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Portuguese For Dummies (For Dummies (Language & Literature)) | 
 enlarge | Author: Karen Keller
Publisher: For Dummies
Category: Book
List Price: $24.99
Buy Used: $12.11
You Save: $12.88 (52%)
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Rating:  16 reviews
Sales Rank: 68390
Media: Paperback
Pages: 384
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 7.4 x 1
ISBN: 0471787388
Dewey Decimal Number: 469
EAN: 9780471787389
ASIN: 0471787388
Publication Date: May 8, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Condition: Former Library book. Shows definite wear, and perhaps considerable marking on inside. 100% Money Back Guarantee. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy!
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Product Description
Quick! What’s the most widely spoken language in South America? That’s right, Portuguese! And what’s the fastest, easiest, most enjoyable way to learn Portuguese? Portuguese for Dummies, of course! This fun, friendly guide helps you start speaking Brazilian Portuguese immediately! Whether you're a student, a traveler, or you work in business or government, you'll love its practical lessons, cultural facts, and handy references — including a Portuguese-English mini-dictionary, lists of vital verbs, and more! You’ll discover how to: - Have everyday conversations in Portuguese
- Make sense of Portuguese grammar
- Use idioms and popular expressions
- Improve your pronunciation
- Get a handle on verb conjugations
- Get around in Portuguese-speaking countries
Portuguese for Dummies comes complete with a CD loaded with real-life “Talkin’ the Talk” dialogues that help you understand and pronounce this lovely, lyrical language. With this easy, low-pressure approach you’ll be jabbering away in Portuguese in no time. Note: CD-ROM/DVD and other supplementary materials are not included as part of eBook file.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 11 more reviews...
 Fantastic as a supplement May 9, 2006
Carol
51 out of 51 found this review helpful
I was very excited to see a book for Portuguese in the "Dummies" series, and I was thrilled once I received it. Written in the usual comedic style of this series, "Portuguese for Dummies" is entertaining, very well-organized and has tons of useful information. You should know that this book concentrates only on Brazilian Portuguese.
However, I should say that you shouldn't expect to be able to teach yourself Portuguese solely from this book even though it's fantastic (and the author states this upfront). This book is a great companion to taking Portuguese classes or using another learning resource. Personally, I have been working with the Pimsleur method on CD (which is superb), and so I have a working knowledge of the langugage. This book is great for someone like me, since it can serve as a review, a fun supplement to my regular studies, and has lots of other wonderful features.
I was thrilled to see sections on common Brazilian idiomatic expressions and slang, something that's not contained in most instructional resources I've come across. I have Brazilian friends who constantly confused me with their expressions, so now I'm starting to get it! Also great are sections on terms associated with Brazilian culture, music, Carnaval, helpful things for travelers, tables with conjugations of common verbs, etc. You can tell a lot of thought went into creating this useful guide.
One major problem: the CD is off-the-charts bad. There's an English speaking narrator who introduces conversations and cannot pronounce any of the Portuguese words properly (WHY did they bother having her try?) The Portuguese speakers sound stilted and robotic when talking.
However, the book is fantastic... I strongly recommend that you buy it, then tear the CD off the back cover and play frisbee with your dog.
If you REALLY are serious about learning Portguese, I recommend the following materials, all available on amazon.com:
1. Pimsleur's Brazilian Portguese, Comprehensive CDs (or Cassettes), Levels 1-3.
2. A good Portuguese/English dictionary: I like the Oxford.
3. Portuguese for Dummies
4. Portuguese in 10 Minutes a Day (for vocabulary building).
Enjoyable, informative, but could be a little more complete April 20, 2007
Duane (San Luis Obispo, CA United States)
11 out of 11 found this review helpful
Overall, I found this book to be an enjoyable and informative supplement to the Pimsleur CDs (Conversational Brazilian Portuguese: Learn to Speak and Understand Portuguese with Pimsleur Language Programs (Simon & Schuster's Pimsleur)) (Portuguese (Brazilian) I - 2nd Ed. Rev.: Learn to Speak and Understand Portuguese with Pimsleur Language Programs (Comprehensive)) that I have been studying. The text has the usual breezy style that is typical of the Dummies book series. The author has provided very useful general information about the language as well as insights on Brazilian idioms and customs. If you want to start learning Brazilian Portuguese, this book is a good beginner's reference to have in addition to books on grammar Essential Portuguese Grammar (Dover Books on Language), verb conjugation 501 Portuguese Verbs (501 Verb Series) and dictionary Larousse Concise Dictionary: Portuguese-English/English-Portuguese (Larousse Concise Dictionary) (and the aforementioned CD set by Pimsleur).
I gave the rating three stars for the following reasons:
- As mentioned by another reviewer, the CD is rather a joke and makes a good coaster. The "ding" before each lesson is *so* annoying. Buy the Pimsleur CD series instead.
- There are a lot of typos throughout the book when a Portuguese sentence is presented and then followed by the phonetic transcription, which can be jarring at times. For example, on page 164: "Faz muito tempo que eu fui para o Rio de Janeiro. (fah-eez moo-ee-toh tang-poh kee eh-ooh nah-ooh voh pah-dah ooh hee-ooh jee jah-nay-doh; It's been a long time since I've been to Rio.)" In this case, and several others throughout the book, the Portuguese and the phonetics don't match up. It's as if the publisher had a less-than-knowledgeable assistant editor go through the transcript to do some checking before publishing but wasn't thorough enough on these kinds of mistakes.
- Lastly, the author could have provided a more complete word reference index in the Appendix. She should have listed words presented in the text and the masculine/feminine association with those words where needed. Many times new words and phrases are presented in the chapters but they don't always carry any masc./fem. identification. Yes, some nouns when ending in -o are masculine and -a are feminine, but there are always exceptions. This becomes more important when you have to figure out the conjugation of articles (in English - a, the, etc.) and adjectives for that noun.
Cultural insights along with language learning August 28, 2006
Brazil-o-phile (Palo Alto, CA, USA)
10 out of 10 found this review helpful
I travel to Brazil a lot for business and pleasure, and I have bought other language-learning books for Portuguese--but this is the one book I take with me when I go. I like it for a lot of reasons---the slang and idioms, the section on Carnaval, the way it makes the hard work of learning a language fun and engaging. I felt like the author was more of an encouraging friend than a teacher. But I think I like it most of all because of the way it gives me insight into the Brazilian culture along with the language learning.
I don't agree with the previous reviewer about the pronunciation guides. Brazilians have said that my accent is pretty good, based on what I got from the book.
This book is a well written companion to other books and courses on Brazilian Portuguese. And this one has a lot of features that I could not get anywhere else.
e bom demais June 3, 2006
deusa do amor (Florida, USA)
9 out of 9 found this review helpful
In the midst of my excitment preparing for my coming trip to Rio de Janiero, I was ecstatic to find "Portuguese for Dummies" in the language section of my favorite bookstore. What's even more amazing is that it focuses on Brazilian Portuguese.
This book contains a wealth of information for anyone studying brazilian portuguese. It is both entertaining and informative. I especially like the "cultural wisdom" sections as well as the useful slangs at the end of the book. The CD, however, could use some improvement.
I have combined my studies with this book along with the pimsleur method and Portuguese 10 minutes a day. And hopefully it will give me a solid background of the language once I attend my language school in Rio.
I highly recommend this book.
 Too many mistakes September 23, 2007
Rosangela Lawrence (Michigan, USA)
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
Learning a language in the informal and fun way proposed by the book is always good, but unfortunately this book has too many mistakes, mostly concerning pronunciation. For example, the letter X in Portuguese does not have only two sounds like they say, but four. The difference between "closed E" and "open E" is never pointed out, so that the letter E in words like "dedo" and "elefante" is said to have the sound of the English E in the word "egg", which is not true. There are also too many accents missing. The list of problems goes on and on. Concerning the CD, I'm totally amazed that the speakers, although from Brazil, still read all the mistakes contained in the book. In their life, they would never say "gostar o Brasil", but "gostar do Brasil". I'm Brazilian and a Portuguese intructor. There is hope for the book because the grammar is not bad, but it needs to be carefully reviewed and corrected.
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