Portuguese GCSE - textbook?

OP

Anyone?

This was posted from The Student Room's iPhone/iPad App

Reply 2

Original post by chicoinglés

Anyone?

This was posted from The Student Room's iPhone/iPad App

Grrr my iPod stubornly crashed just before I could hit reply on my rather lengthy post to you! (I should have kept my TSR mobile app) !
Anyway, I'll still sumarise :wink:

1) Another language? wow!
2) I'm still trying to learn German, I really envy you for mastering that language in less than a year! :redface:

3) No textbooks are the downfall for less common languages at GCSE, OCR should promote them more, to encourage talented linguists like yourself! :biggrin:

4) Make use of the OCR Spanish recouces but 'apply' them to the portuguese language...I think you already know spanish right?
5) There are past papers and mark schemes for OCR Portuguese..make them your bible! :colone:

So get stuck in :wink:

and btw can you give me more tips for A-level German, which you seem to have done with such ease!? :tongue:

Reply 3

OP

Original post by thatitootoo

Grrr my iPod stubornly crashed just before I could hit reply on my rather lengthy post to you! (I should have kept my TSR mobile app) !
Anyway, I'll still sumarise :wink:

1) Another language? wow!
2) I'm still trying to learn German, I really envy you for mastering that language in less than a year! :redface:

3) No textbooks are the downfall for less common languages at GCSE, OCR should promote them more, to encourage talented linguists like yourself! :biggrin:

4) Make use of the OCR Spanish recouces but 'apply' them to the portuguese language...I think you already know spanish right?
5) There are past papers and mark schemes for OCR Portuguese..make them your bible! :colone:

So get stuck in :wink:

and btw can you give me more tips for A-level German, which you seem to have done with such ease!? :tongue:

Hiya there!

Grr!! That's always the way isn't it?! You should have as it is rather useful!!! Hahaha!

1) Yeah, I know, even though I haven't fully decided whether I will go ahead with it or not tbh as it really depends if I'll get the time to do any studying for it, what with working full time as well!!

2) Lol, thanks!! I really wouldn't say I had even come close to mastering it or being on the way to mastering it! I ended up with a B in the A-Level, having missed out on an A by 4 UMS! But oh well, I still want to improve myself, reading and listening in the language, and when I can, speaking and writing too!!

3) Thanks again!!!! So many compliments being thrown at me!!! They should, as there is literally no materials at all for Portuguese GCSE it seems, or for any of the less commonly taught languages!!

4) Haha, I will do! Yes, I did my degree in Spanish (and Italian), as well as my year abroad and MA in Spain, so Portuguese does look quite easy, at least compared to German, and Polish (which I started learning a couple of years ago; still have the book I was using 'Hurra po polsku 1', but stopped as the girl who used to come and teach me went for her year abroad in America!)

5) I will do!!!

Well as far as tips go I don't know if I'm the best person to ask, as there seem to be a lot of people on the 'TSR Deutsch Forum' whose German is far superior to mine (my vocabulary is still extremely limited!), but I do think I have made a lot of progress from starting my GCSE studying back in March last year to completing my A-Level this summer. My advice would be to really immerse yourself as much as possible in German, reading, listening, speaking (when you can) and writing, as at least for me it took me a long time to even get a 'feel' for the language, as it is so different from Romance languages, at least with regards to its structure, and I still take an age to write anything in German due to that very reason, and my severe lack of vocabulary - but you can never give up!!!

If you need any more help, you know where I am anyway!!

Take care,

Jordan :smile:

Reply 4

OP

Btw I did the listening and reading Portuguese GCSE papers earlier on and got 42/50 and 38/50 respectively!! Would you say that was an A*? The thing is I've never studied Portuguese before, but at least for passive knowledge, having Spanish already is half the battle!

This was posted from The Student Room's iPhone/iPad App

Reply 5

Original post by chicoinglés

Btw I did the listening and reading Portuguese GCSE papers earlier on and got 42/50 and 38/50 respectively!! Would you say that was an A*? The thing is I've never studied Portuguese before, but at least for passive knowledge, having Spanish already is half the battle!

This was posted from The Student Room's iPhone/iPad App

that's pretty impressive for a 'newby' you know! :tongue:

Let me check the ocr stats... wow if you had gotten those same scores this year, you would have gotten BB in those units! Scraping the B in reading by the skin of your teeth, so not an A* quite yet! :lol:

That's really good, but I would have thought your reading score would be higher than your listening score! I thought the Portuguese pronounciation sounded rather weird for Spanish ears! Which would mean that reading portuguese is normally easier right?

Btw, was it continental or Brazilian portuguese you listened to? :redface:

& How are you going to arrange the speaking exams? Or is that centre near you going to arrange it all? It took my school ages to find a Dutch speaker for my exam! :redface:

Hmm...Judging by the grade boundaries, youre not the only one whose 'passive' skills are better than 'active' language skills! :tongue:

The boundaries for speaking and writing are much lower!! I used to love box ticking & closed questions at GCSE! These always enabled me to tactically eliminate the ridiculous answers to help me find the right one if you know what I mean :wink:

&& thanks for your tips! I'll make sure to download that app on my iPod today!

(edited 12 years ago)

Reply 6

jonnythemoose

15

I studied Portuguese at uni up to A level standard and for the GCSE part of the course we used two books: "Portugues sem fronteiras" and for grammar practice, I would definitely recommend you "Gramatica Activa"

Espero que gostes :smile:

Reply 7

jonnythemoose

15

Original post by chicoinglés

Btw I did the listening and reading Portuguese GCSE papers earlier on and got 42/50 and 38/50 respectively!! Would you say that was an A*? The thing is I've never studied Portuguese before, but at least for passive knowledge, having Spanish already is half the battle!

This was posted from The Student Room's iPhone/iPad App

Christ, you got 42/50 for LISTENING?! I admit Portuguese and Spanish are fairly similar, but where they differ is in their phonology, and even with a fairly decent level of Portuguese now I can still hardly distinguish it from Russian aurally :P (Even though I have a degree in Spanish!)

Reply 8

OP

Original post by jonnythemoose

Christ, you got 42/50 for LISTENING?! I admit Portuguese and Spanish are fairly similar, but where they differ is in their phonology, and even with a fairly decent level of Portuguese now I can still hardly distinguish it from Russian aurally :P (Even though I have a degree in Spanish!)

Yes! They are extremely different phonologically, and Portuguese does sound more like an Eastern European language than anything else, but I did manage to pick out about 70% of it so hence why I got such a high mark (I would guess!) Spanish is much easier I have to agree (I also have a degree in Spanish :wink:

)

This was posted from The Student Room's iPhone/iPad App

Reply 9

Have you reached A* standard yet? :tongue:

This was posted from The Student Room's iPhone/iPad App

Reply 10

I clearly did download the app in the end... :L

This was posted from The Student Room's iPhone/iPad App

Reply 11

OP

Original post by thatitootoo

Have you reached A* standard yet? :tongue:

This was posted from The Student Room's iPhone/iPad App

Well no, have left it on the back burner for ages due to other things going on and not sure whether I'll go for it in the end, but we'll see :smile:

Posted from TSR Mobile

Reply 12

J.Nalbandian14

16

I know a good textbook that I used 2 years ago,ill try and find the link later

Reply 13

OP