In this article we will continue the previous article and we’ll talk about other mistakes that students can do when they learn Portuguese. This one will be not so shocking, but equally useful for students (and teachers as well).
Introduction
In our first part we’ve talked about four mistakes students often do: translate, read books for children, listen Portuguese songs and start with grammar. It may surprise you, but if you read the first part you will understand why.
Apps and videos
Apps and videos have advantages. For example, they give an interesting first contact with the language, allow to practice, get additional information, and learn everywhere in a relaxed way. For these goals, usually they are good and recommended. Although, they have many limitations and you must be aware of that.
Starting with apps, we can point the lack of methodology. They usually cannot offer an organized system and a really step by step approach. Because of this, they can be useful only at short time or partially. In addition, many of them cannot distinguish Brazilian from European Portuguese, and that’s a big minus. Finally, some of them are not verified by professional teachers, so they can contain mistakes. We recommend ask your teacher to check the app and check if it’s suitable or not.
About the videos, there are good and bad ones. For example, in Youtube you can find many videos, usually of teachers promoting them work by sharing knowledge. In this case, we give preference to those ones made by native teachers, because they have fewer chances to contain mistakes, especially about pronunciation. Once again we say: use them, but wisely.
Do not expose yourself
Other mistake consists in learning too long and do not practice with native speakers (besides the teacher). There are many reasons for that:
– Friends are also foreigners
– Friends are Portuguese but they prefer to speak in other language (more often in English)
– Fear to speak in Portuguese with natives
Until the level A2 it’s possible to have very good results only with classes. However, in order to keep having good progress, after level A2 we strongly recommend start communicating with native speakers. After level B1 student must have a regular contact with natives and after level B2 student must have a full emersion.
Here are some advices for different levels:
– Find friends with whom you can only communicate in Portuguese. If you’re not yet confident enough, you can talk with other student and then with Portuguese people.
– If Portuguese people start to talk with you in English because you’re a foreigner, just say you don’t speak English.
– Have meetings with more people. When you’re with one person, he/she can speak in other language for you understand easier. Although, if you’re in a group of Portuguese people, probably they will be talking the most of the time in Portuguese.
– Be engaged in some “serious” activity, where you need to use the language. A good example is the people who arrive to work. If it’s a Portuguese company, usually they start speak fast.
– Don’t be afraid if your pronunciation isn’t good, your grammar isn’t strong or your vocabulary isn’t wide. Usually Portuguese people understand foreigners pretty well. It’s better to make mistakes, but try.
Learn alone
One part of the learning process should be alone. This means, you always should spend some time with yourself processing the information. Some of our student started this way and some of them did it well. Although there are many things you’ll not be able to learn alone. In the other hand, you can learn something wrongly or take too much time to understand something simple.
So, if study alone works for you, we recommend to keep doing that. Nevertheless, consider to add lessons with a teacher or punctually to do a course (for example, one beginner and other intermediate). This way you will save a lot of time and energy and at the end it will pays off.
Do not assess the level correctly
If you have some experience with languages probably you’re already notice that there is a system to assess the language proficiency. We will not talk about it in this article, we will just notice for the most of people this system is quite abstract.
Except the absolute beginners, the other students often cannot understand in which level they really are. We have seen these three situations:
– Student says “I know almost nothing” but actually he/she can have a basic conversation;
– Student says “I have been studying for a while and a think I already know many things” but actually he/she cannot keep a basic conversation;
– Student says “My level is B1” but actually he/she has just one B1 skill, and other skills are A2 or even A1 (or the opposite). For example, he/she can be able do to grammar exercises of level B1, but cannot interact orally with someone at this level.
Therefore, if you already started your journey, you really recommend to talk with a teacher, who can assess your level. This way, will be much easier to choose the most suitable course/group.
There are many ways to assess the proficiency, but no method excludes oral interaction with an expert. That’s the most important and in the most of cases enough. Otherwise, is not possible to know about student’s communicating skills.
Finally, be sure that in your group all students are at the same level and give preference to small groups. The ideal is groups from up 4 students and never more than 6.
Conclusion
As we told on the first part, our goal is not to criticize, but advice, based in our experience in teaching Portuguese to foreigners. So, our goal is to help to avoid common mistakes in order to turn the learning process much more effective, interesting and pleasant.
Finally, the best way, of course, is learn directly with us. You can find us in some cities of Portugal and online.