 Very Clear Introduction to European Portuguese, 2008-10-03
This is a very good introduction to European Portuguese. Anyone who has completed the Michel Thomas Spanish course will find that the recording faithfully follows what Michel Thomas himself did in his Spanish foundation. The instructor is a crystal clear in her instructions to the two students and she is aided by a native speaker, so that the last impression that one is left with is that of the native pronunciation. It could be argued that this was a failing of the original MT recordings.
I was aware that Portuguese and Spanish were closely related but I was surprised by the extent of this relationship which became apparent as the course progressed. As the previous reviewer states, European Portuguese is very difficult for a native English speaker to pronounce well (especially the nasal sounds) but I found my pronunciation improving as I progressed through the course. There is a short introduction to Brazilian pronunciation at the end of the final CD.
I recently went to Lisbon and managed to practice what I had learnt on the foundation course. The locals were very pleased to hear an Englishman attempt their language. I even managed to have a conversation with a Brazilian (who spoke no English) in a nightclub. I was perfectly understood, which to me was proof of the practical application of this course.
I am a great fan of the MT method and have completed many of the programmes as they make the early stages of language acquisition so easy in comparison to any other method I have come across. I can highly recommend this course to anyone who wants to acquire a working knowledge of the nuts and bolts of this very interesting and beautiful language.
 Useful; but not as good as Michel Tomas' originals, 2008-09-28
Michel Thomas, the language genius who pioneered this learning style, sadly died a few years ago, and this is a course in his style, rather than by him. Sadly, this isn't as good as his Spanish course Michel Thomas Foundation Course: Spanish (Michel Thomas Series), for example, but it's an innovative way to grasp a new language.
Learning from your knowledge of English you construct phrases in Portuguese rather than learn words. For example, all 'cion' words like 'information' in English all end 'ção' in Portuguese - so 'informação'. You're encouraged to see the patterns and think it through yourself rather than parrot back.
The course fails slightly on a few things - mainly that pronouncing Portuguese is very hard, and more attention is needed especially with the vowel sounds. It's not too helpful. Also, the section on Brazilian Portuguese is literally 5mins at the very end - disappointing and odd, especially as Brazilian is much easier to pronounce than European (in my opinion at least). Finally, the voice and attitude of the main speaker is grating, especially after eight hours - she's a bit too patronising and nasal to listen too comfortably.
All in all, good, but not a patch on Michel's original courses.
A great introduction to (European) Portuguese, 2008-10-09
To me, Portuguese is a beautiful language and I have long wanted to learn it, so I was excited to give this course a go. As the other reviewers have mentioned it follows a similar pattern to the Spanish course, and whilst some prior knowledge of that language may help you in remembering certain terms and verbs/conjugations, it can sort of be a hindrance as well. Although all the romance languages share a large amount of cognates to a certain extent which might allow you to make exponential leaps when learning another, to hear Portuguese spoken is completely different to Spanish (in addition to all the grammatical and written differences), and to me it seems that the students on the CDs occasionally repeat some of the -o endings as one might in Spanish or Italian. This is isn't a problem though, and the calm, patient manner of the teacher Virginia Catmur never seems to waiver too much, nor that of the Portuguese native speaker, so as long as you don't get irritated by the students (personally, I've never felt irritated by any of them, but it seems to be a common bugbear!), you'll be fine! The pronunciation will take some getting used to, but those wonderful nasal sounds are well worth practicing...
I can understand the other reviewer's misgivings over the lack of time given over to Brazilian Portuguese, but in a way as the vast majority of speakers come from Brazil, it was somehow nice to focus a little more on the language as spoken in Portugal, as we don't seem to hear so much of that, but at the same time any learner needs to feel as comfortable as possible with all the different accents that exist in any language, so more time given over to that could well have been more useful. I wouldn't let it put you off though...On a recent trip to Brazil, I had the chance to put my recent learning into action, and I was understood with no problems, and I could also understand what was being said too...
At the end of the course, you'll hopefully have a sound grammatical introduction to the language, and the heavy emphasis on correct pronunciation will be well drilled in too (having the native speakers there helps a lot, and Virginia Catmur seems to have an excellent European Portuguese accent as well), but as with all the Michel Thomas introductory courses, there will be a whole heap of useful vocabulary (numbers, for instance) that you'll need to learn through other means. As Portuguese is a widely spoken language there are plenty of other resources out there such as podcasts, online newspapers, and music (one of the best ways to learn of course!)...
I think that we all know that the best way of learning a language is through having regular contact with native speakers, in a native speaking environment, but this is obviously not practical for the vast majority of people. As such, these introductory tapes offer firm, lasting foundations from which to further learn and make in-roads into this beautiful language...
Here's hoping that the Advanced and Vocabulary courses don't take too long...
Pretty Painless Portuguese, 2008-12-29
I'm a bit of a fan of the Michel Thomas method that builds grammatical building blocks through dialogue. It works very well for me and this is the fourth language I've worked with using this series. Portuguese is however the first I've tried without being a 'false beginner' (although I confess I speak Spanish, which is of course a tremendous help with Portuguese). Again the approach seems hard to fault. The new series actually better than the originals as the structure, repetition and 'cognitive load' (amount of new material per track) seems better planned and the use of a `native' speaker apart from the teacher is particularly helpful. The virtual 'students' were sometimes annoying, but I think they serve a purpose to pace the material. The grammar and pronunciation was well-covered, the vocabulary though sparse was useful and I thought the Brazilian vs European language differences very deftly explained. Actually I found the recordings quite relaxing, but maybe that's something to do with the delightful Portuguese language itself. Personally I consider as with all MT courses, you'd have to do them a few times for it all to stick and of course practice the structures a lot on your own, but I do think they are just an incredibly efficient way of building language confidence.
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