Score:
1 2 3 4 5 6 (7) 8 9 10
“Four outta ten!”
Pros:
a ton of Portuguese vocabulary arranged by theme; colorful, glossy presentation full of images; each image corresponds to vocabulary words on the same page; topical arrangement (categories and subcategories) works perfectly and reflects language use in everyday life; precise selection of useful words; questions [...]
Jun
9
2010
9
2010
Oxford Picture Dictionary English/Brazilian Portuguese
Mar
25
2010
25
2010
Pois não: Brazilian Portuguese Course for Spanish Speakers
In Pois não, Antônio Simões delivers a Portuguese course with a “basic reference grammar”. It’s different from your typical Portuguese course, as it targets learners who already speak Spanish. Although there are great differences between Spanish and Portuguese, the author capitalizes on the mass of similarities between these two Ibero-Italic languages to speed up the [...]
Feb
16
2010
16
2010
Instant Brazilian Portuguese Vocabulary Builder by Tom Means
Score:
1 2 3 (4) 5 6 7 8 9 10
“Four outta ten!”
Pros:
good exercises ask you to make word associations in Portuguese rather than in translation; good focus on Brazilian use & examples; phrases for certain words, and meaning hints for trickier words; audio tracks read select vocabulary & exercises out loud; helps students make connections [...]
Jan
22
2010
22
2010
Teach Yourself One-Day Portuguese by Elisabeth Smith
Score:
1 2 3 4 5 6 (7) 8 9 10
“Seven outta ten!”
Pros:
straightforward audio & booklet; listen, learn and repeat approach great for auditory learners; mostly sticks to 50 basic words and 20 essential phrases that will go far in your travels around Portugal; affordable; good niche product that provides a small stepping stone for learning [...]
Jan
15
2010
15
2010
Teach Yourself Beginner’s Portuguese by Sue Tyson-Ward
Score:
1 2 3 4 (5) 6 7 8 9 10
“Six outta ten!”
Pros:
decent pacing; lots of dialogues and activities; vocab lists kept short and relevant to readings/topics; language and grammar points covered are solid for beginners; includes index, glossary & table of contents;
Cons:
European Portuguese only (but sometimes covers Brazilian use without really explaining what’s going on); [...]
Jan
11
2010
11
2010
Barron’s FSI Mastering Portuguese by Jack Lee Ulsh
Score:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 (8) 9 10
“Eight outta ten!”
Pros:
like one long pronunciation and conversation drill in Portuguese; rather good pacing; plenty of example phrases to repeat along with; many variations of a single phrase make for solid and diverse practice; good audio breaks down phrases and tricky pronunciation points; covers grammar in [...]
Jan
5
2010
5
2010
Portuguese Complete Course: Beginner-Intermediate, by Oliveira & Living Language
Score:
1 2 3 4 5 (6) 7 8 9 10
“Six outta ten!”
Pros:
step-by-step approach to speaking; coverage of grammar and sentence structure; wide range of topics; longer, detailed book; auido CDs that follow the book’s outline; builds up from words to phrases to longer reading and listening exercises
Cons:
listen & repeat approach to learning phrases may tire [...]
Dec
30
2009
30
2009
Dicionário Inglês-Português & Dicionário Português-Inglês
Score:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 (8) 9 10
“Eight outta ten!”
Pros:
dedicates all its pages to the one thing a dictionary’s supposed to handle: words to look up; impressive coverage of huge number of words; good layout; cues help pick between multiple translations of the same word (assuming you know a good deal of Portuguese); [...]
Dec
24
2009
24
2009
Living Language Portuguese Learner’s Dictionary
Score:
1 2 3 (4) 5 6 7 8 9 10
“Four outta ten!”
Pros:
Portuguese-English section good enough for certain look-ups; sample sentences beneath some entries; actually decent if looked at as an extensive vocabulary list rathern than a comprehensive dictionary; a nice extra when packed with Living Language’s Portuguese lesson book & CD
Cons:
price for the number of [...]
Dec
17
2009
17
2009
Portuguese Made Nice & Easy by REA
Score:
1 2 (3) 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
“Three outta ten!”
Pros:
sixty pages of Portuguesee phrases; decent attempt at conceptualizing “fill-in” phrases (to help you build a variety of Portuguese sentences); price
Cons:
attempts to be Portugal-centric (European only), but includes some Brazilian without indicating the difference; does not TEACH you Portuguese like the name suggests, only [...]