# How long did it take you to learn Portuguese through immersion?



## ninaexotica (Jun 9, 2013)

I'm at a B1 level never live there for more than 3 months but planning on going to school there, I'm thinking it'll take about a year to get to a C1 level, but what do you guys think? Any stories or experiences would be so great, thank you!


----------



## notlongnow (May 21, 2009)

What you learn from immersion largely depends on what you're doing. We found we quickly became competent with things like bars, restaurants, petrol stations etc. but unless you work with Portuguese people you just end up "immersed" with the same stuff over and over again and reaching a plateau. 

We now learn most of our extra stuff when we go for nights out with Portuguese friends, but a lot of what you learn then is swearing and slang!


----------



## ninaexotica (Jun 9, 2013)

notlongnow said:


> What you learn from immersion largely depends on what you're doing. We found we quickly became competent with things like bars, restaurants, petrol stations etc. but unless you work with Portuguese people you just end up "immersed" with the same stuff over and over again and reaching a plateau.
> 
> We now learn most of our extra stuff when we go for nights out with Portuguese friends, but a lot of what you learn then is swearing and slang!


Yeah that true.. Going to school i think wil help a lot ill learn about all type of things in school, and yes i totally agree with the learning slang from people. Comunicating with natives is probably the #1 way and some agree it would be the only way to learn really fluently. Its easy to make friends and interact with people if youre not fraid of messing up. Working hard putting in effort, getting as much exposure to portuguese as possible i think i will be close to fluent with in a year, since i grew up with speaking all my life and not being completely unknown of the language!


----------



## anapedrosa (Mar 21, 2011)

Hi Nina,
Did I understand that you grew up listening (and possibly speaking) Portuguese at home. If that is the case you will pick up Portuguese much quicker than someone without that background. Grammar and vocabulary will be your biggest challenge, school will help, but the other thing that you can do is to read Portuguese books and newspapers.
Good luck with your learning.
Ana


----------



## ninaexotica (Jun 9, 2013)

anapedrosa said:


> Hi Nina,
> Did I understand that you grew up listening (and possibly speaking) Portuguese at home. If that is the case you will pick up Portuguese much quicker than someone without that background. Grammar and vocabulary will be your biggest challenge, school will help, but the other thing that you can do is to read Portuguese books and newspapers.
> Good luck with your learning.
> Ana


Yes i grew up speaking and just hearing it, I am at a B1 level on the European framework scale. I want to reach a C2 which is the highest, or anything close to that would be so great! And yes I am going to start reading portuguese, watching TV/movies, talking to natives, just as much exposure as possible and hopefully Itll work out and yes portuguese grammer is really difficult, not as difficult as other languages or English but pretty difficult it'll be a challenge but I will work hard to get to the level I want to be at and make my living in Portugal as wonderful as possible do you speak portuguese?


----------



## anapedrosa (Mar 21, 2011)

Yes, I speak Portuguese, I can manage social situations with a limited number of questions. We spoke English at home, though my parents occasionally spoke to each other in Portuguese. We also spoke Portuguese when visiting Portugal. Like you, I am hoping to improve my Portuguese to a much higher level than it is now.
I started reading Diario de Noticias online with a dictionary at my side and last week I finished my first Portuguese book by José Luís Peixoto. I have prepared index cards to work on my verbs, but the grammar is my greatest challenge. I was thinking that once I am in Portugal I will take university level courses. I did the same for my French and though I found it challenging to start, I ended up doing quite well.


----------



## ninaexotica (Jun 9, 2013)

anapedrosa said:


> Yes, I speak Portuguese, I can manage social situations with a limited number of questions. We spoke English at home, though my parents occasionally spoke to each other in Portuguese. We also spoke Portuguese when visiting Portugal. Like you, I am hoping to improve my Portuguese to a much higher level than it is now.
> I started reading Diario de Noticias online with a dictionary at my side and last week I finished my first Portuguese book by José Luís Peixoto. I have prepared index cards to work on my verbs, but the grammar is my greatest challenge. I was thinking that once I am in Portugal I will take university level courses. I did the same for my French and though I found it challenging to start, I ended up doing quite well.


Do you not live in Portugal yet? And yes thats lik my situaion we speak english at home (my imediate family) and other family we speak portuguese, but i am only with them inthe summers, when in portugal and wow thats awesome! I would be so happy if i acctually accomplished reading a whole book! And really? Did you acctually study french in a french speaking country? Like all your courses in french? And yeah thats exactly what i want to do. I want to go to Universidade do Minho em Braga, i want to take the courses in Portuguese and get my BA to teach English there


----------



## anapedrosa (Mar 21, 2011)

I still live in Ottawa, Canada. We are hoping to move to Portugal this year. Our house is listed but the market is slow, so patience is the name of the game (not my strength).

Canada's official languages are English and French. I have learned basic French through grade school and in the work place am originally from Montreal. But it was only in university that I felt my French jump to a new level. I have a BA in Linguistics, attained later in life, languages are something I really enjoy.

If you want to teach English, you may also want to look into certificates that qualify you to teach - TSOL or CELTA (I believe CELTA is more common in Europe).


----------



## canoeman (Mar 3, 2011)

This site good for classic older Portugueses e-books in various formats manybooks.net - Languages: Portugues


----------



## anapedrosa (Mar 21, 2011)

Thanks CM I didn't know about that site.


----------



## canoeman (Mar 3, 2011)

Really worth searching lots of authors, genres and languages and all free


----------



## anapedrosa (Mar 21, 2011)

CM - I tried to download a book and it appears to require all sorts of software installation (not something I was looking for). Am I missing something, all I want to do is to download an epub


----------



## canoeman (Mar 3, 2011)

I use Calibre for all my e-book filing, so from this site generally download format kindle .azw so I don't need to change format for Kindle.
For other Formats you could well need to download specific software

Calibre will convert Formats so you could download in .azw and convert to epub and many other formats read on computer or download to another device
calibre - E-book management


----------



## ninaexotica (Jun 9, 2013)

anapedrosa said:


> I still live in Ottawa, Canada. We are hoping to move to Portugal this year. Our house is listed but the market is slow, so patience is the name of the game (not my strength).
> 
> Canada's official languages are English and French. I have learned basic French through grade school and in the work place am originally from Montreal. But it was only in university that I felt my French jump to a new level. I have a BA in Linguistics, attained later in life, languages are something I really enjoy.
> 
> If you want to teach English, you may also want to look into certificates that qualify you to teach - TSOL or CELTA (I believe CELTA is more common in Europe).


Wow, thats really interesting so you know French pretty well now, after going to university in a french spekaing school?  i feel the same way, i love learning languages and the thought of being able to comunicate with a lot of diffrent people through it! & so lucky! I think youll be like me, once you acctually move there and put the effort into learning portuguese, youll learn it quick! & yes ive looked into all those teaching english abroad programs.. The thing is they seem really unproffesional to me idk... Like you take a course an done. You can go off to the country you want. Just seems "too easy" & i think through that program you only get a certain amount of time in a country than they put you in a different one where as, in my situation i want to STAY in Portugal and im not interested in teaching anywhere else or living anywhere else for that matter!


----------



## anapedrosa (Mar 21, 2011)

CM - Thanks, I'll give that a try, Kindle is my preference.


----------



## anapedrosa (Mar 21, 2011)

Nina, I agree the TESOL or CELTA do not appear to be sufficient. My daughter also has her BA Linguistics in applied language studies, but in her final year she included a CTESOL (a university level version of TESOL). The benefit of these programs is that the focus on teaching you how to teach a language and offer a certification that has international recognition. She is teaching English in Korea right now, her qualifications helped her to negotiate better terms of employment and choose where she would like to teach. I think your approach of the BA makes sense, you can always decide to take one of these programs later if it makes sense to you. 
I agree, once I am living in Portugal it will be much easier to improve my Portuguese language skills. I wish you the best of luck in your endeavors, I can certainly relate to your desire to learn.

Ana


----------



## canoeman (Mar 3, 2011)

anapedrosa said:


> CM - Thanks, I'll give that a try, Kindle is my preference.


You can't download manybooks direct to any reading device so you need an intermediate software on computer Calibre is ideal for all formats with great library options which is lacking on Kindle, my e- library is now far in excess of my liklehood of being able to read


----------



## anapedrosa (Mar 21, 2011)

I can see the potential of Calibre. Also, as a result of this conversation I discovered that I am now able to download, from Amazon, Portuguese books on my Kindle, including many free classics. Let the reading continue, ah yes, I have also downloaded more than I can read, great aspirations.


----------

