Conversational Portuguese in Thirty-Six Lessons by Professor Cézar YázigiThis course was published in 1962 by the Brazilian Government Trade Bureau, New York, N.Y. As neither the course nor the publisher had any association with the myriad publishers of language courses, phrase books, and similar materials of the period, the
“Conversational Portuguese in Thirty-Six Lessons”, subtitled
“Course of Portuguese as Spoken in Brazil, Professor Cézar Yázigi’s Method”, is an exceptional specimen of a vintage course of lesser renown.
MaterialsThe course materials included: (a) one 90-page soft-bound booklet measuring 5-1/4 inches x 8-1/8 inches, and (b) four x 12 inch x 33-1/3 rpm LP vinyl records having a total duration of approximately 3 hours. A note on the final page of the booklet reads “These lessons are available on four 12” Long Playing records and information about them can be obtained at the Brazilian Government Trade Bureau”, confirming that this course was not a regular commercial venture. Oddly, the “publisher” of the LP records is indicated as “Course © 1962 by Cesar Yazigi, 500 Fifth Ave., New York” (see below).
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DescriptionThe course booklet opens with a brief but well-conceived introduction to the pronunciation of Brazilian Portuguese. I was nevertheless taken aback by the introduction to this section which reads as follows:
“English, as you know, is the most illogical language in the world from the view of pronunciation. Portuguese, on the other hand, is quite logical, or quite “phonetic”, as we might say …” There follows a short presentation on subject pronouns, possessive adjectives, and object pronouns.
The language is introduced through a series of scripted dialogues, lists of useful phrases and vocabularies, and L1-L2 translation exercises. The Portuguese text appears in columnar fashion on the left-hand side of the page, flanked by an English translation. Putting aside the introductory comments on pronouns and adjectives, there are no explanatory notes or comments of any kind whatsoever accompanying the lessons. There is no glossary and an answer key for the L1-L2 translation exercises is not provided. It is possible that this course (and
it is a course and not a phrase book) was meant for presentation in a classroom. The vocabulary is common to that of many typical beginners’ courses; however, despite the limitations of a condensed course, most of the grammatical issues up to the CEFR A2 level are demonstrated. While a seasoned language-learner, particularly one who is familiar with related languages, would not be stumped by this skeletal booklet, a novice would have been better advised to keep a simple grammar close-at-hand.
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The roughly three hours of audio recordings follow closely the dialogues and useful phrases which appear in the course booklet, recorded in the target language only. The native speakers appeared to be voiced-trained, their speech is clear and well-articulated and their cadence of speech, while faster than that of the typical Assimil course, was somewhat slower than that of normal conversation.
Appreciation: Surprisingly Good!The condensed 90-page course booklet with its accompanying three hours of audio recordings would have had the potential to bring an industrious student within the CEFR A1-A2 range of skill. It was somewhat similar to the first-half-or-so of an Assimil course, but without the notes to the user. It is hard to imagine how this course and the LP records (which were apparently available only via the Brazilian Government Trade Bureau, New York, N.Y.) were marketed or what the pricing structure might have been. At the time of its publication, the competition from Assimil, Berlitz, Cortina, Hugo, Living Language, Linguaphone, et al, as well as the hundred-odd publishers of low-priced LP language courses would have been absolutely ferocious. It is not surprising that there are few references to this course on the internet. All the same, this condensed course would have yielded pretty good results … in the right hands!