Portuguese resources

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Iversen
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Re: Portuguese resources

Postby Iversen » Tue Nov 01, 2022 12:12 pm

I just tried to put "armezim", "aranchar", "barururu", "nabal", "pândega", "nácar" into Google Translate and let it translate those words from Portuguese into French and Hungarian and Greek, and the result was in all three cases "armezim", "aranchar", "barururu", "nabal", "pândega", "nacre" .... So apart from "nacar" (nacre) it's just silly to waste the time of language learners by presenting them with such words. If even GT can't translate them then you don't have to hurry to learn them today - tomorrow will be early enough.

I did find "nabal" in my monolingual dictionary from Porto Editora Fluminense - it's apparently a place where you grow "nabos" (turnips) - and also "pândega" (apparently some kind of boisterous party), and through Google searches I found out that a "barururu" is a person living near a certain river in Brazil, while "armazim" appears to be some kind of dress from the Bengal but come on ...you might expect to find words like that in a novel intended for native readers, but not in a textbook.
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Diomedes
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Re: Portuguese resources

Postby Diomedes » Tue Nov 01, 2022 2:36 pm

Iversen wrote:I just tried to put "armezim", "aranchar", "barururu", "nabal", "pândega", "nácar" into Google Translate and let it translate those words from Portuguese into French and Hungarian and Greek, and the result was in all three cases "armezim", "aranchar", "barururu", "nabal", "pândega", "nacre" .... So apart from "nacar" (nacre) it's just silly to waste the time of language learners by presenting them with such words. If even GT can't translate them then you don't have to hurry to learn them today - tomorrow will be early enough.

I did find "nabal" in my monolingual dictionary from Porto Editora Fluminense - it's apparently a place where you grow "nabos" (turnips) - and also "pândega" (apparently some kind of boisterous party), and through Google searches I found out that a "barururu" is a person living near a certain river in Brazil, while "armazim" appears to be some kind of dress from the Bengal but come on ...you might expect to find words like that in a novel intended for native readers, but not in a textbook.


That's hilarious! :D

Now I did a search about "nacar". Well, I'm quite sure we always use "madrepérola" instead ("mother of pearl"). Since Brazil is such a huge country, perhaps somewhere one could say "nacar", but... even so, it's quite unusual to teach such a word to newbies!

I happen to know that "pândega" or "pândego" (masculine), if used at all, could refer to a funny/playful/facetious person. But even so... it's either a very archaic word, or used in continental/european portuguese only. Definitely not in Brazil nowadays!

About the other words, that's true, perhaps we can find them in some novel intended for native readers. But again, these native readers will have to look them up in a good dictionary...

I intend to get a better look at this course when I have the time, but by now I'm afraid it would not be my recommendation to brazilian portuguese learners...
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Re: Portuguese resources

Postby anitarrc » Wed Nov 02, 2022 7:15 am

Here is the solution, all from
dicio.com.br
my nº1 online resource.. (strange that it was missing on the excellent list)
Barururu
adjetivo masculino e feminino
[Etnologia] Relativo aos Barururus, indígenas das margens do rio Barururu, afluente do Amazonas.

armezim
Espécie de tafetá de Bengala.

now that is absurdly far-fetched
arranchar with 2 RR

Distribuir a tropa em ranchos para comer, pernoitar etc.
Dar pousada, albergar.

nabal
Terreno onde crescem nabos.

Nabo (navet en français) is something they sell here at the Portuguese greengrocers. What perplexes me is how they are supposed to grow in Brasil. It is a cold climate turnip.

pândega

substantivo feminino
Festa alegre, estrondosa, farta de comidas e bebidas.
Insanidade; insensatez na maneira de se comportar.
[Figurado] Brincadeira sem graça ou indelicada.
[Gramática] Palavra parônima de pandega.
Etimologia (origem da palavra pândega). De origem questionável.
I agree with the last remark, now as I understand it, I wonder how I missed it :lol: :lol: to this day.

O nácar ja está na lista. = Madrepérola (mother of pearl)

I admit this is the only one I knew
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Diomedes
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Re: Portuguese resources

Postby Diomedes » Thu Nov 03, 2022 1:21 am

anitarrc wrote:[...]

Nabo (navet en français) is something they sell here at the Portuguese greengrocers. What perplexes me is how they are supposed to grow in Brasil. It is a cold climate turnip.

[...]


Although not a very popular vegetable here, we do have turnips (nabos) in Brazil, at least in my region (south, which can be somewhat colder). But I suppose only a farmer who grows them (a tiny minority of farmers, I suppose) is acquainted with the word "nabal"...
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anitarrc
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Re: Portuguese resources

Postby anitarrc » Thu Nov 03, 2022 6:54 am

Diomedes wrote:
anitarrc wrote:[...]

Nabo (navet en français) is something they sell here at the Portuguese greengrocers. What perplexes me is how they are supposed to grow in Brasil. It is a cold climate turnip.

[...]


Although not a very popular vegetable here, we do have turnips (nabos) in Brazil, at least in my region (south, which can be somewhat colder). But I suppose only a farmer who grows them (a tiny minority of farmers, I suppose) is acquainted with the word "nabal"...


Você mora na Santa Catarina ou no rio Grande do Sul? Adoro a música gaucha da sua região
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Diomedes
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Re: Portuguese resources

Postby Diomedes » Thu Nov 03, 2022 9:43 pm

anitarrc wrote:Você mora na Santa Catarina ou no rio Grande do Sul? Adoro a música gaucha da sua região


Moro em Santa Catarina, mas nasci no Rio Grande do Sul. Que interessante você gostar da música gaúcha! Confesso que não conheço muito... talvez só os mais famosos. De quais músicos você gosta?
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Odair
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Re: Portuguese resources

Postby Odair » Fri Nov 04, 2022 6:00 pm

Depois da pândega eu sempre levo a Maria pra passear no nabal, qual o problema????
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rowanexer
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Re: Portuguese resources

Postby rowanexer » Mon Feb 27, 2023 1:09 am

I'd like to suggest Susana Morais's European Portuguese readers.

https://storyglot.com/books/

I just recently went through the A1 reader "A Cidadela Misterioso" and enjoyed it a lot. The story was a fantasy with some mystery, which made it interesting to read and figure out what was going on. The book contained the story in Portuguese, then the story with line by line translations. There was also a glossary at the end, some exercises, and audio. The audio was high quality. It was quite slow but good for A1 level, and it also had different actors for the characters and narrators, and sound effects which helped comprehension. I will definitely be continuing my studies with her other books.
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Fortheo
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Re: Portuguese resources

Postby Fortheo » Tue Feb 28, 2023 4:13 am

Diomedes wrote:
Iversen wrote:I just tried to put "armezim", "aranchar", "barururu", "nabal", "pândega", "nácar" into Google Translate and let it translate those words from Portuguese into French and Hungarian and Greek, and the result was in all three cases "armezim", "aranchar", "barururu", "nabal", "pândega", "nacre" .... So apart from "nacar" (nacre) it's just silly to waste the time of language learners by presenting them with such words. If even GT can't translate them then you don't have to hurry to learn them today - tomorrow will be early enough.

I did find "nabal" in my monolingual dictionary from Porto Editora Fluminense - it's apparently a place where you grow "nabos" (turnips) - and also "pândega" (apparently some kind of boisterous party), and through Google searches I found out that a "barururu" is a person living near a certain river in Brazil, while "armazim" appears to be some kind of dress from the Bengal but come on ...you might expect to find words like that in a novel intended for native readers, but not in a textbook.


That's hilarious! :D

Now I did a search about "nacar". Well, I'm quite sure we always use "madrepérola" instead ("mother of pearl"). Since Brazil is such a huge country, perhaps somewhere one could say "nacar", but... even so, it's quite unusual to teach such a word to newbies!

I happen to know that "pândega" or "pândego" (masculine), if used at all, could refer to a funny/playful/facetious person. But even so... it's either a very archaic word, or used in continental/european portuguese only. Definitely not in Brazil nowadays!

About the other words, that's true, perhaps we can find them in some novel intended for native readers. But again, these native readers will have to look them up in a good dictionary...

I intend to get a better look at this course when I have the time, but by now I'm afraid it would not be my recommendation to brazilian portuguese learners...


I think you're judging the course too harshly based off some vocab found in an introductory portion on pronunciation that isn't even part of the main course. The textbook didn't expect the student to learn those words -- it was just using them to exemplify certain pronunciation and stress rules. In that regard, I think it is useful to use more obscure words because then the learner likely doesn't have a preconceived notion of how the word is pronounced and thus has to put into practice the pronunciation and stress rules they just learned.

I think if you looked at the actual lessons and not just the preliminary lesson on pronunciation rules, you'd find the vocabulary to be more useful. Still, it's not a perfect course, but I personally think it has a lot to offer, considering that it's free, comes with graded interactive exercises, and has a good amount of audio.
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Diomedes
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Re: Portuguese resources

Postby Diomedes » Fri Mar 03, 2023 5:37 pm

Fortheo wrote:
I think you're judging the course too harshly based off some vocab found in an introductory portion on pronunciation that isn't even part of the main course. The textbook didn't expect the student to learn those words -- it was just using them to exemplify certain pronunciation and stress rules. In that regard, I think it is useful to use more obscure words because then the learner likely doesn't have a preconceived notion of how the word is pronounced and thus has to put into practice the pronunciation and stress rules they just learned.

I think if you looked at the actual lessons and not just the preliminary lesson on pronunciation rules, you'd find the vocabulary to be more useful. Still, it's not a perfect course, but I personally think it has a lot to offer, considering that it's free, comes with graded interactive exercises, and has a good amount of audio.


Hi, thanks for the input. But...

1 - Where did I "judge the course" as a whole? I trully believe I didn't. I'm a bit perplexed... Please read again carefully what I wrote.

2 - I understand your opinion ("I think it is useful to use more obscure words because then the learner likely doesn't have a preconceived notion of how the word is pronounced and thus has to put into practice the pronunciation and stress rules they just learned.") But I still disagree, unless you offer better arguments.

How effective is this approach of using very weird/useless words as a pedagogical strategy, in real life? Do you have some real data on the results this technique gets? Does the usage of common words in pronunciation training really hinders the learning proccess? Sorry, but I'm very skeptical about it.

First of all, it's a beginner's course, not a pronunciation course, and the learner doesn't have a previous vocabulary and therefore doesn't have any "preconceived notion of how the word is pronounced". So I see no reason to avoid useful words at all.

Even if someone stubbornly insists in using less common words in that stage, so why not use words that will actually come up later in the learning process (B2, C1, C2, perhaps) ? It should be still way, way better than to practice "words" that not even a cultured native speaker would be acquainted with, I guess...

And even if the learner already knows some very common words, I bet most learners would largely prefer to gain familiarity with useful words than pronouncing nonsense just to practice abstract rules as "drills" (this is very boring for most people, BTW, even with useful vocabulary). Human beings are curious and tend to get frustrated with meaningless content, especially in language courses. Starters need motivation, not frustration.

3 - I did check some other lessons back then. As you said it yourself, it's not a perfect course, but it has good things to offer. That's the reason I refrained to point out the additional problems I saw in it. But they exist, believe me. Some nice stuff, some unnatural language. Kind of a mixed bag. In short, it has some good content, but it could be better. Not bad, but very far from awesome, trust me.

Now I'm judging the course harshly, I suppose... :D

4 - Since you enjoy practicing pronunciation, I suggest you check this:


Talking Brazilian: A Brazilian Portuguese Pronunciation Workbook

Mario A Perini
Yale University Press

Have you heard about it?

I checked this one a long time ago, and I liked it a lot! I would strongly recommend this one for any person interested in teach or learn brazilian portuguese!

It's not free, though. I guess that's fair.

As a side note: as far as I remember, it uses mostly simple/useful words... ;) If you know the book, please correct me if I'm wrong.
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