Score:
1 2 3 4 (5) 6 7 8 9 10
“Five outta ten!”
Pros:
price (relative to other CD/audio conversation courses); full dialogs; fairly realistic usage
Cons:
limited amount and scope of material; little to guide you along at your own pace; focus on larger chunks of language; no real exercise; little attention to grammar or structure
This audio CD-based program contains three discs, two of which focus on Brazilian or European Portuguese conversational skills. The third CD presents a listening comprehension and phrases selection.
A small booklet accompanies the course, and includes a transcription of the dialogues, a list of listening skills survival phrases, and a very brief Portuguese to English and English to Portuguese word list, along with an index.
The phrases and conversations covered seem relevant and realistic, but were shorter and less in-depth than other audio methods available. Also, I enjoy buying courses that take a bit more time breaking down troublesome phrases rather than repeating along with whole dialogs, but this course has little room for bite-sized learning. Unless you like to press stop, rewind and play repeatedly.
A complete lack of grammar coverage may turn some students off, but this tack is situation normal when learning a language through an audio-heavy program. On the other hand, very little here even eases the student into an understanding of the language’s structure.
If you like audio methods, such as Pimsleur’s, but don’t want a large price tag on your purchase, this skim overview of Portuguese conversation will help get your pronunciation and listening skills up to par, provided you are willing to listen to the same dialogues over and again.