Portuguese Verbs And Essentials of Grammar: A Practical Guide to the Mastery of Portuguese

My jaw dropped at reading the horrible reviews of this book so I followed the advice and bought Prista's, expecting to see some magic and here's what I found.Prista's book, though ok, is NOWHERE near as thorough as this one. This small book, by Sue Tyson-Ward, covers just about every section of portuguese you will need to be a fully functional speaker and I credit what I've learned to this book. I speak Portuguese with native speakers who correct me when necessary and I can say that they don't do that so often.I see Prista's book as something for someone who is in a massive rush and who will not grasp the necessary intricacies of the language because the explanations are chopped short for the sake of saying SEE, WE TOLD YOU IT WOULD BE SHORT!I confidently recommend the book on this page for those who need thorough explanations backed with examples. Prista's book has some pros - for example clever ways to remember Port words by learning english suffix equivalencies, etc., but at the end of the day you will walk away from the Tyson-Ward book with the capability to to read and speak Portuguese on a high conversational and literary level.

After a disappointing experience with a small phrase book, I hapened to pick this up based on it's small size and focused goal content. A few weeks later, I can honestly say this appears to be the best Portugese Language Book on the market. It covers the basics of verbs, more then 12 tenses, irregular verbs, pronouns, idioms, and has both the Portugese and Brazilian form of many words and phrases. My only small compalaints are the lack of a more comprehensive dictionary and no accompanying cassette or CD to actually hear the words spoken. However those could easily be purchased on the side. I highly reccomend starting to learn Portugese right here.

A very good introduction to Portuguese verbs and grammar. Covers all parts of speech and includes sections in the back which cover time, numbers (even geometry), letters (business and personal), Idioms and a wonderful vocabulary list. An excellent addition for anyone wanting to learn Portuguese.

An exceptionally useful book. If you're a motivated and experienced language learner, like me, it's probably the best book to get you a basic vocabulary and understanding of Portuguese that won't cost you a fortune. If you're a teacher -- again, like me -- then I'd recommend this book as a text. You're students will be happy that they don't have to dish out a fortune, and though there are no excercises in the book, each chapter is concise and focused, so I wouldn't think that making the excercises yourself would be a big deal. But it would also be great as a quick and easy to use reference.However, if you're NOT experienced in learning languages (viz., this is your first attempt at a foreign language),then perhaps another book -- like Beginner's Portuguese, by the same author -- would be a better choice. And don't forget that NO book, however great, will ever get you fluency, or even a very high level of proficiency, so unless you have native-speaker friends, then a book with an accompanying tape might be more useful.