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Get Started in Portuguese Absolute Beginner Course: The essential introduction to reading, writing, speaking and understanding a new language
Do you want a solid foundation to your Portuguese studies?
If you are looking for a solid foundation to your language studies for school, work or travel, this engaging course will get you speaking, writing, reading and understanding Portuguese in no time. Through authentic conversations, clear language presentations, and extensive practice and review, you will learn the Portuguese you need to communicate naturally in everyday situations - from booking a hotel room to talking about friends and family.
What will I learn?
Basic Portuguese is slowly and carefully introduced to ensure you progress confidently through the course and build up a foundation to allow you to feel confident in everyday situations and move to the next level of your learning. It teaches grammar, vocabulary and listening, reading, writing, speaking and pronunciation skills. By the end of the course you will reach a solid Novice High proficiency level of ACTFL (The American Council for the Teaching of Foreign Languages) and A2 Beginner level of the CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages) guidelines.
Is this course for me?
Get Started in Portuguese is for absolute and false beginners of Portuguese. Clear and simple explanations make the course appropriate and accessible to anyone learning Portuguese. There are extensive illustrations to support the learner working on his or her own. This course is also ideal to use with one-to-one tutoring and as a classroom course.
What do I get?
This book has a learner-centred approach that incorporates the following
- 10 units of learning content - covering everyday topics from booking a hotel room to talking about friends and family
- Discovery Method - figure out rules and patterns yourself to make the language stick
- Outcomes-based learning - focus your studies with clear aims
- Vocabulary building - thematic lists and activities to help you learn vocabulary quickly
- Test yourself - see and track your own progress
- Native speaker audio - available as a digital download
- Free, downloadable audio transcripts and vocabulary and language reference lists
This pack includes a book and one MP3 CD of audio material.
Where do I go next?
If you want to advance your Portuguese, our Complete Portuguese course (9781444107685) will take you to an intermediate level of Portuguese.
If you want to practice your speaking and listening skills, Get Talking and Keep Talking Portuguese (9781444185492) is the perfect audio course.
Rely on Teach Yourself, trusted by language learners for over 75 years
If you are looking for a solid foundation to your language studies for school, work or travel, this engaging course will get you speaking, writing, reading and understanding Portuguese in no time. Through authentic conversations, clear language presentations, and extensive practice and review, you will learn the Portuguese you need to communicate naturally in everyday situations - from booking a hotel room to talking about friends and family.
What will I learn?
Basic Portuguese is slowly and carefully introduced to ensure you progress confidently through the course and build up a foundation to allow you to feel confident in everyday situations and move to the next level of your learning. It teaches grammar, vocabulary and listening, reading, writing, speaking and pronunciation skills. By the end of the course you will reach a solid Novice High proficiency level of ACTFL (The American Council for the Teaching of Foreign Languages) and A2 Beginner level of the CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages) guidelines.
Is this course for me?
Get Started in Portuguese is for absolute and false beginners of Portuguese. Clear and simple explanations make the course appropriate and accessible to anyone learning Portuguese. There are extensive illustrations to support the learner working on his or her own. This course is also ideal to use with one-to-one tutoring and as a classroom course.
What do I get?
This book has a learner-centred approach that incorporates the following
- 10 units of learning content - covering everyday topics from booking a hotel room to talking about friends and family
- Discovery Method - figure out rules and patterns yourself to make the language stick
- Outcomes-based learning - focus your studies with clear aims
- Vocabulary building - thematic lists and activities to help you learn vocabulary quickly
- Test yourself - see and track your own progress
- Native speaker audio - available as a digital download
- Free, downloadable audio transcripts and vocabulary and language reference lists
This pack includes a book and one MP3 CD of audio material.
Where do I go next?
If you want to advance your Portuguese, our Complete Portuguese course (9781444107685) will take you to an intermediate level of Portuguese.
If you want to practice your speaking and listening skills, Get Talking and Keep Talking Portuguese (9781444185492) is the perfect audio course.
Rely on Teach Yourself, trusted by language learners for over 75 years
- GenresPortuguese Literature
224 pages, Paperback
First published August 1, 2010
4 people are currently reading
18 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
February 24, 2020
I have to admit that this review will be colored a bit by the fact that it comes with a cd that I was unable to use because I don't happen to have access to a computer with a cd rom drive and the cd was not an audio cd that I could play in my car. This review is therefore not as complete as it would have been otherwise. The fact that this particular review is of a book that was meant as a companion to a cd program does mean that my own use of this book was not as great as it would have been otherwise, and that is a bit of a shame. That said, those who get this book and want to enjoy all of what it has to offer would do well to make sure that their computer has a cd-rom drive so that they can enjoy the lessons on the computer that this book comes with, because otherwise this is not a very exciting book to read and not really the sort of multimedia experience that the author of the book intended for readers to enjoy in order to learn Portuguese better.
The book portion of this work is about 200 pages included the answer key and small dictionary, and it is divided into seventeen generally short chapters. Before the main contents of the book there is some information about the author, a discussion of how the book works, as well as a guide in learning to learn, pronunciation, and useful expressions. After that the book begins with basic courtesies and greetings (1), moves on to asking where people are from (2), and then discusses where we live and work (3). After that there is a discussion of family (4), personal tastes (5), as well as what is at home (6) and part of one's daily life (7). There are units on how one spends free time (8), holidays (9), and how one engages in transportation (10) and traveling (11). Going back and forth (12) and shopping (13) and eating out (14) take up some lessons, as well as feeling ill (15), accommodations (16), and distractions (17). Finally, the book ends with an answer key, small dictionary, and numbers. The book is helpful, if not very exciting, and is clearly meant to be used with the cd rom as it is rather plain and unexciting on its own. And I am reasonably certain that it was meant to be exciting and interesting.
While my appreciation of this work was incomplete compared to what yours will hopefully be, I can say that the text portion of the book is at least worth looking at even if it is nowhere near as exciting as it would have been otherwise. I previously listened to this series when I was doing a self-study for Catalan, and that particular option had exercises that I was able to listen to in my car, so it was a bit disappointing that this was not the case for the Portuguese volume, although I'm not sure why this was the case, as it appears to have been an .mp3 CD-ROM. The book/disc advertises itself as being an example of a learner-centered approach that includes tips on learning how to learn, having outcomes-based learning, involving the discovery system for rules and patterns and involving self-tracking, and it manages to be between the A1 and A2 level of Portuguese for those who pay attention to such matters. Overall my experience with the book was soured a bit by the technical difficulties but if your experiences is better you may appreciate it more than I did, for what it's worth.
The book portion of this work is about 200 pages included the answer key and small dictionary, and it is divided into seventeen generally short chapters. Before the main contents of the book there is some information about the author, a discussion of how the book works, as well as a guide in learning to learn, pronunciation, and useful expressions. After that the book begins with basic courtesies and greetings (1), moves on to asking where people are from (2), and then discusses where we live and work (3). After that there is a discussion of family (4), personal tastes (5), as well as what is at home (6) and part of one's daily life (7). There are units on how one spends free time (8), holidays (9), and how one engages in transportation (10) and traveling (11). Going back and forth (12) and shopping (13) and eating out (14) take up some lessons, as well as feeling ill (15), accommodations (16), and distractions (17). Finally, the book ends with an answer key, small dictionary, and numbers. The book is helpful, if not very exciting, and is clearly meant to be used with the cd rom as it is rather plain and unexciting on its own. And I am reasonably certain that it was meant to be exciting and interesting.
While my appreciation of this work was incomplete compared to what yours will hopefully be, I can say that the text portion of the book is at least worth looking at even if it is nowhere near as exciting as it would have been otherwise. I previously listened to this series when I was doing a self-study for Catalan, and that particular option had exercises that I was able to listen to in my car, so it was a bit disappointing that this was not the case for the Portuguese volume, although I'm not sure why this was the case, as it appears to have been an .mp3 CD-ROM. The book/disc advertises itself as being an example of a learner-centered approach that includes tips on learning how to learn, having outcomes-based learning, involving the discovery system for rules and patterns and involving self-tracking, and it manages to be between the A1 and A2 level of Portuguese for those who pay attention to such matters. Overall my experience with the book was soured a bit by the technical difficulties but if your experiences is better you may appreciate it more than I did, for what it's worth.
December 8, 2021
Finished this course and really enjoyed it.
Focusing on European Portuguese, it teaches you useful vocabulary and enough grammar to be able to construct your own basic sentences (especially if you've also got a dictionary on hand). Crucially, it does this without overwhelming the reader with grammatical terms that may be unfamiliar if this is your first time learning another language.
It covers a range of situations you might encounter while on holiday - from introductions and finding your way around, to being able to order food and talk about interests and hobbies. Verb-wise, it's focused on the present tense, with some basic past tense forms introduced at the end. Usage of the future tense is introduced in a handful of sentences about weather forecasts, but nothing more complex than that. The verbs are mostly regular, with only the most essential irregular ones introduced. It keeps things as simple and beginner-friendly as possible.
The only downside was that the CD wouldn't work in my regular CD player, possibly due to the way the tracks are numbered (1.1 for Unit 1, track one, 1.2 for Unit 1, track 2 etc). It *did* work when I put it in a DVD player and could scroll through the track listing on screen. I didn't try it on the computer, but I would hope it also works if played through your PC/laptop.
Apart from that, it was easy to complete and gave me a genuine sense of progress as I moved through the units. It provided me with the basics, but also makes me feel confident and enthusiastic enough about the language to want to take my Portuguese studies further. If I can find some more books. There don't seem to be as many resources available for Portuguese compared to Spanish, but this is a solid start.
Focusing on European Portuguese, it teaches you useful vocabulary and enough grammar to be able to construct your own basic sentences (especially if you've also got a dictionary on hand). Crucially, it does this without overwhelming the reader with grammatical terms that may be unfamiliar if this is your first time learning another language.
It covers a range of situations you might encounter while on holiday - from introductions and finding your way around, to being able to order food and talk about interests and hobbies. Verb-wise, it's focused on the present tense, with some basic past tense forms introduced at the end. Usage of the future tense is introduced in a handful of sentences about weather forecasts, but nothing more complex than that. The verbs are mostly regular, with only the most essential irregular ones introduced. It keeps things as simple and beginner-friendly as possible.
The only downside was that the CD wouldn't work in my regular CD player, possibly due to the way the tracks are numbered (1.1 for Unit 1, track one, 1.2 for Unit 1, track 2 etc). It *did* work when I put it in a DVD player and could scroll through the track listing on screen. I didn't try it on the computer, but I would hope it also works if played through your PC/laptop.
Apart from that, it was easy to complete and gave me a genuine sense of progress as I moved through the units. It provided me with the basics, but also makes me feel confident and enthusiastic enough about the language to want to take my Portuguese studies further. If I can find some more books. There don't seem to be as many resources available for Portuguese compared to Spanish, but this is a solid start.
January 31, 2016
It's going to take more time and practice for me to fully comprehend Portuguese, I found this Audio book very helpful, however it's easier for me to read Portuguese, than it is for me to engage in listening and speaking. But I don't fault the book, I fault my own learning curve.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews