Fun ways to learn Brazilian Portuguese from zero?
August 20, 2019 10:34 PM Subscribe
What are some fun ways to learn Brazilian Portuguese, starting from nothing? I'm specifically hoping to find something that I can get obsessed with and spend hours on. I do use Duolingo, but I find it's too tedious to spend more than an hour on. Any suggestions are appreciated!
I haven't tried to learn Portuguese, but I did spend a lot of time with the Foreign Service Institute's audio-lingual style courses for Spanish and French, and they are both hypnotically addictive and helped me learn these languages. The Portuguese course, I trust, is similarly structured and is available free here, amongst other places online. You read the explanations in the pdf book and work through the units with pdf text and mp3s.
What's really great about the FSI courses is that, while all the while teaching grammar, they emphasize learning deeply the sounds of the language -- the phonetics, the sonic dimension of morphology (the building of words out of meaningful components) and the idiomatic cadences of the sentence and phrase. There's a lot of repeating expressions after listening to the native speaker's recorded audio, but also lots of so-called variation drills, where you hear an expression and need to respond with an expression you generate according to a pre-given change of meaning. These variation drills go a long way towards making grammatical structures instinctual in a way written exercises don't.
Especially with Portuguese, which has, compared with Spanish, say, a very rich and subtle sound system, this approach should pay off. Each language has its own unique music to it, and you need to immerse yourself in this music and learn its tones, its melodies and melodic sensibility. I had a lot of fun with the FSI Spanish and especially the French course and could achieved trance like states while doing the drills that I imagine are akin to those that come from ritual chanting. Again, the Portuguese course should be similar -- and it's free!
(The wikipedia article I linked to above can make the audio-lingual approach seem outdated and limited; please don't be turned off by that. It's not the only approach you need to learn a foreign language well -- for one, you need eventually to have practice talking conversationally with actual people -- but it's a very valuable one and work you put into it will return indispensable familiarity with the language's basic structures and feel.)
posted by bertran at 12:14 AM on August 21, 2019 [5 favorites]
What's really great about the FSI courses is that, while all the while teaching grammar, they emphasize learning deeply the sounds of the language -- the phonetics, the sonic dimension of morphology (the building of words out of meaningful components) and the idiomatic cadences of the sentence and phrase. There's a lot of repeating expressions after listening to the native speaker's recorded audio, but also lots of so-called variation drills, where you hear an expression and need to respond with an expression you generate according to a pre-given change of meaning. These variation drills go a long way towards making grammatical structures instinctual in a way written exercises don't.
Especially with Portuguese, which has, compared with Spanish, say, a very rich and subtle sound system, this approach should pay off. Each language has its own unique music to it, and you need to immerse yourself in this music and learn its tones, its melodies and melodic sensibility. I had a lot of fun with the FSI Spanish and especially the French course and could achieved trance like states while doing the drills that I imagine are akin to those that come from ritual chanting. Again, the Portuguese course should be similar -- and it's free!
(The wikipedia article I linked to above can make the audio-lingual approach seem outdated and limited; please don't be turned off by that. It's not the only approach you need to learn a foreign language well -- for one, you need eventually to have practice talking conversationally with actual people -- but it's a very valuable one and work you put into it will return indispensable familiarity with the language's basic structures and feel.)
posted by bertran at 12:14 AM on August 21, 2019 [5 favorites]
The app does not provide this functionality; I don’t know why.
It's available now, at least on Android for Spanish.
posted by hoyland at 3:11 AM on August 21, 2019
It's available now, at least on Android for Spanish.
posted by hoyland at 3:11 AM on August 21, 2019
In your spare time while you're studying start watching 3% on Netflix, in the original language with no subtitles. It's a Brazilian sci-fi / dystopian future show that's pretty decent on its own - you'll be a bit lost without the subtitles but should pick up enough to make it entertaining and feel the cadence of the language, plus you can watch the episode summaries after to make sure you're caught up.
posted by true at 7:57 AM on August 21, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by true at 7:57 AM on August 21, 2019 [3 favorites]
Do capoeira. Al the songs you have to sing whilst “dance-fighting” are in Brazilian Portuguese. Plus you get really fit and can do backflips!
posted by my-username at 3:13 PM on August 21, 2019
posted by my-username at 3:13 PM on August 21, 2019
Brazilian music is great! You could listen alongside any study you do.
posted by squishles at 7:56 AM on August 22, 2019
posted by squishles at 7:56 AM on August 22, 2019
Orlando Kelm and Vivian Flanzer do great work in the Portuguese program at the University of Texas. Check out their videos, that go from the most basic level to advanced. The site is a little old, but the materials are still very useful. Here is their tá falado podcast. Their site is full of great things to explore.
What kind of music do you like? I can match you up with the equivalent Brazilian music that you might like. (You can message me if you'd like).
Also, I think pimsleur is great. And the Foreign Service Institute materials are very helpful if you are transitioning from Spanish to Portuguese. I don't know about their materials for learning Portuguese from scratch.
When I started learning Portuguese, I also liked watching Brazilian movies and TV shows, first with English subtitles, then a second time without. Check out Neighboring Sounds (O Som ao Redor), Bye Bye Brasil, Central do Brasil, City of God, Aquarius, Bacarau (that comes out next week and looks amazing), Domesticas, Que Horas ela volta?, and O que é isso, companheiro?, for starters.
posted by umbú at 9:20 AM on August 23, 2019
What kind of music do you like? I can match you up with the equivalent Brazilian music that you might like. (You can message me if you'd like).
Also, I think pimsleur is great. And the Foreign Service Institute materials are very helpful if you are transitioning from Spanish to Portuguese. I don't know about their materials for learning Portuguese from scratch.
When I started learning Portuguese, I also liked watching Brazilian movies and TV shows, first with English subtitles, then a second time without. Check out Neighboring Sounds (O Som ao Redor), Bye Bye Brasil, Central do Brasil, City of God, Aquarius, Bacarau (that comes out next week and looks amazing), Domesticas, Que Horas ela volta?, and O que é isso, companheiro?, for starters.
posted by umbú at 9:20 AM on August 23, 2019
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The app does not provide this functionality; I don’t know why.
posted by nat at 11:32 PM on August 20, 2019