I Learned Portuguese in 7 Days (My Method)

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Le Baron
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Re: I Learned Portuguese in 7 Days (My Method)

Postby Le Baron » Fri Mar 19, 2021 8:11 pm

Three weeks! This is progress. I expect to be seeing much shorter logs from now on should this miraculous methodology be widely adopted.

My future as a super-hyperpolyglot is perhaps achievable before I die after all.
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Re: I Learned Portuguese in 7 Days (My Method)

Postby einzelne » Fri Mar 19, 2021 9:01 pm

s_allard wrote:For those who may still be interested in how effective the I learned Portuguese in 7 days method is, here is a quote from a Portuguese teacher who watched the two videos.


Unfortunately, the only thing this professional assessment demonstrates is that, without media literacy, even professional teachers can easily swallow the bait (which, once again, confirms the OP message). I would never assess language skills on the basis of such videos simply because, as every film major knows, you can easily turn a horror movie into a family comedy.

That's why I was quite specific about my test: live stream with random natives (not your friends). Let's see, how much you can demonstrate in 7 days, or 3 weeks for that matter.
Last edited by einzelne on Sat Mar 20, 2021 3:47 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: I Learned Portuguese in 7 Days (My Method)

Postby Cenwalh » Fri Mar 19, 2021 9:35 pm

I thought this video was a good take on the idea from a native Spanish speaker (the video is in Spanish). It has a click bait title of course 'I learnt another language in ONE WEEK!', but she stresses that she chose Portuguese because it is similar to Spanish, and says that obviously she isn't going to fully 'learn' Portuguese in a week. She also does an online CEFR test at the end so we get a better idea of what she's learnt.

Similar click bait but it didn't leave me with a bad taste in my mouth. The comments also seem more clued in on what's going on. I think the thing with the English video is no one realises how similar Portuguese is to Spanish, so they don't realise that it's nothing like them learning Portuguese as a monolingual English speaker. I have personal experience of that from learning Catalan being far easier than Spanish despite the lack of resources.
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Re: I Learned Portuguese in 7 Days (My Method)

Postby s_allard » Fri Mar 19, 2021 11:32 pm

Cenwalh wrote:I thought this video was a good take on the idea from a native Spanish speaker (the video is in Spanish). It has a click bait title of course 'I learnt another language in ONE WEEK!', but she stresses that she chose Portuguese because it is similar to Spanish, and says that obviously she isn't going to fully 'learn' Portuguese in a week. She also does an online CEFR test at the end so we get a better idea of what she's learnt.

Similar click bait but it didn't leave me with a bad taste in my mouth. The comments also seem more clued in on what's going on. I think the thing with the English video is no one realises how similar Portuguese is to Spanish, so they don't realise that it's nothing like them learning Portuguese as a monolingual English speaker. I have personal experience of that from learning Catalan being far easier than Spanish despite the lack of resources.


Thanks for the interesting post that contributes something useful to the debate. In my previous post I referred to a video by an Australian critic who mentioned specifically how the fact of knowing Spanish made learning Portuguese easier. We all know that this I learned Portuguese in 7 days title is misleading but some people here claim that there are some naive beginners who might actually believe this title and will come away traumatized for life because after one week and $89 they were not able to live stream conversations in Portuguese with random Brazilians from the streets of Sao Paulo.

I happen to believe that not a single person in this world really believes you will be able to speak Portuguese fluently after a week. It's too good to be true. So instead of getting hung up about the title, I prefer to look under the hood of the method and see actually what it is they are selling. I find it's pretty good advice that will take you some distance.
Last edited by s_allard on Sat Mar 20, 2021 12:24 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: I Learned Portuguese in 7 Days (My Method)

Postby Cainntear » Fri Mar 19, 2021 11:41 pm

s_allard wrote:I say that's not bad for 7 days. So let's bump that up to A2 instead of A1+. Let's say that for mere mortals like the rest of us it would take three weeks, that's still pretty good.

If it took 3 weeks, yes that would be good.
Does it take 3 weeks?
Is there any evidence that it can be done in 3 weeks?
Has anyone followed the method and achieved that in 3 weeks?

If you can't answer yes to any of those questions, what exactly are we to take from your message?
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Re: I Learned Portuguese in 7 Days (My Method)

Postby Raconteur » Sat Mar 20, 2021 12:12 am

s_allard wrote:some people here claim that there are some naive beginners who might believe actually believe this title and will come away traumatized for life because after one week and $89 they were not able to live stream conversations in Portuguese with random Brazilians from the streets of Sao Paulo.
The "some people" you are referring to are actually claiming something far more nuanced and reasonable... but then again, if you didn't continually mischaracterize the argument, employing both exaggeration and oversimplification (with a pinch of misdirection for good measure), it would be much harder for you to illustrate just how right you are and how unreasonable everyone else is. :roll:

Anyway, as the topic's originator, I humbly suggest that we all just "agree to disagree" and call it a day. This has been going round in circles for some time now...
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Re: I Learned Portuguese in 7 Days (My Method)

Postby Le Baron » Sat Mar 20, 2021 1:13 am

I can't wait to get the 300 words of Chinese under my belt and then the 7 days of learning how to string them together. This discussion has opened my eyes. Imagine the conversations I'm going to have in Beijing come the summer.
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Re: I Learned Portuguese in 7 Days (My Method)

Postby Kraut » Sat Mar 20, 2021 10:10 pm

best start at minute 8

Español con Juan

Cómo distinguir entre charlatanes y buenos profesores en internet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TPREix ... H0m3ltwQFN

How to choose a good Spanish course
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Re: I Learned Portuguese in 7 Days (My Method)

Postby s_allard » Sun Mar 21, 2021 1:31 pm

Kraut wrote:best start at minute 8

Español con Juan

Cómo distinguir entre charlatanes y buenos profesores en internet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TPREix ... H0m3ltwQFN

How to choose a good Spanish course


Muy divertido, gracias.
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Re: I Learned Portuguese in 7 Days (My Method)

Postby Kraut » Fri Mar 26, 2021 1:08 am

British polyglot twins in a test for German TV: learning Maltese from scratch, unrelated to any language that they speak.
After a week they are tested (from minute 53) and the testers seem to be impressed.

https://www1.wdr.de/mediathek/video-spr ... r-100.html


Sprachen lernen – so geht es leichter



Was muss man tun, um eine andere Sprache zu lernen? Die Zwillinge Matthew und Michael Youlden jedenfalls können sich in kürzester Zeit in einer anderen Sprache fließend verständigen. Sind sie vielleicht besonders sprachenbegabt? Gibt es das überhaupt? Kann man jederzeit eine neue Sprache lernen?

https://www.superpolyglotbros.com/deuts ... en/online/
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