I’d like to tell you the story of how I created “Learn Portuguese the Fun Way” – a book which is first in a series of language learning books created by Patrick Carpen.
My passion for learning Portuguese was ignited from a very young age – when my dad told me the first stories about neighboring Brazil – these mysterious, queer people who lived right next door to us, but whom we knew so little of.
And from a very young age, I wanted to explore the country of Brazil and learn about it. By the way, this dream proved to be really fulfilling – it turned about that Brazil – the country and its people – has much more to offer the world than I once thought.
So when my sister went to Canada, I asked her to send me a Portugese Language course and I started learning from it. That was a “Living Language” Portuguese course, which was one of the biggest brands in Language Learning – and still it.
But learning a new language proved to be a daunting task. It was like constantly throwing spagetti against the wall hoping that some would stick.
But I kept going. Everyday, I would repeat these isolated, monotonous expressions, such as:
Bom dia – good morning
Como vai – How are you?
O que voce esta fazendo – What are you doing?
And you know what? I was learning! I was learning a few words. But it just wasn’t good enough! I was stuck when it came to forming a conversation with a native, and there were so many things I didn’t know to say in Portuguese.
I knew that there had to be a more effective way of learning Portuguese and building up a vocabulary. And that’s how “Learn Portuguese the Fun Way” was conceived.
I went on the internet and searched for some Portuguese stories. And I found some really beautiful ones. Using the Google Translator, I translated these stories into English and asked some of my Brazilian friends to read them into audio.
By learning to read stories in Portuguese, my vocabulary in this new language quickly expanded. And so, when I was chatting with my Brazilian friend Ciro from Sao Paulo about ten years back, he was so impressed, he said “please tell me what you are doing so I can do the same thing!”
And so I refined the method a little more and put into into the first course for you “Learn Portuguese the Fun Way.”
But this course is not the beginning and end of Learning Portuguese. As you can read in Lesson 17, there is no “one” way to learn a new language. Variety is the spice of life – and variety is also the spice of language learning. In addition to using this course, you’ll also have to use your dictionary, do some research, converse with native, watch movies in Portuguese, etc.
So what are you waiting for? Go to www.languagefun.org and download your first four lessons of Learn Portuguese the Fun Way absolutely free!