All Things Brazilian Portuguese
I am very glad that you have taken this step in your learning process and that you are giving me the opportunity to impart what I have learned about Brazilian Portuguese on to you.
These lessons work best when they are done consecutively, and on a daily basis. The bottom line is that learning a language is something of a never-ending process, and so it is up to you to decide when you feel satisfied with your level of fluency.
Now that you own have found this site, you can review the material here over and over again, as many times as is necessary to learn the information to your satisfaction. And, I highly encourage you to do so.
This article is a general overview of learning Portuguese and does not strive to teach the language just yet, but rather, it is to get you ready to start learning. Though you may be eager to jump ahead, I encourage you to take in everything I have to say here as it is much more important than it may seem just yet.
Before we get started on any of the learning material, I wanted to take just a few moments to share a little about myself so that you can really understand where I’m coming from as we go along in these lessons together.
My name is Galilee Berman. I was born and raised on a little-known island near the city of Seattle, in the state of Washington. I traveled to Brazil for the first time in 2015 to attend my brother’s wedding, at which time, I did not speak even 1 word of Portuguese.
While I was there, in the city of São Paulo, I met the woman who would later become my wife and that is where my journey with Portuguese began. I’ve traveled throughout Brazil many times since then and I have gained a lot of firsthand experience with the language and culture.
I have created an eBook course to help you start speaking Portuguese as fast as possible by using what I have learned over the years about what works and what doesn’t work.
About This Course:
Now that you know a little about me, let me go on to explain a bit about this course and what it is designed for.
I have created the eBook with a basic assumption that you, as the learner, already have a working knowledge of the English language and, at least, an entry level understanding of American English grammar. This is something of a pre-requisite because my methods for teaching and my various tips and advice use what you already know in English to lead you to an understanding of Portuguese.
The primary goal of this course is not to make you 100% fluent in Portuguese by the end of it, but rather, to teach you how to understand the language by explaining its structure, the various nuances, and the most confusing aspects of it that make most people give up before they ever really even get started. Though 100% fluency is not the ultimate goal of this course, you will walk away knowing much more than you will need to know to get by in Brazil.
As I said, I have created the course in a 7-day format. Meaning that you should do one module each day for 7 days, as each lesson builds on the previous ones. After the 7th day, you will have all the tools you need to go out into the world and start building your Portuguese vocabulary and adapting what you have learned here to your own personal needs.
Everyone’s story is a bit different and not everyone is trying to learn Portuguese for the same reasons. Keep that in mind as you go along. Consider how you can take what you learn here and use it in your own life to make it relevant to you and your own personal goals.
When it comes to learning a language, it is a lot like learning to drive a car, it is best to practice a little each day and let your brain relax and process the information rather than cramming in hours and hours of studying into one session.
A few important points to note:
• My overall here goal is to get you speaking basic Portuguese quickly.
• You will encounter some simple concepts and some pretty difficult ones along the way.
• I will be using my own personal experience in order to teach you what I have learned.
• And last, but not least, perfection is not the goal.
When I say that perfection is not the goal, what I really mean to say is that you should not be trying to learn Portuguese with the belief that you can be 100% fluent someday. The truth is that it is essentially impossible to be 100% fluent in any language and it is best to abandon that idea as soon as you can.
For example, I was born and raised speaking English, and yet, I can open up any number of English-written books and encounter several words throughout that I have never seen before.
As I’m sure you have also experienced.
But being fluent does not necessarily have to mean knowing a bunch of words. It means that you understand the structure of the language and how it works so that when you do learn a new word, you can plug it in and use it without getting tripped up on the grammatical applications of it. And that right there is what this course is aiming to accomplish; to get you to the point where you can learn any new word in Portuguese and immediately know where to put it and how to use it.
To further support your language-learning journey, check out my comprehensive Portuguese Resources Page for a curated list of tools and programs that will accelerate your progress.
-Galilee Berman