Pimsleur Portuguese

The Portuguese Language

Portuguese (português or língua portuguesa) is a Romance language that originated in what is now Galicia (Spain) and northern Portugal from the Latin spoken by romanized Pre-Roman peoples of the Iberian Peninsula (namely the Gallaeci, the Lusitanians, the Celtici and the Conii) about 2000 years ago. It spread worldwide in the 15th and 16th centuries as Portugal established a colonial and commercial empire (1415–1999) which spanned from Brazil in the Americas to Goa in India and Macau in China, in fact it was used exclusively on the island of Sri Lanka(Ceylon) as the lingua franca for almost 350 years. During that time, many creole languages based on Portuguese also appeared around the world, especially in Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean.

Today it is one of the world's major languages, ranked 6th according to number of native speakers (approximately 250 million). It is the language with the largest number of speakers in South America, spoken by nearly all of Brazil's approximately 186 million population , which amounts to over 51% of the continent's population even though it is the only Portuguese-speaking nation in the Americas. It is also a major lingua franca in Portugal's former colonial possessions in Africa. It is the official language of ten countries (see the table on the right), also being co-official with Spanish and French in Equatorial Guinea, with Cantonese Chinese in the Chinese special administrative region of Macau, and with Tetum in East Timor. There exist sizable communities of Portuguese-speakers in various regions of North America, notably in the United States (New Jersey and New England) and in Ontario, Canada.

Wikipedia

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What customers say about the Pimsleur PORTUGUESE audios:

Great beginning language course for those long commutes
The Pimsleur series is very different from the other language CDs I have tried. It uses repetitive short conversations and sentences to intuitively learn grammar and structure without formally "thinking" about the grammar and structure. This approach is slow, but very effective. Each lesson is 30 minutes in length and gradually adds to the previous lesson. Other language CDs often just have you mimic and repeat different words or sentences over and over, which gets old fast. Pimsleur has you repeat the words a few times, but then asks you to recall them on your own, and puts them in context using short conversations where you ask and answer questions with an imaginary Brazilian woman sitting next to you (presumably at a bar). The Conversational series are just an introduction to PImsleur Level I courses, so you won't know much by the end of them, and will need to buy the full set. --
M. White, Silver Spring, MD, USA

I love the method that Pimsleur employs to make a new language stick to the grey matter between my ears. The CD says the words in English and then in Portuguese, with careful pronounciation. There are nice, long pauses to repeat the words aloud. As the lessons progress, the prompts vary from just a translation to things like "Say 'good morning, miss'". It teaches a few phrases, then adds a few more, then goes back to prompt you to recall what you learned a lesson ago and combines it with the new phrases. I hope to visit Portugal someday, and Pimsleur will help me function as a tourist! -- Wendy Black,Santa Rosa, CA, USA