Traveler's European Portuguese?

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Seneca
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Traveler's European Portuguese?

Postby Seneca » Tue Jan 03, 2017 9:53 pm

Hi Forum,
Long time and no chat. I hope everyone is doing well in the New Year.

I am still taking a break from long-term language learning for reasons that fall outside the bounds of this post. I am currently not studying or practicing anything.

However, I am going to be traveling in Portugal for about a week and a half at the start of April. My understanding is that the English of most younger Portuguese people is quite good and I could almost assuredly get around without any of the local language. However, I like to be a good guest in the country of others.

Does anyone have any suggestions for what to do to learn "survival level" European Portuguese? I don't need anything crazy in-depth like what Linguaphone would provide, for example. But I would be happy to pick up the very basics or a bit more over the next few months before I go. Any ideas?

I found this Wiki Portuguese course but it seems incredibly dry. Portuguese Online looks a bit more promising, but I do always prefer hard copy of things.

1) I do not see the utility of purchasing a dictionary.

2) A tourist phrase book seems like a reasonable expenditure. Any suggestions?
Berlitz Portuguese Phrase Book & CD seems to only have ~1/5 of the words on the cd
Similarly named book that may just be a different edition.
Lonely Planet Portuguese Phrasebook & Dictionary looks to have very good reviews, and is affordable. Though it has no audio cd. It does have a pronunciation guide next to all phrases. Can a Portuguese speaker let me know if it seems accurate? My native tongue is the American version of English.

In the experience of people here, is an audio worthwhile to get with a phrase book to learn the things? Or should I instead just get whichever looks like a better phrase book and learn pronunciation elsewhere?

3. I have never used Pimsleur, and the European Portugese course does not seem to have the outrageous number of "wow, a miracle" type reviews of other languages offered. It is not very pricey, so I'd consider it if anyone here thought there was no better way to learn pronunciation. But my inclination is not to bother.

4. Michel Thomas Portuguese seems relatively affordable and there are both a Beginner and Advanced courses. From the reviews, it seems the Beginner course alone may suffice for my needs. No need to get the newer Total/Perfect options since they are just the same product thing marked up in newer packaging, right?

5. There are two courses by Sue Tyson-Ward that seem intriguing. The first is Get Talking Portuguese and the second is Keep Talking Portuguese and it includes a travel phrasebook. Neither specify if they are European or Brazilian Portuguese, unfortunately. But from the topics described, it sort of seems like what I am going for. All the basics, with audio. Both note they are mapped to A1 of CEFR. Is it perhaps a safe guess it is European Portuguese since it references the CEFR scale?

5 addendum: Based off this it seems this version is European Portuguese since the same author has a similar set of courses that specify Brazilian Portuguese.

All-in-all my initial inclination would be to pick up:
Michel Thomas Foundation Beginner Portuguese
Get Talking Portuguese

I could order Keep Talking Portuguese (KTP) later if the first version was good. Both are quite cheap from third parties anyway, plus maybe the phrase book with KTP would suffice to preclude me from needing to get a standalone one. I am not even sure if I really would need a phrase book, but would likely opt for the Lonely Planet one if I either did not get KTP or the phrase book with it seemed awful. Any thoughts on the general utility of phrase books?

What do you all think? MT Foundation + that Get Talking course to start seem like a reasonable way to go and then I can just reassess and see if I feel like that was sufficient for my needs? Or do you all think I should definitely plan on getting a phrase book as well? Money is not a problem, but I do try to stay away from overbuying if not necessary.
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Re: Traveler's European Portuguese?

Postby iguanamon » Tue Jan 03, 2017 10:04 pm

If all you want is a traveler's level, there's no point in going overboard. DLI Headstart European Portuguese is free to download and will take care of most situations you'll run into. The Lonely Planet phrasebooks are also quite thorough for their small size and would go well as an alternative, or in combination with DLI Headstart. As I remember, you've studied Spanish, that will help a lot in getting the basics down. You don't have to learn the whole language.
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Re: Traveler's European Portuguese?

Postby Random Review » Wed Jan 04, 2017 2:24 am

How long have you got? I'm probably a good person to answer this, since I have dabbled in Portuguese quite a lot without ever getting serious enough to learn it, so I know the beginner's resources well. If you have at least 8 weeks, I suggest the following:

Weeks 1-4
1) Pimsleur European Portuguese I
The reviews you have been reading are for the Compact course (10 or 12 lessons), use this one (30 lessons). It is expensive but worth the money if you have it and, if you don't, there are cheaper ways (e.g. buyback schemes) or even free (inter-library loan).
2) MT Portuguese.
Do both levels, the "Advanced" course is always a misnomer with this series.
3) Do the first 4 weeks of Elisabeth Smith's Instant Portuguese (it may have a new name like "Fast Track" or something I think).

Weeks 5-8
1) At this point I second Iguanamon's recommendation of the Lonely Planet phrasebook. By this point Pimsleur will have sorted out your pronunciation, so that you can use it without audio. Put the phrases in Anki (what I would do) or Memrise or use one of the "list" methods people use and really learn them well.
2) Do the rest of Instant Portuguese.
3) Watch some shows from Portugal online to start to get your ear in.

At this point I guarantee you will be able to express with good pronunciation anything a traveller is likely to want to say and understand anyone patient enough to speak slowly. With this and your Spanish, you should also be able to easily understand a newspaper and can have a go at more meaningful conversations (once you learn the core vocabulary, which you will have done above, you will be understood most of the time if you don't know a word by giving the Spanish word a Portuguese pronunciation, though you may not always be correct or using an appropriate register, so you'll probably need to insist on correction).
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Re: Traveler's European Portuguese?

Postby Seneca » Thu Jan 05, 2017 10:35 pm

iguanamon wrote:If all you want is a traveler's level, there's no point in going overboard. DLI Headstart European Portuguese is free to download and will take care of most situations you'll run into. The Lonely Planet phrasebooks are also quite thorough for their small size and would go well as an alternative, or in combination with DLI Headstart. As I remember, you've studied Spanish, that will help a lot in getting the basics down. You don't have to learn the whole language.

iguanamon, that is a really great link! Exactly the sort of thing I was looking to find on Amazon, so nice to find it for free.

These DLI courses are public domain, right? The audio is quite messy and I did not have much going on tonight, so I started cleaning it up in audacity. I am also splitting out the audio for each section (Getting About Part A, Getting About Part B, etc....) so it is all in more manageable chunks. I would like for my efforts to benefit more people than just myself. Does this site have a suggested/preferred place to upload things like this? It won't be perfect, but I think much improved. It is rather time intensive but I could surely finish up by the weekend if someone knows a place to host it all.

Random Review wrote:How long have you got? I'm probably a good person to answer this, since I have dabbled in Portuguese quite a lot without ever getting serious enough to learn it, so I know the beginner's resources well. If you have at least 8 weeks, I suggest the following:

Weeks 1-4
1) Pimsleur European Portuguese I
The reviews you have been reading are for the Compact course (10 or 12 lessons), use this one (30 lessons). It is expensive but worth the money if you have it and, if you don't, there are cheaper ways (e.g. buyback schemes) or even free (inter-library loan).
2) MT Portuguese.
Do both levels, the "Advanced" course is always a misnomer with this series.
3) Do the first 4 weeks of Elisabeth Smith's Instant Portuguese (it may have a new name like "Fast Track" or something I think).

Weeks 5-8
1) At this point I second Iguanamon's recommendation of the Lonely Planet phrasebook. By this point Pimsleur will have sorted out your pronunciation, so that you can use it without audio. Put the phrases in Anki (what I would do) or Memrise or use one of the "list" methods people use and really learn them well.
2) Do the rest of Instant Portuguese.
3) Watch some shows from Portugal online to start to get your ear in.

At this point I guarantee you will be able to express with good pronunciation anything a traveller is likely to want to say and understand anyone patient enough to speak slowly. With this and your Spanish, you should also be able to easily understand a newspaper and can have a go at more meaningful conversations (once you learn the core vocabulary, which you will have done above, you will be understood most of the time if you don't know a word by giving the Spanish word a Portuguese pronunciation, though you may not always be correct or using an appropriate register, so you'll probably need to insist on correction).

Random Review, thanks for your post. On the Pimsleur site they let you try the first lesson free, so tomorrow I will give it a go :-) Two questions on it. Is there any reason to go for the physical version and not mp3? The price difference is substantial if I don't find it at the library. Second, any idea how much vocabulary it teaches overall?

Does this Elisabeth Smith course offer anything that is not covered in the DLI Headstart course that iguanamon linked? It is hard to really tell much since the reviews are not very thorough. I am never concerned about spending money for quality, but it seems potentially redundant in this case. Or does Miss Smith's course offer something a bit different that is not obvious from the product description?

I will just finish editing and then work through DLI Headstart and the MT courses when they get here (~$30 for both used). I feel like those are likely to satisfy my needs, but we will see how I feel in a few weeks. Oh, and my trip starts at the beginning of April, so plenty of time to get through DLI and MT and assess how I feel before deciding if I want/need to do more.
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Re: Traveler's European Portuguese?

Postby Seneca » Fri Jan 06, 2017 11:48 am

Alright, premature of me to offer to clean up all of the Headstart audio and split it for each section. I only did the audio for the sections I'd use:
Getting to Know You
Numbers
Time Expressions and Dates
Getting About
At the Restaurant

I did not edit:
On the Road
Finding a Home
A Medical Emergency

Hopefully I am not jinxing myself on the last one, but the juice didn't seem worth the squeeze from looking over the lesson. I will just work off the assumption that I will either be well enough to ask where a clinic is or that a Portuguese passerby will recognize that the unconscious gringo needs an ambulance (-;

I was going to convert all the PDFs to be searchable OCR format, but could not find a free tool online that would do more than 10 pages. Thus, those are the same as in the original link as well. Thanks again, iguanamon!
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Re: Traveler's European Portuguese?

Postby lingua » Fri Jan 06, 2017 7:34 pm

I used Rafa's site (he is native Portuguese living in UK). I have purchased his digital Learning Portuguese book and some of his vocabulary tickers.

Main site: http://www.learn-portuguese-with-rafa.com/basic-portuguese-phrases.html
European Portuguese vocabulary tickers: https://www.rafas-vocabulary-ticker.com/index.php/category/view/17

I've been to Portugal twice and had no problem with my lack of Portuguese. Just learn the polite greetings, thank you's and how to ask for your bill. You'll be fine. The eating and drinking vocabulary ticker might also be of interest. The food there is delicious.
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