Say It in Portuguese (Brazilian)

by Dover Publications Inc.

Book Overview

Contains over 1,000 useful sentences and phrases for travel or everyday living abroad: food, shopping, medical aid, courtesy, hotels, travel, and other situations. Gives the English phrase, the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0486208095
• ISBN13: 9780486208091
• Release Date: June 1955
• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Length: 124 Pages
• Weight: 0.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 3.5" x 5.3"

Customer Reviews

Won't have you sounding like a native, but a great phrase book

I found this book incredibly useful on my recent vacation in Brazil. Most important, the book is small. It's tiny enough that you can fit it into any pocket easily. Secondly, it is extremely well organized. It is divided into sections on topics like "Taxi", "Restaurant", "Bank", each containing phrases that are usually extremely useful, and is also cross-referenced by a comprehensive index. A telling detail: the items of food you might see on a menu in Brazil are in Portuguese alphabetical order, making it very easy to translate whatever food item you are considering. There are a couple of drawbacks: some of the vocabulary in this book is quaintly out-of-date (for example, there in an entry for "mercurochrome" in the drugstore section, and the automobile section tells you the Portuguese for "Please add water to my battery"), and the pronunciation may be how they read the Brazilian TV news in the 1950s, but is nothing like what people sound like in Rio today. I have a feeling that if you used the pronunciation the book recommends you would generally be understood, but people would think you very funny! However, if you become familiar with contemporary Brazilian pronunciation, it is easy to "translate" the book's suggestions into the way people actually speak. First you would need to find out how Brazilians actually speak, and for this purpose (and generally for anyone with the time to learn a bit more than quick phrases) I would strongly recommend Thomas's "A Grammar of Spoken Brazilian Portuguese".

A great phrase book

As the title says, it's not a dictionary, just a phrase book. However, the index at the back helps you find the words you need, so it can, in a pinch, serve as a basic dictionary. It's nice and small and easily fits in a pocket. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to friends.

not as bad as they make it sound

One thing you must be aware of before purchasing this is that it is a CONTINENTAL PORTUGUESE book. Hence, the pronunciation is completely different than that of Brasil. I speak both accents and it's basically like a completely different language. You'd be surprised, if you are not already familiar with the differences. Like, "e" is not pronunced at the ends of words, the "r"'s in the beginning of words are not pronounced as "h"'s but more like a throaty trill (not like spanish, a bit raspier). The vowels are pronounced more closed. Also, continental portuguese's grammar can be quite a bit trickier. So, ignore all those comments about the pronunciation being incorrect. It's just simply different. If you are looking for Brazilian pronunciations, don't look here.

PRICELESS!

A must have for any visit to Brazil. I travelled to southern Brazil in April. It was my first trip to a portuguese speaking nation. I thought my many years of spanish would get me through(Big mistake!!). This phrase book was with me all the time. It became as essential as my toothbrush. It really saved the day for me. It's also very compact in size and easy to carry on your person..

Anything You Would Ever Need to Say

This Portuguese phrasebook is a little gem! It is filled with over 1100 phrases translated into Portuguese with their pronunciations included. Anything you could possibly ever need to say during your stay in Brazil can be found here, and you'll know exactly how to say it. Phrases are easy to find with their clear classifications, and the book is so compact you can take it anywhere. Recommended for people of all language abilities since it is so easy to use.