português do Brasil

[Lysander]

I was a long-time lurker on the old site when I was taking French in undergrad and was looking for tips on grammar, but I did not ever post as reading got me what I needed, and I promptly forgot all the French I learned after graduation since I was simply checking a box. Now a lot of time has gone by, and I am interested in teaching myself Brazilian Portuguese.

I tried to read quite a bit before posting, to learn both from the many very successful learners, and also to take note of where a lot of people seemed to find trouble. I posted asking for specific suggestions on a few aspects of this here: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =17&t=7890

I have noticed two main issues with learners who fizzle out fairly early. First, way too many resources. Downloading half the internet seems unlikely to teach you a language. Planning five hours a day of your intensive learning plan for three languages from three different languages families that you *promise* you are sticking to from now until 2025 also seems poorly thought out. Second, expecting a course to do all the heavy lifting. It seems that learning doesn't have to be as painful as it was in school, but it still takes effort on the part of the learner.

I think the multi-track method makes the most sense to me. Shout out to @iguanamon on that one. Trying to have fun and use the language actively early on with some structure from a course seems like something I am more likely to stick with. So far, so good. Here is what I have been doing:

First, I have been using Assimil daily. I am trying to be more "active" from the start since some people seem frustrated that it feels too passive. After each lesson, I write out in a notebook vocab or sentences that seem immediately useful. Examples:

Lesson 1:
Bom dia = good morning; por favor = please; sim = yes; Sou americano = I am American; obrigado = thank you

Lesson 5:
Eu sei = I know; eu também = me too, etc...

I read over the full list once or twice a day. I figure after half the book or so, I will rewrite and take out any that aren't second nature by then (it did not take long to remember "sim" = "yes" for example). I try to use these constructions regularly with native speakers. More on that below.

Second, I like to listen to the Café Brasil podcast even though I don't know much beyond cognates.

Third, I listen to a lot of Brazilian tunes. A Tábua De Esmeralda and Força Bruta by Jorge Ben are both great albums for anyone wanting to check out Brazilian music! Please do give me any suggestions of Brazilian Portuguese bands, songs, artists, etc...to listen to! Any genre is welcome.

Fourth, and finally, the most unorthodox part of what I do. I paid for one month of tinder plus, set my location to São Paulo, and started swiping right on everyone. Even being clear up front that I live thousands of miles away, the Brazilian friendliness I have experienced much of in life means plenty of people still being up to chat! As a bonus, most Brazilians I am matching with have limited English proficiency, so it is a lot of practice for me.

Much of the early conversation follows a similar pattern of where I am from, what I am looking for, hobbies, etc... This leads to using a lot of the pre-set basic phrases from Assimil. Some of the sentences are already second nature and I can type them out without a thought as easily in BP as in English. It is kind of cool. Since anyone can just unmatch me if they get bored, I don't even have to feel bad about my clunky efforts at typing at them in BP!

I plan to stick with the above until I finish the Assimil course, and then reassess whether I want to jump into one more course (DLI Portuguese, maybe?) or start trying to read something on my ereader while making heavy use of the built-in dictionary.

[Jaleel10]

Bem-vindo !

Third, I listen to a lot of Brazilian tunes. A Tábua De Esmeralda and Força Bruta by Jorge Ben are both great albums for anyone wanting to check out Brazilian music! Please do give me any suggestions of Brazilian Portuguese bands, songs, artists, etc...to listen to! Any genre is welcome.

These two songs (rap) are one of the reasons that I want to learn Portuguese in the future, silly reasoning I know lol. I hope you like them !

[BOLIO]

I have not learned Portuguese so please don’t consider what I am saying as advice but rather a future learning plan for myself. I do like that you are listening from the beginning. That is my biggest regret in my Spanish journey. I delayed it for a year and really stunted my growth.

I would pick a course like Assimil and work it much more completely than I did Spanish. I would do the passive phase. I would then do the active phase like Luca’s method of L2 to L1 to L2. In hindsight I think doing to much L2 to L1 only encourages mental translation when trying to speak. Nothing proven on my part just a belief system. Also I would shadow the entire course several times until I was parroting the speakers effortlessly.

I was so quick to get thru the course in Spanish because I felt a rush to get to the next step that I did not maximize the opportunities the course can give someone. I would be more patient. I would look at the course as a nine month plan and squeeze every drop out of it vs three months and out the door.

I would listen as stated above a lot and then some more. It is the most important skill in my worthless opinion. I would watch movies either dubbed or original, Tv series and audiobooks. This would be the “fun” part of the curriculum.

After Assimil I would follow Iguanomon’s lead and do the DLI course and read as much as possible (news, short stories, dual texts, and whatever native materials I could). I would try to focus on material just a step or two ahead of my level. I would read a book and then another and another and another....

Again, I am no one to give advice on Portuguese but when I do tackle it that is how I will do it.

All the best in your adventure,

BOLIO

[iguanamon]

Welcome to the forum, Lysander! Bem-vindo ao fórum. Thanks for the kind words. You're on a good path. I knew Spanish at a high level before learning Portuguese, which was my second language after Spanish. With my background, I was able to get more out of native materials from the start. I jumped into DLI Portuguese Basic Course at Volume 4.

I've done two DLI Basic Courses- Portuguese and Haitian Creole. I consider them to be, despite their age, the single best courses I have ever done in any language. DLI is almost a multi-track approach in itself, with not only dialogs but drills and readings to go along with the lessons.

I've never liked Assimil, the main reason is the horribly slow audio it has, which to me is still too slow at the last lessons. Also, it lacks in drills and its grammar explanations are too skimpy for me. Still, even though it's not my cup of tea, I know it works for a lot of people. I'm glad to help along the way, if you need or want it, please pm me.

Here are some of my recommendations- with more in my log for Brazilian music, which is as varied as American music is. The first video by Seu Jorge has good visual clues to go with the lyrics. To search for lyrics in Portuguese search name of song plus "letra". I memorized the first verse of Aguas de março by Jobim very early in my learning.

[Lysander]

Welcome to the forum, Lysander! Bem-vindo ao fórum. Thanks for the kind words. You're on a good path. I knew Spanish at a high level before learning Portuguese, which was my second language after Spanish. With my background, I was able to get more out of native materials from the start. I jumped into DLI Portuguese Basic Course at Volume 4.

I've done two DLI Basic Courses- Portuguese and Haitian Creole. I consider them to be, despite their age, the single best courses I have ever done in any language. DLI is almost a multi-track approach in itself, with not only dialogs but drills and readings to go along with the lessons.

I've never liked Assimil, the main reason is the horribly slow audio it has, which to me is still too slow at the last lessons. Also, it lacks in drills and its grammar explanations are too skimpy for me. Still, even though it's not my cup of tea, I know it works for a lot of people. I'm glad to help along the way, if you need or want it, please pm me.

Here are some of my recommendations- with more in my log for Brazilian music, which is as varied as American music is. The first video by Seu Jorge has good visual clues to go with the lyrics. To search for lyrics in Portuguese search name of song plus "letra". I memorized the first verse of Aguas de março by Jobim very early in my learning.

iguanamon, thanks for taking the time to respond to me!

To answer your question from my other post, I have never learned a second language to a high level. I was an average French student and couldn't have ordered a meal at the end of my two years of study with it :/ I was just doing it to fulfill a graduation requirement.

I can see what you mean with Assimil. It has a ton of grammar notes, but they are haphazard in presentation. I do like the cultural note at the end of each lesson, though. It helps make Brazil seem more familiar than just its largest cities.

DLI does look amazing. I was reading up on it to get more perspective on it, and found this old post of yours from the old site: http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/fo ... ?TID=31522

Is it against the rules to share the version you cleaned up? If not, I'd be really thankful if you could share with me. It seems like it'd be a great and thorough course to keep me company as I continue listening to music, reading, etc... If it is against the rules, or if you don't have the cleaned up version anymore since that post is over six years old now, it is no big deal.

Finally, thanks for the music suggestions and "letra" tip in searching songs. I also appreciate the artists you suggested below. I will absolutely take a read through your log this weekend to find more

[Jaleel10]

I can see what you mean with Assimil. It has a ton of grammar notes, but they are haphazard in presentation. I do like the cultural note at the end of each lesson, though. It helps make Brazil seem more familiar than just its largest cities.

DLI does look amazing...

Yeah. I'm using Assimil as well and I'm well deep into it. I agree with Iguana that it lacks a bit. So I, to the best of my ability, tried to supplement it as much as I can with audio courses and vocabulary and grammar exercises

I might use DLI after Assimil. But I don't know it's quality for Spanish (I'll do the research !) but atleast I have something to get my feet wet when I learn Portuguese in a few years.

[Lysander]

I have now gone through Lesson 28 of the Assimil course. It is a grammar review and lists all the verbs we have seen up to this point. For anyone that had not used the course, I thought they might be interested in the list.

-ar verbs
acompanhar: to escort, to accompany
ajudar: to help
almoçando: having lunch (lunching) (present participle)
chega: he/she/it arrives; you arrive
escovando: brushing (present participle)
falar: to talk, to speak -> fala he/she/it talks; you talk
falta: he/she/it is lacking; you are lacking
fica: he/she/it is located; you are located
jogam: they/you (pl.) play
pagar: to pay -> pagam they/you (pl.) pay
parar: to stop
preciso: I need
preparando: preparing (present participle)
reservado: reserved, booked (past participle)
sentar: to sit down
tô, abbreviated form of estou: I am (irregular)
tocando: ringing (e.g. telephone), touching (present participle)
trabalhando: working (present participle)
viajar: to travel -> travelling (present participle)
volto: I return, come back

-er verbs
atender: to answer (the telephone)
conhecer: to know (i.e. to be familiar with) -> conhece: he/he/it knows, you know; conhecem they/you (pl.) know
fazer: to do/make -> faz he/she/it does/makes; you do/make (irregular); fazendo doing, making (present participle)
haver: to be (impersonal) -> hà: there is/are (irregular)
quero: I want
sabe: he/she/it knows, you know; you know (a fact, how to do something)
ter: to have -> tenyo: I have; tem: he/she/it has; you have; thee is (both irregular)
trazer to bring
ver: to see -> I see (irregular)

-ir verbs
assistir: to watch, to attend -> assistindo -> watching, attending (present participle)
sair: to leave -> sai: he/she/it leaves; you leave (irregular)

past tense (preterite) forms:
foi: you went (from ir) (irregular)
vi: I saw (from ver)

somewhat related, here are the codes to type accents for Brazilian Portuguese (on windows, anyway):
Hold down alt, and then press the needed number combo on your numberpad-
á 0225, Á 0193, à 0224, À 0192, â 0226, Â 0194, ã 0227, Ã 0195
é 0233, É 0201, ê 0234, Ê 0202
í 0237, Í 0205
ó 0243, Ó 0211, õ 0245, Õ 0213, ô 0244, Ô 0212
ú 0250, Ú 0218
ç 0231, Ç 0199

Also, I came across this cool conjugation website. It is more than I need now, but I think could be useful later on:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:Main_Page

You can type in any verb in any form and it can lead you to a full chart. Here is the example for assistir:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/assistir#Conjugation_2

It is probably more useful for irregular verbs since regular ones should just follow a pattern, though.

[Lysander]

Time for an update! The DLI course is extremely thorough, and I like how you need to be locked in when using it. Your mind wandering is not an option if you don't want to get lost.

However, I think using it and Assimil at the same time puts a little too much pressure for the amount of time I have to allot to study for now, and I noticed I was speeding through Assimil to try to also fit in the amount of DLI I wanted to do. I am going to focus on Assimil since I am a good bit into it already. I think working through the Assimil course in its entirety first will hopefully give me a good base to not get too hung up in DLI and help me get through it since I won't be a totally blind beginner by then.

The Assimil "active wave" starts in about a week and a half. It should be interesting. I am still continuing to listen to Brazilian music where and when I can.

[Lysander]

I finished Lesson 49 today and have made it to the start of the active wave! I am going on a trip for the weekend, and I will delay starting the active wave and Lesson 50 until I return early next week. Instead, I will just try to fit in some time reviewing all that I have covered so far. Obviously, I am only 1/3 of the way through now (49 of 100 for passive and 0/100 for active) so it is a bit early to draw too many conclusions. But I felt I should share my thoughts so far.

There is a LOT of Portuguese here. Like, goodness. With editing out the long pauses in the audio, most lessons aren't more than 40-something seconds, but boy does it cover a lot.

I followed the directions at this link for editing the audio, and found it very useful to follow the suggested morning/evening usage:
https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... ith#p99119

I disagree about not bothering with the exercises. I did that until the mid-30s and realized I was missing out on a lot of extra review. The last ~two weeks have been playing a ton of catch-up. Do the exercises during the passive wave or you make a ton more work for yourself! To be fair, I don't really test myself with the exercises, but instead allow it to be extra exposure for the given vocabulary being taught.

The active wave is described in the book like:
"Read and listen to the texts in the previous lesson again, but this time, try translating them from English into Portuguese (both orally and in writing). Don't be shy, speak aloud and pretend you're Brazilian - you'll see, it helps! Repeat the pronunciation several times if you need to. This will help you to review what you've learned and to speak increasingly naturally. You'll be surprised at how much you've already picked up!"

I went poking around for more discussion on the active wave and I was struck that it seems quite rare for anyone to actually complete an Assimil course, and even more rare for those who do to do so with the Assimil method! But, I did find this link to the Dutch directions, which seem to get plugged as a "smart" way to do the active lessons in some older threads:
http://languagegeek.net/2011/03/14/assi ... tive-wave/

1. Read the lesson, repeating each sentence once. If you have the recordings, listen to them carefully.
2. Cover the Brazilian Portuguese text and try to reconstruct it, looking only at the English sentences. Make an effort to do this both out loud and in writing. This is the most important part of the second wave!
3. After you are finished, uncover the Brazilian Portuguese text and carefully correct any errors you have made.

Not too different from my book, really.

So I think to tweak it a bit, for active wave, I will avoid looking at English for steps 1-3 and:
1. Listen once with book closed.
2. Listen and read along quietly with the audio.
3. Listen and read along out loud with the audio.
4. Cover the Brazilian Portuguese and line-by-line try to say what it should be from the English. Note mistakes as I go along and re-read out loud any sentences I screw up.
5. Leave the BP covered, and try to write out the lesson from BP in English by hand. Compare and correct errors I make as I go along.

What do you all think, does that seem like a reasonable way to go? I am glad I told myself to hold off on starting DLI as Assimil will take up a good chunk of time each day from here on out. I am enjoying it, though. There is a lot of the language bouncing around in my head, so I am excited to see if it all starts coming together now that I am starting the active wave! I actually had a few exciting moments recently where I was able to guess the meaning of some quotes on instagram before checking them

Depending how the first couple of weeks go with the active wave, I may go back to what I was doing at the start and writing out useful phrases. I am also thinking to make flashcards for all the great verb lists that come at the end of every 7th lesson starting with #21. As I said, there sure is a lot of Portuguese floating around in my head. I almost want a few drills to really drive home conjugations and such, which is something I never thought I'd say! But respecting the Assimil process has so far served me well, as far as I can tell, so I will keep chugging along with Assimil and tweak here and there along the way

[alemao]

Você tem algum e-mail para trocarmos idéias sobre os idiomas!?