Most Helpful Customer Reviews
54 of 54 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Not the best, 11 Dec 2003
By A Customer
This course has nice pictures but poor teaching. Some dialogues are unrealistic. A lady has lost her handbag, goes to the lost property office, does not report the lost bag, but the officer promises to look for it. How did he know she had lost the bag? The course is rather heavy on grammar but does not explain it well. It says that 'Faca o favor de trabalhar' means Please work. This is talking to one person. To ask more than one person you change the verb from 'faca' to 'facam'. Then it goes on to say that you may also hear another form, 'Faz o favor de trabalhar' with an identical meaning when talking to just one person. End of explanation, The book does not seem to be aware that in this case you change the veb from 'faz' to 'fazem' to ask more than one person. Some verbs appear in early units but are explained only fifty or more pages later. The future is introduced in dialogue 1 of unit 1 and explained in unit 14. The past is introduced in dialogue 1 of unit 7 and explained in unit 15. The reflexive verbs are introduced in dialogue 2 of unit 1. There is a brief explanation in unit 2 and in the Grammar Index there is a promise of a further explanation in unit 20. But there isn't a unit 20! The last one is unit 18. This is all rather disappointing. I shall not be using this course with my students.
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95 of 97 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
It defies the basic rules of teaching, 26 Aug 2003
This review is from: Brazilian Portuguese (Teach Yourself Languages) (Paperback)
Normally material is presented; then it is explained; finally the learner is tested. It is different in this course. In the dialogues of unit 1 and 2 you come across vai,vamos,vao plus infinitive. This verb construction is not explained in the grammar sections. But you are tested on it at the end of unit 2. You are expected to produce the answer 'Vou te dizer...' This defies the basic rules of teaching. This is not the only way this course defies normal teaching practice. Material is not graded. A new dialogue may introduce a number of new grammatical features at the same time, not step by step, and only some of these features will receive a (brief) explanation anyway. I would not call this a course. I would call it a random selection of dialogues and grammar notes.
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6 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Very good for written portuguese, less so for spoken, 18 Oct 1999
By A Customer
This is a very good book to learn the basic grammar, verbs and vocabulary. The lessons are centered on a particular activity such as travelling,checking into a hotel, eating in a restaurant,going shopping, etc. These are very helpful. It also provides some basic information about brazilian culture. After doing all your lessons, you should be able to get by in Brazil. But that's only because Brazilians will generally make the effort to understand what you are saying, since the book is seriously lacking when it comes to spoken Brazilian. Your pronunciation will probably be all wrong! The 60 min. tape provided is of no use. If you wish to speak the language properly, you need an additional source such as tapes. It nonetheless is a very useful book that I recommend.
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