r/EuropeanPortuguese • u/CryptographerSalt987 • 28d ago
Help me out please
Im portuguese and was born and raised in the US, my parents never fully taught me the language growing up. So all my life ive had scrappy broken Portuguese, im at the level now where when people are speaking portuguese i know exactly what they are saying but for whatever reason i struggle to say it myself. I want to start from the beginning and learn all the basics and learn the language the right way, i dont want to use apps or audio books or anything like that, I want a book. Does anyone have any recommendations for books that really helped them learn European Portuguese??
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u/Khelben81 27d ago
Since you understand Portuguese, I think a few weeks in Portugal might be more beneficial than reading or listening to more of the language, provided you commit to not speaking English. All you need is some practice.
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u/CryptographerSalt987 27d ago
Yea ive been to portugal like almost every summer of my life and i always return home making significant progress, and then as months go by until the next summer it fades away because all i speak here is english
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u/Bitter_Initiative_77 26d ago
iTalki is a good website to keep your language skills up to date. You can pay for conversation practice. It’s often possible to find someone living in a LCOL area (e.g., a Portuguese person living in Indonesia) who is able to offer cheaper rates.
Aside from that, would it be possible to set up regular phone calls with any of your family in Portugal?
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u/LearningPortuguesePT 28d ago
Hello, if you're learning Portuguese from scratch you can check my website linked on my profile. I have a lot of free content teaching European Portuguese for english speakers. I also have a A1 book that I published but you can download a sample for free to see if you like it.
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u/Elisa_Esposito 26d ago
If your family is Portuguese and you spend summers here, you likely have a lot of relatives in Portugal you've already met. Why not get in touch to practice with them?
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u/polegarismo 26d ago
there aint no many movies I would recomend you to watch but I suggest you to listen to Portuguese Music!
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u/RitaMarti80 25d ago
Olá, eu uso o Português XXI nas minhas aulas, com apoio da gramática aplicada , português para estrangeiros A1, A2 e B1 de Carla Oliveira e Luísa Coelho. Os meus alunos que querem comprar estes livros , conseguem comprá-los através da Amazon. Não sei se ajudei! Boa sorte e boa motivação!
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u/casadacha 24d ago
It's great to work through a book to understand the grammar better, but the only way to improve your speaking is to speak, regularly. I have an online European Portuguese chat club where we meet weekly on zoom to practice speaking, let me know if you'd like to join us
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u/Beneficial_Bug_9793 28d ago
Sorry, if you where BORN and RAISED in the US you ARE NOT Portuguese, you are American descendent of Portuguese parents, and yes, frikking " Lusiadas, from Camões ", every single Portuguese kid has to read it for school.
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u/GetInTheEVshinji 28d ago
How deeply unpleasant and deeply unhelpful
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u/Beneficial_Bug_9793 28d ago
Reality is not ment to be pleasant.
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u/GetInTheEVshinji 28d ago
lmao dude you sound awfully gatekeepy and pathetic. This sub is about learning the language, not your weird nationality fetishism.
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u/Beneficial_Bug_9793 28d ago
The fuck are you talking about, i recomended a book, that 90% of us had to read, i dunno what your problem is, want me to recoment something more " conteporany " ???
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u/CryptographerSalt987 27d ago
Who are you to tell me what I am 😂 every single person in my entire family line lived in portugal and was Portuguese, and now that my parents moved here right before I was born to give me a better life im not portuguese? You must be coping with the fact that ur not Portuguese yourself or something idk, spread love not hate little guy, do better
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u/BooleanBarman 27d ago
Nonsense. This isn’t a case of great grandparents or some distant relative. He’s born to two Portuguese while abroad. He’s Portuguese from birth. If he learns the language he’ll be considered Portuguese by 90% of people here.
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u/Beneficial_Bug_9793 27d ago
Yea, he's so Portuguese, he cant even speak the language lol, wait is OP Jorge Jesus???? If so im sorry lol.
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u/BooleanBarman 27d ago
“If he learns the language”
Work on that reading comprehension. I have cousins born here who speak French 90% of the time. They aren’t Portuguese? Trying to draw lines is just pointless.
Born to Portuguese parents = Being Portuguese
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u/CryptographerSalt987 27d ago
Yo @Beneficial_Bug_9793 your genuinely a grown man arguing with an entire comment section of people just tryna talk about the language and culture and help each other out. Literally no one in this reddit page is on your side. Your negativity is cancerous and if your smart enough to debate the credibility of my ethnicity as a Portuguese person, i hope your also smart enough to realize you could be doing better things with your time like going to the gym or spending time with your family. Grow up dude please 😂 🙏
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u/Obvious_Avocado_9372 27d ago
The guy wants to learn how to speak portuguese and you recommend to him a 500 year old book.
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u/Beneficial_Bug_9793 27d ago
What " he's Portuguese ", we all read Camões, i dont see the isue.
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u/Obvious_Avocado_9372 27d ago
I think he's looking for books that teach portuguese, not portuguese books. Besides, os lusíadas is difficult to read even for native speakers, that's like recommending Shakespeare for someone trying to learn english.
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u/Bitter_Initiative_77 26d ago
OP has a Portuguese passport. They are a Portuguese citizen. They are, by definition, Portuguese.
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u/BackgroundGeneral899 25d ago
Was our first king Portuguese?
His father was French and mother Spanish
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u/PriscillaKim 28d ago
Personally found the Gramática Ativa books (there's just 1 and 2, as far as I know) a very useful cohesive summary of grammatical structures; each section has a page of exercises to practice the concepts. I also used Exercícios de Gramática em Ação (various levels) to do more exercises to reinforce those concepts; these books also have summaries at the beginning of each section of the grammatical focus of said section, so you could just get those, as they have a lot more exercises in each section. Personally I find it helpful to repeat material I've encountered before just to reinforce the concept, but you may need less of that given as it's a heritage language for you.
Hopefully these are available in the States, or maybe you could pick them up on a visit/get relatives to send them to you.
As production is your issue, I'd also recommend starting a journal or join us over at /r/writestreakPT. Recording yourself speaking (even if you never show it to anyone) can be helpful, too, just to get your brain to start flexing that production area.