start learning Portuguese but I wanted to buy a method that I can use when I will not have my computer available. The thing is, they seem to be divided between Brasilian Portuguese and "European" Portuguese.

Is the difference similar that between North American and British English?

Which one would you recommend me to learn first?

I intend to use Portuguese as a tool for a career on the international level and for doing research on the Internet as well as learning more about Portugal and Brasil.

I'm looking forward to your comments,

Martyn

ps: You can write to me in French, English, Spanish, Italian and you can try in Polish too. I understand written Portuguese.

Martyn,

As a learner of Portuguese with a background knowledge of other Romance languages like Spanish I would recommend the following.

Get a hold of interesting audio content which is easier to find from Brazilian sources than Portuguese sources. I recommend Rubem Alves' content where the texts are available on the Internet and some sound files as well. Just listen and read. When you have access to a computer you can load up the text. You can batch enter the words you do not know. I just finished loading up 75 German words using Import a list of words and it works just fine.

Focus on listening and getting used to Portuguese and how it differs from Spanish. Avoid spending too much time on explanations.

As to the two versions of Portuguese, I do not find it much of a problem. Brazilian is easier to understand since the Brazilians pronounce their vowels more clearly. Once you have achieved some familiarity with the language you can always choose to imitate the form you prefer later on.

Steve,

Thank you very much for your comment, it is very useful indeed.

I will go through the beginner podcasts on LingQ to get the general idea as to how the language functions. I will follow your advice and focus on reading, I'll also have a look at Rubem Alves. Thank you very much!

I am glad that there is not such a huge difference between both Portugueses as some sources suggest it. The difference seems similar to Spanish from Spain and Spanish from South and Central America.

I'll also have a go at entering the words directly in the import list as I start reading. Thank you so much! The more I use LingQ, the more I like it!

Martyn,

The difference between European and Brazilian Portuguese is greater than the difference between New World and Iberian Spanish, both in pronunciation and in structure. Still it is not a big deal. As a learner you can just float along listening to and reading both, and at some point you can decide which way to go. I think we are all quite flexible as learners since no pattern has been ingrained in our brains as is the case with our mother tongues.

Oh right! I understand better now. I will see which one I go for later, first, I want to reach a strong Intermediate level. I will see how it goes, but I am very excited to start learning this new language because of the wealth of culture hiding behind Brasil, Portugal and the African countries and islands that speak Portuguese. Thank you for your comment!

Hi Neptune
I'm learning European Portuguese as I adore how the language sounds and love Portugal. When I first started learning I found Brazilian Portuguese easy to understand but now because I'm so used to listening to European Portuguese I find it harder to understand!
There are differences between the two but a person from Portugal can understand someone from Brazil no problem. (And a learner can understand both even if it's sometimes difficult!).
What I would say is that there are more resources for learning Brazilian (such as movies for example) than European Portuguese. That said I have found plenty of resources for the latter if you want any tips :-)
I guess it's just going with what feels right to you and which countries call you.

I think it would be great if there was a way to filter the library selections with regard to the two forms of Portuguese. Maybe there is a way and I just have not found it yet. I would like to be able to browse all the European Portuguese content separately from the Brazilian content.

We would like this too! :-) It's coming eventually but I can't say when.

What about Portuguese spoken on the African continent and/or in South East Asia? Closer to European or Brazilian Portuguese?

Does the dialect matter that much (and if so, at which stage)? I'm pretty sure that there is a wide variety of dialects/accents/idiolects in the English library, and so far I'm assuming that members just listen to whatever content they find t get accustemed to the sound of the language.

An example slightly related to this topic is that a guy I spoke to some ten years ago knew somebody from Iceland who didn't distinguish between the (quite) different Swedish dialects (or just didn't care?). Everything sounded "Swedish".

I think some people are more concerned about accents than others but we would like to be able to tag lessons by accent so that they could be sorted in this way. A tagging system is in the plans for the Library. This would allow us to tag and sort by a variety of factors, one of which could be accent or dialect.

I've been asked quite a few times about which version of Portuguese to learn and my answer is always the same: What will you be doing with it? If you see yourself having more contact with Brazilians, then by all means, study the Brazilian variety. If you think that it's more likely that you'll speak to Portuguese people, Angolans, Mozambicans, etc. then learn the standard variety of Portuguese that they speak in Lisbon.

In any event, don't stress about it too much because if you learn one well then you won't have too much trouble understanding the other.

I have finished the Muito Prazer lessons, which are identiified as European Portuguese and am ready to move on now to more lessons in European Portuguese. Have I exhausted everything which is currently available on the easiest level?

I am having trouble finding anything in the Beginner I section or in the Beginner II section which is labeled as being European Portuguese. Is Ana Paula's course in Numeros at http://www.lingq.com/learn/pt/store/28178/#34136 European or Brazilian? It does not seem to say...........

I will be travelling in Portugal and I don't have a lot of time to get ready, so I would really rather stick strictly to the European versions if at all possible.

KnowItSome,

You are in a hurry. I would recommend that you study Steve's book (my book) which was translated and recorded by Pedro from Lisbon. He did an excellent job. The book is also available in English and other languages ( in those sections of LingQ) so you can begin by listening in Portuguese and reading in a language you know. Then you can start reading Portuguese and creating LingQs in Portuguese. It may be difficult at first but if you listen over and over to this somewhat difficult content you will move quickly, I believe. You will get a feel for the sound of the language as spoken in Portugal.

I also think you can benefit from doing some easier content from the other collections even if it is in Brazilian Portuguese. This will help you to acquire vocabulary. Focus on the easy content to improve your vocabulary and on Pedro for the sound of European Portuguese. Pedro has promised to create a course within a week or so, and I recommend you sign up for a course with him.

Good luck.

Hey Lily I would be interested in all links to resources you have found for European portuguese. I am working my way through the lingQ content but I would like even more so if you can help we with that that would be great. I am thinking to approach the deaf community here in Lisbon as surely they must make a lot of transcripts for TV etc.

Thats good news about Pedro´s course I think I will sign up for that also.

I am enjoying LingQ immensely. Thank you Steve and all involved.

Hi,

I'm sorry Steve, it's seems I haven't yet accomplished what I promised... mainly because I wasn't sure of what to do... But seeing how many people would like to enroll for the course... Maybe I will make it ready sooner...

But I'd like to know what you (Portuguese learners) want to study...

I understand you want a beginner course... I could use "Muito Prazer", but it seems that has already been studied. But I can create something new or just search for something about some interesting topic... What would you like?

I would be interested in some content that demonstrates changes in tense and their use. Perhaps some content that is future only for example. Or the different ways to express the past. But having said that I am open to anything you have got. Mmmmmmmm and I really enjoy hearing real time conversations soI would love to have more of that in the portuguese of Portugal.

Cheers

Pedro has promised to set up a course in his Portuguese (from Portugual). Meantime to quote Stephen Krashen, the leading authority on language learning,

"If we provide students with enough comprehensible input, the structures they are ready to acquire will be present in the input. We don't have to make sure they are there;we don't have to deliberately focus on certain points of grammar. If this corollary is correct it means the end of grammatically based language teaching."

I essentially agree. Just make sure you get enough input, lots of it.

Hello everyone,

I'm Brazilian, I don't know so much about European Portuguese, but I've heard something about. And there's some actor here who came from Portugal.

I think that the accent of European Portuguese is closer to the accent of African Portuguese. But it's totally diferrent from Brazilian accent.

There's an important difference between both of them when it comes to the pronouns

English x Portuguese

--I----------Eu
You-------Tu/Você
He--------Ele
She------Ela
We-------Nós
You-------Vós/Vocês
They------Eles

In Portugal it's more common to use "tu" and "vós", and in Brazil we use "você" and "vocês"

In Brazil the conjugation of the verb is the same when we use the pronouns "você" and "ele, ela", "vocês" and "eles, elas". Despite they have different meaning. In Portugal it doesn't happens.

Example:
verb: ir

*Você "vai" a festa amanhâ?
Ele/Ela "vai" a festa amanhâ?

**Vocês "vão" a festa amanhâ?
Eles/Elas "vâo" a festa amanhâ?

In Portugal it'd be:

*Tu "vais" a festa amanhã?

**Vós "vois" a festa amanhã?

Another thing that's important.

One of the biggest troubles that a person would have when studying portuguese is the conjugation of the verbs.

I have to confess that I sometimes have some difficulty with it.

A hint, when you need to use a verb in the future:

Usually we don't conjugate the main verb of the sentence. We use the verb "ir" the same way at it's used in English with "will".

I will prepare the lunch.

Eu vou preparar o almoço.

You simply need to know the conjugation of the verb "ir" in the future and the verb that you'd like to use in the infinitive form.

You can also conjugate the verb "preparar"

Eu prepararei o almoço.

Both have the same meaning. But the former is simple and more commom.

In fact, it's much more common in English to do the same thing with the verb "to go" to express a future event, exactly as it's used in Portuguese. "I'm (I am) going to make/prepare lunch (no "the")."
"Eu prepararei o almoço" would be equivalent to "I will prepare lunch" and sounds much more formal..
Both have the same meaning, but the former is more common in English as well.

Hello! I would like to suggest a web site http://www.lucianopires.com.br/cafebrasil/podcast/ with brazilian podcats about any topic with scripts

Thanks for the suggestion, hjcl82! We have contacted Luciano Pires and he has agreed for us to add his podcasts to the site. We will start adding them right away.

If anyone else has found sites like this with audio and transcript, please let us know. We will contact them and ask if we can add their content, as well. Or, you are more than welcome to contact them directly and then import and share the content once you receive permission.

This site is just fantastic. Thanks a lot hjcl82. I have subscribed to this podcast on iTunes. That showed me a number of other podcasts in Portuguese and eventually led me to Rai, the Italian national broadcasting company which has podcasts in Portuguese from Portugal and of course, Italian. I do not know if they have transcripts nor if they will let us use their material. I intend to try to find out.

Please be on the lookout for good sources of content. I believe that with LingQ, as long as we can access the text, we can start learning a language from authentic content much earlier than with other systems. If we can share the material in our Library that is great, but even if members only import it for their own use, it is valuable.

So please let us know what you find out there. And hjcl82 thanks for this great resource. Muito obregado!

That's funny, I just discovered this same Luciano Pires site yesterday and I was thinking about contacting him... Good to know that he accepted to provide content for LinqQ...

Hi everyone! I am learning Portuguese and recently happened across this website called História da Língua Portuguesa at this web address: http://cvc.instituto-camoes.pt/hlp/index1.html . The site has a lot of historical reading content, maps of different Portuguese based dialects (with recorded examples) and includes recordings in Portuguese from Lusophone countries through out Africa, Asia, South America, and the Azores and Madeira Islands ( about varying subjects from what little I understand at the moment). All of the recordings that I listened to were transcribed as well. I think this site may be of interested to more advanced learners. I feel this site will be a good resource for my own learning , although I am quite new to learning Portuguese! I hope they are interesting and useful to others.The recordings are on these pages: http://cvc.instituto-camoes.pt/hlp/geografia/ma... http://cvc.instituto-camoes.pt/hlp/geografia/ma... .