Portuguese For Dummies (For Dummies (Language & Literature))

I agree with the majority of the negative reviews regarding this book. Reading the book together with my Brazilian friend, he found numerous technical errors in spelling, pronunciation, and word choice. What I was hoping for was a book that would introduce the basics of grammar in some sort of orderly fashion, but I guess most people would consider that too dry. I don't care how many phrases you memorize, if you don't know the structure of the sentence, how can you understand or respond when someone talks back to you? The accompanying CD is useless. On a positive note, I did enjoy the numerous descriptions of Brazilian culture.

This book is simply terrible for learning Portuguese. I found it completely unhelpful (and in some cases incorrect). If you have any desire to learn the language, there are many better sources.

The book is mildly useful but don't even bother with the included CD. It's a bunch of verbose recorded dialogs that don't match up in any way with the book. You can find better resources than this book on the web for free.

I purchased this book to supplement a more complete (and expensive) Brazilian Portuguese language program. I found it to be EXTREMELY helpful. I used my comprehensive language program to learn pronunciation since it's so hard to learn correct pronunciation without hearing it repeatedly. BUT, once I developed an ear for the language, THIS book became just as helpful to me, if not more so, than the $300 language program. I also took a Brazilian Portuguese test just to see how proficient I've become . . . I scored INTERMEDIATE just after 6 months. I HIGHLY recommend this book.

Learning a language in the informal and fun way proposed by the book is always good, but unfortunately this book has too many mistakes, mostly concerning pronunciation. For example, the letter X in Portuguese does not have only two sounds like they say, but four. The difference between "closed E" and "open E" is never pointed out, so that the letter E in words like "dedo" and "elefante" is said to have the sound of the English E in the word "egg", which is not true. There are also too many accents missing. The list of problems goes on and on. Concerning the CD, I'm totally amazed that the speakers, although from Brazil, still read all the mistakes contained in the book. In their life, they would never say "gostar o Brasil", but "gostar do Brasil". I'm Brazilian and a Portuguese intructor. There is hope for the book because the grammar is not bad, but it needs to be carefully reviewed and corrected.