As both a language teacher and someone who began learning the Portuguese language in 2001 largely self-taught using computer based teaching material I would like to pass along some of my personal observations.
Any exposure to a new language is beneficial, however nothing can take the place of having some formal education in the language. After a few months of home-learning using CD rom based programs I decided to enroll at a local language school in Vancouver, Canada that had a teacher who was a native Brazilian. Following an intitial evaluation I was placed in a class for Intermediate Portuguese. While my home studies had helped I began to learn at a much more accelerated pace in a traditional classroom setting.
I augmented my classroom studies using the internet, chat rooms and a site that I would highly recommend to anyone learning Portuguese, English or any other language for that matter.
Paltalk - This is a program available as a free download at and it is a vast number of chat rooms that you select by region, interest, topic, etc. It has both audio and text so you not only are able to see the language in its written form, thus learning the grammar and spelling, but you can also hear the language spoken with its various accents and train your listening skills at the same time.
The one advantage of using the internet as a learning tool is that it is fun and it is free. You can spend hours online without even noticing it and you are learning all that time. Nobody would cheerfully accept several hours of homework from a Portuguese language teacher, but this probably has an even more educational effect than the homework would.
Another advantage, for those who don't see suggestions as being criticism, is that you enter a chat room and let the other participants know you are learning Portuguese suddenly they all become teachers devoting their time and energy to you. You get lots of comments that will stroke your ego and show you how you are progressing. At the same time you will get useful tips from native speakers as to how to say things in a more natural way.
From the time I began my home studies to the day I arrived in Brazil about 8 months had elapsed. I arrived here speaking Portuguese fluently, albeit with a horrible gringo accent. Having said this, I was totally unprepared for the baptism by fire that total immersion in the language would really be. I found out from painful experience just how much all the teaching materials and schools in the world can never teach you - how to live with a language on a day-to-day basis in real life. Something as simple as a trip to the supermarket was a real eye opening experience, it showed me that I needed to increase my vocabulary a thousand times just in order to keep from starving to death. Just imagine all the foodstuffs and other products at your average supermarket... do you know their names in Portuguese?
Ten years on, I have total dominance of the language, yet I am constantly learning new things. My students all comment that it is their dream to speak English as well as I speak Portuguese. Whatever route you choose to learning Portuguese try to integrate as many different types of exposure as you possibly can, computer programs, internet, classroom studies, films using Portuguese audio and subtitles (never English), magazines, newspapers, etc. Everything helps and after a short time you will notice a marked improvement.
Good luck to all,
Wm. James Woodward
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