Learning Portugese

[catnip]

Anyone have experience on the differences between Pimsleur tapes vs. Rosetta Stone (http://www.rosettastone.com)? The latter offers access to their Level 1 and 2 courses online (it's all in Brazilian Portugese) for about $20 per month. I'm working my way through it, but before I go further am curious to see if anyone has tried both and what they found.

 

Thanks

[+ Axiom2001]

I don't have experience with either program, but just recently someone posted very positive result with the former program which you mentioned in your thread. Check out some of the stories here, and you'll encounter the wonderful explanation of one of our fellow cyberfriend/posters.

 

Based on his experience with the P....language program, I think I will more than likely purchase it in order to learn a beautiful but difficult language-- Portuguese.

[Muscle Lover]

Have a question for you guys who have been to Rio for the fun times there. I speak Spanish fairly well ( in the present verb tense) and can understand Ok if the native speaker speaks slowly.

 

I don't speak or understand Portugese. Will Spanish be of any help in Rio.

Thanks for any comments.

[trilingual]

Spanish will definitely be helpful in Rio. Most Brazilians can understand it, but either they will respond in Portuguese or in Portunhol (their often hilarious and sometimes infuriating pidgin Spanish invented from Portuguese and what they remember from songs and films and Argentine tourists).

 

Spanish and Portuguese are very similar grammatically, and share perhaps 95% of the same vocabulary, so you'll find it easy to read signs, newspapers, etc. if you know Spanish. The 5% of vocabulary that's different involves a lot of everyday items and expressions, particularly foodstuffs and common household items, so you'll need to make some effort to learn those.

 

The pronunciation of Portuguese is dramatically different from Spanish. Get a set of Brazilian Portuguese tapes or CDs and listen to them. You can also listen to Brazilian radio stations over the Internet to try to get accustomed to the sound of the language. It takes a few days (at least, it took me that long) but soon you'll adjust to the sound and be able to discern the individual words. You need to make some effort at understanding the spoken language, because, as I said, even if you speak Spanish, ordinarily people will reply in Portuguese or Portunhol and you'll have a hard time understanding what is being said without some practice.

 

Grammatically, there a few things you need to know to make the transition from Spanish to Portuguese:

 

The definite articles are different. El = o, and la = a, as in "o rio" and "a mesa." The "ção" ending of words is the equivalent of Spanish "ción" or English "tion." Although there are many verb tenses and conjugations, they're rarely used in everyday speech. A lot is done with auxiliary verbs, instead. In Portuguese, the main auxiliary verb is "ter" (Spanish "tener") instead of "haver" (Span. "haber"). "I had traveled" would be "tinha viajado", for example. The subjunctive is used, but it's also expressed by what's called a personal infinitive, which you'll run into a lot. It's too complicated to explain here, but when you hear it, you'll be able to figure out the meaning from the context. Portuguese loves contractions, much more so than Spanish, especially of prepositions with the definite articles, so "of the" become "do" or "da" depending on the gender of the object, and "in the" become "no" or "na." "No" isn't to be confused with "não," the Portuguese word for English "no."

 

There are many other subtle differences between the two languages, but these are some key things that will help you bridge the gap. Have fun!