Cons:
not organized or designed as a dictionary; difficult to use as a primary language lesson course without further resources; extra resources available cost extra and intended for classroom use; extensive vocabulary lists require lots of memorization; designed for Brazilians studying English, though this does little to impact its usefulness

The OPD English/Brazilian Portuguese is less of a dictionary and more of an extensive, themed vocabulary list with a few extras like questions, simple activities and a reference index. These image-driven pages full of categorized Portuguese words may help you expand your understanding of Portuguese, and offer a way of visualizing vocabulary as you learn to speak the language.

The heart of the book is divided into broad categories like people, food, work and plants & animals, and narrow subcategories like a grocery store or a restaurant (under “food”) or feelings or daily routines (under “people”).

Each subcategory takes up one or two pages, and includes either one large image or a series of smaller, square pictures in rows. The images are all full-color, realistically illustrated cartoons. Letters or numbers on each image relate to a particular vocab word. The word or word list is written next to the image.

The OPD extends its use by including questions for further discussion and practice activities on many pages. Certain pages also contain reading activities, but, since all readings and questions are in English, you’ll quickly realize this book’s real target audience: Brazilian ESL learners.

The Oxford Picture Dictionary offers an attractive and well-organized way to visualize Portuguese vocabulary, or, at least, to connect words with images. Still, it’s not a fully developed vocabulary lesson book on the one hand, and far from a real dictionary on the other. If you’re a beginner and could use such a Brazilian vocabulary resource, this book should be worth your purchase. If you want to get more out of the book, the same press offers OPD Lesson Plans, OPD: Low Beginning Workbook and the OPD Classroom Activities, although all of these are intended primarily for teaching ESL.

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 learning process. The theme and style are reminiscent of Simões’ other effort, Com Licença!: Brazilian Portuguese for Spanish Speakers.

In this book, you learn grammar, syntax / sentence structure, vocabulary and conversation skills through modular lessons. Lessons include explanations of a variety of language topics, along with drills and exercises. Throughout the text (actually, in both books mentioned above), the writer consistently draws comparisons between Spanish and Portuguese, highlighting each language topic.

Since I haven’t acquired a copy of this book to read thoroughly, I don’t give this book a score or a full review. If you have any recommendations related to Pois não, please post your comments below.

Cons:
the book’s main feature is to offer lists of relatively straightforward Portuguese words that are similar to English words – few students need so many pages & exercises to build this simple skill; introduction & pronunciation guide are bare-bones, merely providing a distraction; lengthy vocabulary lists with very little pacing to get you through them; browsing through a Portuguese dictionary teaches most learners the same vocabulary building skills; you must know a good amount of Portuguese for the exercises to be at all useful to you

The Instant Brazilian Portuguese Vocabulary Builder is all about endings. Its 200 pages cover lists of words with similar endings in English and Portuguese, capitalizing on the fact that the former borrowed many words – indeed, an entire word-building system – from Latin for so much of our “formal” or “learned” vocabulary.

In each of 24 chapters, you’ll focus on pages of vocabulary words with one such ending. Chapter titles list the suffix in English then Portuguese, such as -tion/-ção. Then, page after page of vocabulary lists give words in English first, then Portuguese to the right, every word having that chapter’s suffix. The chapter treating -tion/-ção starts off with:

abbreviation . . . . . . . . . . . . . abreviação (meaning “a shortening”)
abdication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . abdicação
aberration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . aberração

And the list goes on. Some words (like “abbreviation” above) offer further meaning help, while others give short example phrases directly beneath them to show the word in context. The book doesn’t delve deep into the semantics of Portuguese words – the focus remains on the 24 derivational suffixes common to Portuguese and English.

Exercises end each chapter, and are among the book’s few truly strong points. You’ll match Portuguese words containing the specific ending you just studied with their Portuguese synonyms, read paragraphs and answer questions using words you learn, and more.

The audio CD included with the book allows you to listen to the paragraph-long readings as you complete the activities. Unfortunately, these exercises require you to have some mastery of the language before undertaking them. An appendix contains answers to the practice exercises.

Since the Instant Brazilian Portuguese Vocabulary Builder focuses entirely on words and word forms that are similar in Brazilian Portuguese and English, it severely limits itself as a resource, while also rendering most of its vocabulary lists redundant. You’ll learn a little and complete worthwhile exercises in this course, but, in the long run, you’re much better off with a good dictionary. To be honest, even a simple travel phrasebook will get you further in your efforts to speak Portuguese.

Cons:
for travelers to Portugal only!; very basic conversational phrases relevant to meet & greet, dining and where places are – beyond this, you’re out of luck; the interplay between the audio & booklet isn’t 100% intuitive and could use some tweaking

Teach Yourself One-Day Portuguese furnishes you with an audio CD and a short little booklet, with the goal of instilling in you 50 essential European Portuguese words and 20 ways to combine words into phrases.

You’ll start with a dialogue between two native Portuguese speakers, whose words and phrases are broken down and listed in the booklet (3 pages). Then, you’ll find the 50 words you’ll need to remember, and the 20 sentences you’ll memorize.

After that, the booklet challenges you with a “one-day quiz”, asking you how to say a selection of phrases. The author’s questions are pointed and relevant to situations you’ll find yourself in (“ask someone if the shops are far”). There’s a scoring and self-assessment grading guide, along with a certificate of completion on the last page.

If you’re off to Portugal and you need to gulp down a handful of essential phrases quickly, One-Day Portuguese provides a cheap, focused way of doing just that. If you arm yourself with other resources – a phrasebook or an introduction to Portuguese conversation & grammar – you’ll be ready to start speaking fairly quickly.

Auditory learners will get the most out of this course, but if you have the time and money, you might opt instead for a more robust audio course, like Pimsleur or even the less comprehensive Michel Thomas Portuguese. Such a lesson course often helps you learn more while memorizing less by rote.

Cons:
European Portuguese only (but sometimes covers Brazilian use without really explaining what’s going on); organization only so-so, especially study/grammar points; quality of activities and short length of dialogues may put off some learners; explanations often miss the mark, failing to connect the dots or explain grammar as well as they should

Sue Tyson-Ward’s Teach Yourself Beginner’s Portuguese attempts to break down and teach the basics of Portuguese to new students over the course of 19 lessons. The book & CD combo expose you to an array of conversational and grammar topics.

The book’s format is typical of a TY course (or most other conversational language courses). Chapters start with dialogues, then give grammar or language topic explanations over a few pages. You’ll do paragraph-long reading exercises, as well as practice activities. Readings, dialogs, explanations and activities are often interchanged, which adds variety at the expense of consistency.

The course opens with a short crash course in pronunciation, which is enough to get the ball rolling if you’re learning Continental European Portuguese. The CD or cassette tape follows along, pronouncing a few dozen words so you can get an ear for the language.

Each dialogue is fairly short, but believable. Dialogues and readings are quick and disjointed, so expect to use them for repetition practice, not for any engaging immersion to Portuguese. Unfortunately, not all dialogues are covered on the audio CDs.

The explanations of grammar and language topics sometimes throw verb tables or grammar rules your way without proper introduction, other times offer adequate instructions. Mostly, it’s disappointing that they build on each other mildly and bear minimal connection to the chapter topics or overall course organization. What’s worse, they’re sometimes misleading or conflicting.

Exercises give you a chance to do the typical fill-in-the-blanks or translation & repetition more than anything else. At times, you’ll stray from that formula by, say, picking out what’s going on in a cartoon drawing, or filling out a crossword puzzle.

The end of the book has answers to activities, a Portuguese-English vocabulary glossary and short index. The table of contents also lists chapters by title and summarizes the main points in each chapter.

If you’re looking to ease into conversational Portuguese, and can withstand some of the faults I found in this course, Teach Yourself Beginner’s Portuguese is one way of getting through the basics. But, personally, I recommend other of the many courses available to you.

Cons:
European Portuguese only; the barrage of pronunciation and conversation drills have no setting or context; exercises and explanations always point back to repetition drills; two-way conversation drills suggest this course is designed for partner or classroom use

Barron’s FSI Mastering Portuguese wraps the Foreign Service Institute’s language training program into a book and tape course for beginners. Over the course of 25 lessons (units), students will read, hear and repeat countless variations of words and phrases until learning to speak basic Portuguese.

Each unit begins by asking you to repeat along with the audio as it reads aloud words and parts of words. The text in the book focuses on troublesome sounds. For instance, one section asks you to practice a variety of words ending in -om, taking care not to pronounce the “final m” the way you would in English.

Then, you’ll charge ahead through conversation dialogues. These start out as simple, two or three line exchanges. Later, the exchanges become more intense. The book includes many of them, with many variations on a single theme to make sure you’ve nailed down a specific facet of Portuguese conversation.

Units spend some time introducing and explaining grammar topics, but you’ll always sense they play second fiddle to the ever-present conversation drills. Practice exercises are here, too, but they often involve repeating lists of Portuguese sentences, or creating slightly different versions of a single phrase. Additionally, some sections improve your Portuguese vocabulary building skills, encouraging you to recognize words related to English, avoid “false friends” (cognates with different meanings in English and Portuguese), and so on.

These lessons have a decent table of contents, listing units and section names and numbers, but no index. You’ll also find a Portuguese-English vocabulary glossary at the end of the book.

As a language learning course, Mastering Portuguese is either a repetitious and routine or exacting and practical coverage of conversational Portuguese for beginners. You’ll skip some important grammar points and miss out on more creative approaches by taking on this lesson program. Yet you’ll have plenty of practice with a wide range of Portuguese words and phrases, with nuanced variations of each. Dedicated students looking to gain some real conversational abilities in European Portuguese will appreciate this course. You certainly won’t be afraid to hear or read Portuguese anymore, and you may be a good deal more prepared to speak it.

Cons:
listen & repeat approach to learning phrases may tire students; exercises are routine and simplistic; juggling both Brazilian and European in one course can be trouble for some learners; long vocabulary and phrase lists to memorize; organization and pacing is only so-so; audio only reads parts of the book, and all in Brazilian (only a con for learners of European Portuguese)

Living Language’s Portuguese Complete Course offers a book and CD package for beginners. The repetition-heavy lessons stress conversational words and phrases, then ramp up to tougher reading, listening and understanding skills.

The pronunciation guide in lessons 1-4 reads through a series of words. The rest of the lessons focus on introducing more and more vocabulary and phrases in lists. By lesson 30 or so, you begin to read fuller sentences.

The book explains chunks of grammar along the way, and gives more information about how to pronounce Portuguese throughout the lessons. Explanations of grammar and short exercises break up the flow of progressively harder vocabulary in later lessons.

Small practice exercises test your skill allong the way, but are rather simple (often “fill in the blank”). For all the material covered, sections tend to repeat lists of words and phrases or embed them in basic dialogues. The organization of material is haphazard enough to make some sections a real challenge or a real bore. In the end, most students will have a gone through lots of material, but still struggle to understand the big picture, especially when it comes to grammar.

The CD reads straight through in Brazilian Portuguese (even though the book tackles both European and Continental dialects), and at a normal speed. It’s meant to be used alongside the book, allowing you to hear what’s written there. The audio portion doesn’t last long, which means that auditory learners won’t get much repetition or well-paced help.

A couple of extras round out this lesson course. The appendix has a summary of grammar, complete with verb tables and overviews of key points. There are also examples of written letters and e-mail in Portuguese. In addition, the set comes with a separate Portuguese & English vocab dictionary. I have already reviewed that dictionary on this site.

I enjoyed the free-flowing and complementary nature of the audio CD-book that build on each other. I like the progression from reading words to phrases to dialogues and letters in Portuguese. I’m curious to see if such a barrage of exposure to progressively tougher Portuguese could be turned into a more immersive, less cumbersome experience.

As it is, the Portuguese Complete Course is too scattered to give you a really organized understanding of beginning Portuguese, but it does cover a good chunk of material in the written guide, and manages to provide a full introduction to spoken and written Portuguese. Few basic courses cover this much territory. Still, auditory learners will get more from Pimsleur’s Brazilian Portuguese (they offer a separate European version, too). If you want to stick with a Living Language product, I prefer the structure of Ultimate Portuguese.

Cons:
includes Brazilian words but is published in and focused on Portugal; must know Portuguese to get full use; many versions are older (I referenced one from the eighties); price; size (if need to use on the go); some potentially confusing variants still missing keyword cues

As you might have guessed by their names, the Dicionário Inglês-Português and Dicionário Português-Inglês are dictionaries published in O Porto, Portugal for Portuguese speakers. Because of that (and their large size and depth), let’s establish something before moving towards a review: intermediate and advanced learners of European Portuguese are the target audience, and should read on to see why I’ll recommend this dictionary. If you know enough Portuguese, this dictionary “não requer instruções prévias especiais”.

The English-Portuguese and Portuguese-English translations are split between two volumes. Each book is well over 1,000 pages, and almost every one of those 1,000+ pages is devoted to doing what a language dictionary should: they offer you translated words to look up.

Entries are in bold type, and set apart from the rest of the text by a reverse-indent. IPA phonetic spelling is listed to the right of each entry. Parts of speech are given as well, in abbreviated form (vt for transitive verb, s for sustantivo (noun), etc.).

Each word is covered by a robust number of translations, including variants. Where unclear, variants are accompanied by key terms in parentheses. For example, the use of dub includes the translation “dobrar (um filme)”, specific to dubbing a movie.

The top of each page includes page numbers and the first three letters of the first and last words on the page. Pages are divided into two columns, and the font is small enough to bother weaker eyes, but standard for a dictionary.

The sheer number of terms covered is unmatched by foreigner-targeted Portuguese dicitonaries, at least any that I’ve seen. The drawbacks I noticed in the copy I reviewed included its awkward size, its older date (1980s) and its lower relevance if you’re dealing with Brazil. If you need a serious European Portuguese and English language dictionary, these dicionários are my best recommendation so far.

Cons:
price for the number of words (and lack of extras); nothing added, such as helpful verb tables; meager, especially the English-Portuguese section; some mistakes; doesn’t offer cues to clarify difference between word choices (catastrophic in English-Portuguese section)

Living Language offers the Portuguese Learner’s Dictionary as part of the Brazilian Portuguese Complete Course: The Basics. Those 250+ pages of lessons offer vocabulary & phrase lists, grammar instruction and exercises. (Be careful to note whether you’re purchasing the hardcover book, paperback book, audio CD or the full book & CD set.)

Since I have found this dictionary sold separately at some bookstores for around $7-$8 US, I’m choosing to review it as a stand-alone resource.

This dictionary is split into two sections: a Portuguese-English and English-Portuguese. The longer Portuguese-English section prints entries in bold. Adjectives are indicated by adj., noun genders as m. and f. Some Portuguese entries are written in all-caps, presumably more basic or important words.

The information given isn’t always accurate. For instance, ACASO is listed as an adjective, not as the adverb it really is.

This dictionary’s strongest feature is the inclusion of short Portuguese phrases and sentences below some entries. Unfortunately, the translations and examples aren’t always specific enough to clarify the varied uses of tougher words. What’s more, these sample phrases seem to be substituted for something better – relevant key terms used when words have multiple (and potentially confusing) translations.

The English-Portuguese section shares all the same properties, except that it doesn’t regularly indicate parts of speech and it’s much shorter. Even worse, the lack of differentiation between words with multiple meanings in Portuguese makes looking up tough words a disaster – you can only guess that you’re using the right one. A concise list of proper names is found after both sections.

If you’re using the Portuguese Learner’s Dictionary alongside Living Language’s Brazilian Portuguese course (see first paragraph), you will profit from it as long as you think of it as an extended vocabulary list. If you’re looking for a dictionary, my recommendation is that you spend a bit more for a better one.

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 lists phrases; the intro is a distraction; imperfect selection and layout of phrase topics; missing a good way to look up specific phrases

The Research and Education Association (or REA) publishes Portuguese Made Nice & Easy with the intend of giving you “just enough of the language to get around and be understood.”

In its meager seventy pages, this introduction to the Portuguese language dedicates the bulk of its text to a phrasebook-style list of Portuguese vocabulary and sentences. The short foreword presents a missable history of Portugal and an overview of Portuguese pronunciation (actually more of an introduction to their English-friendly way of transliterating spoken Portuguese).

After this, you’ll find sixty pages of phrases, interspersed with b&w photos of buildings and statuary in Portugal. Each line of this phrase book uses the following layout: English phrase praw-nun-see-AY-shan (Portuguese phrase). For instance, you’ll see Where is AWN-djee AH (Onde há).

If you don’t understand the pronunciation system, you’ll find little guidance. Even if you do, it fails to distinguish between dialects and, in extreme cases, leaves you with a pronunciation that will sound flat-out wrong to most Portuguese speakers. Despite the book’s focus on Portugal, some words are given only in Brazilian without any indication, such as twenty VEEN-chee (vinte).

The phrase book goes beyond a list of words and phrases by dealing with a good range of “fill-in” sentences. You’re told how to say “I want___” / “I like ___” and given a list of things to fill in the blank. While the technique is ubiquitous in phrase books, it’s approached somewhat methodically and consistently here. Still, the phrases leave something to be desired, particularly in how they fail to lead learners toward more complex (but necessary!) constructions like verb+noun+adjective.

The book has no index, but the table of contents offers a very rough overview of topics. The range of those topics alone leaves room for improvement and expansion. An alphabetized word list with selected vocabulary ends the book, but it’s unclear what’s been selected here and why, especially with no page numbers to cross-reference.

Overall, it’s a sub-par phrase book for students and travelers to Portugal or even Brazil (it insists on using você, never tu, for example). Specifically, I can’t condone the pronunciation key or coverage of topics. This is nothing more than a quick, cheap, lackluster way to get a feel for Portuguese phrases. I don’t imagine a better one should cost you much more.