Advanced Beginners: The Next Steps

Advanced beginners... isn't that a contradiction in terms? Not really. Some learners may be new to a particular language, but may already have exposure to other languages that are related to the one they're learning.  For example, people who have some level of familiarity with Spanish might be considered advanced beginners when they start learning Portuguese, because the two languages have a large number of words that are either identical or are very similar (in appearance only, of course, as the two languages are pronounced very differently).  

The same thing holds true to a lesser degree with speakers of French or Italian, since all of the Romance languages are derived from Latin, which had a profound effect on their grammar and vocabulary.  

A beginner who has completed enough study of Portuguese to have some questions about finer points of grammar, pronunciation, usage, etc., might also be considered an advanced beginner.  

These learners require additional resources besides the ones that I listed in my post about recommendations for beginners.  

So, what are some resources to help the advanced beginner?  I'll start with the reference books that I use most often: 

John Whitlam's Modern Brazilian Portuguese Grammar: A Practical Guide is much more than a prescriptive grammar.  It is logically organized, has a very appealing layout, and it covers everything that I've needed to find so far.  The first part lays out the rules, and the second part includes practical examples of how to apply them. 

Larousse Concise Portuguese-English Dictionary is reasonably priced and quite complete for a "concise" dictionary.  In addition to definitions, it has a pronunciation guide that is actually quite helpful (it reflects the language as spoken in Rio de Janeiro).

Barron's 501 Portuguese Verbs:  As other reviewers have pointed out, the introductory section is very brief and is really a missed opportunity, especially when compared to the far superior introduction found in Barron's 501 Spanish verbs, for example.  However, the verb charts themselves are an excellent way to get the full conjugation quickly, and they include sample sentences for each verb that's included. There's also a listing of verbs that are not included in the 501 verbs, but which are conjugated the same as one of the included verbs.

The next section includes books that I use more for browsing, and not as much as reference works.  

DK Portuguese-English Visual Dictionary is a small book that is filled with excellent color photographs, organized by themes or subjects. Each photo is labeled, in detail, in both languages, and it's a fun way to learn new vocabulary.  

50 Ways to Improve Your Portuguese is another small book which contains explanations of various aspects of Portuguese that the authors have found to be troublesome for speakers of English.  I always seem to learn something new when I pick up this book and browse through it.  

Conversational Portuguese in 7 Days will not teach you conversational Portuguese in seven days, no matter what the title claims.  What you will get instead is a very good phrase book that goes beyond the usual tourist guide by including complete dialogues, some fairly detailed grammatical information, and even has some exercises, along with answers.  It's aimed at British tourists who are visiting Portugal, but since it doesn't include a pronunciation guide for each word or phrase, this isn't a real problem.  If you want a very inexpensive supplement to Pimsleur in order to get some practice with reading and writing, this is a good start. 





Finally, advanced beginners can get a lot out of the Level 2 Semantica Series videos.  They are a good way to gain exposure to the informal language, spoken at a fast rate.  You won't understand everything the first or even second time through, but they help to give you an idea of what Brazilian Portuguese sounds like when spoken by native speakers in everyday situations. Each video concludes with a re-cap of key points of the dialogue that you've just seen.