Problem
I need to learn Portuguese for my next holiday. Portuguese is used in Brazil and Madeira. What should I learn?
Answers
On Tinycards by Duolingo I can learn colours and foods. That takes time every day.
Some of the questions are annoying. You seem to get asked to guess a colour before you've been told it. One reason is that it's really a revision card for what you have already learned on Duolingo.
What has gone wrong? You might have rushed on to the test question, forgetting previously to click to reverse the card to see the translation.
I'm short of time so I'm typing into Google translate my favourite words in the order I want to learn them. I then order the words from Portuguese into English, followed by English into Portuguese.
Any popular phrase book does the same thing. You can pick groups of words to learn, sometimes at the start or end of the book, such as numbers, days of the week. If I were to learn 10 words a day, and keep adding, in a month of 28-31 days I would have a basic vocabulary of 280-310 words.
Which words will I need most? I can select 28-31 sets of words. Let's make it 30 for neatness, and add another 10 or do a revision on day 31. If I am busy one day, my cumulative list will help me catch up. Add one to three whole sentences.
Earworms by Berlitz does something similar. You can play it in your car to help you learn words for your next holiday.
1 Colours
2 Food
3 Wine bottle labels
4 Days of the week
5 Months
6 Numbers 1-10
7 Travel brochure /website
8 On the plane
9 At the airport
10 On a ferry or boat
11 On a bus
12 Walking
13 At the hotel
14 In a restaurant
15 On a tour
16 Shops and prices
17 Speaking to a museum guide
18 Emergency
19 Verbs - to be (present), to be future, walk, run, stop, go, like, can,
20 Recipes
21 Clothes labels / washing instructions
22 Sewing and repairs
23 Pharmacy and doctor
24 Police and theft
25 Driving and traffic signs
26 Greetings and meetings
27 Time
28 Numbers 10-20
29 Celebrations
30 Weddings: bride, groom, photographer
31 Feelings: happy, sad, hungry, full, angry, worried, busy, tired, keen, need, want
Question words: where, how much, how many
Once I have worked out the words I need, I can use the same set of English words to learn any other language. Obviously the words you need on a ski holiday are different to those on a beach holiday.
This would keep me organized. However, if I want to learn out of sequence, such as doing colours today, I need to re-structure my list, or create a draft of all 30 days of learning.
Here are colours:
English - Portuguese
black - preto (p and b are like upside down or each other; pret-end to be invisible wearing black)
brown - castanho (like a brown castle)
blue - azul
green - verde (like the Italian verdi but the I-tal-I-an has i and Portugu-E-s-E has E) vinho verde green wine
orange - laranja (like the Spanish naranja but L shape Portugal which is long has laranja)
pink - rosa (rose pink)
purple - roxa (r in purple)
red - vermelho (like vermilion)
white - branco (like blanco but with an r as in PoRtuguese)
yellow - amarelo (the endings rhyme; spelling like the town Amarillo simplified, imagine yEllow amarillo - amarElo)
O and A endings
Five of the words end with the letter O, (preto, castanho, vermelho, branco, amarelo).
Three Portuguese colour words end with the letter a: laranja, rosa, roxa.
One word ends with e, verde.
One ends with l, azul.
...
grey
striped
patterned
plain
bright colour
darker
lighter
navy
lovely colour
to match this colour
Portuguese
Preto
Castanho
azul - azul
verde
laranja
Rosa
roxa
vermelho
branco
amarelo
...
cinzento
listrado
padronizado
avião
Cor brilhante (cor rhymes with more, but cor short for colour, brilhante like the English word brilliant)
mais escura (mais is more, escura obscured - darker)
isqueiro
marinha
linda cor (Linda is wearing a lovely colour - cor blimey, that's a lovely colour, Linda)
para combinar com esta cor (to combine with this colour - for combining with this colour).
Five of this second set of letters end with o: cinzento, listrado, padronizado, avião, isqueiro. Three end with a: escura, marinha, linda.
Now you can write to your friends called Linda and tell them they are lovely - in Spanish and Portuguese.
Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker, teacher of English, learner of 12 other languages.
Please see my other travel blog:
http://www.luxurytravelforless.co.uk
