Summary

FSI is an acronym for the Foreign Service Institute, "the (US) Federal Government's primary training institution for officers and support personnel of the U.S. foreign affairs community".

Over the years, the FSI has researched, designed and taught language courses to Foreign Service staff and diplomats. These courses are now available and licensed to the Public Domain.

FSI-Language-Courses.com (and .net) is a sweet and simple website that provides users with the ability to view and download the Foreign Service Institute's courses for 31+ languages. The content is provided by individuals donating time and resources in an overall effort to provide quality languages-learning materials for free worldwide.

Sounds good to me. :)

In the Portuguese section of the site, there are currently two volumes with text and audio of the Portuguese Programmatic Course. This course gives total beginners a solid and useful introduction to practical situations that you actually encounter in your average day while traveling, studying or working in Portugal or Brazil. There is also a course of learning Portuguese for folks who already know Spanish.

From Website

Welcome to fsi-language-courses.com, the home for language courses developed by the Foreign Service Institute. These courses were developed by the United States government and are in the public domain.

This site is dedicated to making these language courses freely available in an electronic format. This site is not affiliated in any way with any government entity; it is an independent, non-profit effort to foster the learning of worldwide languages. Courses here are made available through the private efforts of individuals who are donating their time and resources to provide quality materials for language learning.

Visit FSI-Language-Courses.com Portuguese Courses.

Summary

It's difficult to "summarize" the booming expansion that has occurred with the Kaufmann crew since "The Linguist" appeared on Free Language a year ago. That is why Free Language has numerous articles on the various websites and resources available through multilinguist Steve Kaufmann's web entelechy, including the many LinqQ [liŋk] podcasts, the LingQ method, revisiting The Linguist on Language and why not throw in a little thelinguist.com love, too. :)

This particular podcast is PortugueseLingQ, a roughly weekly podcast with mp3 audio content for Portuguese language learners. Transcripts of the podcasts are available through LingQ.

From Website

What is PortugueseLingQ?

First of all, the name itself (which is pronounced Portuguese Link) needs a little explaining. The first part, “Portuguese”, is fairly obvious since we teach Portuguese. LingQ is the name of our online learning system which you can find at LingQ.com. At LingQ you’ll study many different languages in a fun, community atmosphere. The “Ling” in LingQ comes from TheLinguist.com the people behind LingQ. Lastly, the “Q” is important because it forms the speech bubble in our logo and throughout our site and because it makes “lingq” sound like “link” (we think!) which is what our system does for you.

At PortugueseLingQ...

. we LingQ you to a world of real Portuguese content
. we LingQ you to our revolutionary learning tools
. we LingQ you to a community of fellow Portuguese learners

Our podcasts may contain interviews, articles, or audiobook excerpts but are most often just general conversations in Portuguese. We will usually talk about topics of general interest. Please do send us feedback and topic requests. We’re always happy to hear from you.

After you listen to the podcast, sign up for a free account at LingQ (l-i-n-g-q.com) and study the full transcript using LingQ's revolutionary learning tools.

At LingQ, you may also want to submit writing for correction or join live 1 on 1 and group discussions with our tutors. Plus you will find thousands more podcasts with transcript. Come and find out what LingQ is all about!

Of course, even if you don’t decide to become a member, you can continue listening to the podcasts as long as you like.

Visit PortugueseLingQ.com

Subscribe

Subscribe to PortugueseLingQ Podcast.
Subscribe to PortugueseLingQ Podcast via iTunes.

LingQ Podcast Network

EnglishLingQ
FrenchLingQ
GermanLingQ
JapaneseLingQ
PortugueseLingQ
RussianLingQ
SpanishLingQ
SwedishLingQ

Summary

If you don't know about Wikipedia, now is the time to find out! Especially since it is so useful in learning languages.

Wikipedia is the "Free Encyclopedia", a collectively-authored, dynamic, online encyclopedia that is free not only as in price, but also as in freedom. This means that the content you find anywhere on Wikipedia is free and open in the Public Domain. You can reproduce, redistribute and rehash the information there. This is empowered by the GNU Free Documentation License. This same license protects and empowers the contant on Free Language! (How?)

This particular resource links to the Wikipedia entry on the Portuguese language. This entry contains loads of information for the curious reader as well as for the serious Portuguese language learner, including historical and linguistic data.

Use this resource to become familiar with the Portuguese language and its context in today's world, to discover facts and linguistic data about Portuguese and its many varieties, access further information about and resources for learning Portuguese, and much more.

From Resource

Portuguese (português or língua portuguesa) is a Romance language that originated in what is now Galicia (Spain) and northern Portugal from the Latin spoken by romanized Celtiberians about 1000 years ago. It spread worldwide in the 15th and 16th centuries as Portugal established a colonial and commercial empire (1415–1999) which spanned from Brazil in the Americas to Goa in India and Macau in China. During that time, many creole languages based on Portuguese also appeared around the world, especially in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean.

Today it is one of the world's major languages, ranked sixth according to number of native speakers (over 200 million). It is the language with the largest number of speakers in South America (188 million, over 51% of the continent's population), and also a major lingua franca in Africa. It is the official language of nine countries (see the table on the right), being co-official with Spanish and French in Equatorial Guinea, with Chinese in the Chinese special administrative region of Macau, and with Tetum in East Timor.

In July 2007, President Teodoro Obiang Ngumema announced his government's decision to make Portuguese Equatorial Guinea's third official language, in order to meet the requirements to apply for full membership of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries. This upgrading from its current Associate Observer condition would result in Equatorial Guinea being able to access several professional and academic exchange programs and the facilitation of cross-border circulation of citizens. Its application is currently being assessed by other CPLP members.

Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes once called Portuguese "the sweet language", whereas Brazilian writer Olavo Bilac poetically described it as a última flor do Lácio, inculta e bela: "the last flower of Latium, wild and beautiful".

Portuguese is the official language of Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Portugal, São Tomé and Príncipe and Mozambique. It is also one of the official languages of Equatorial Guinea (with Spanish and French), East Timor (with Tetum) and of the Chinese S.A.R. of Macau (with Chinese). It is widely spoken, but not official, in Andorra, Luxembourg, Namibia and Paraguay (in the latter country there were 112,520 native Portuguese speakers according to the 2002 census), and in the U.S. states of California, Connecticut, Florida, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, and Rhode Island. There is also a statistically significant Portuguese-speaking community (approximately 10,000 people) in Jersey. Portuguese Creoles are, while not officially recognized, the standard language for communication in Cape Verde and part of Guinea-Bissau's population. In Cape Verde most also speak standard Portuguese and have native level proficiency. There are also significant populations of Portuguese speakers in Canada (mainly concentrated in and around Toronto) and Bermuda. There are also small populations of speakers in the former Portuguese colonies of Goa and Daman and Diu which are now part of India.

Link

Visit "Portuguese Language" on Wikipedia.

License

GNU Free Documentation License

Summary

Due to inflated price, Free Language no longer recommends Rosetta Stone. Find out why.

Recommended Language Freeware

Byki has stepped up their freeware. You can literally download and use their software to start learning the basics of over 60 languages in minutes without paying a cent. If you decide to continue learning past the basics, you can upgrade to the full version for a reasonable $49 USD.

Recommended Podcast Subscriptions

Free Language embraces the content-driven, social-based and software-enhanced Web platform brewed up at Praxis Language. Praxis Language's podcast-based system provides a well-rounded online language learning experience. They are real people and the info is current and steady.

Praxis Language's podcasts and community are open to users for free. Subscriptions to gain access to additional materials and instruction start at $5 USD/month. The only unfortunate thing about Praxis Language is that it's only available in four languages!

Have a look at their free podcasts and decide if this might work for you.

Why no Rosetta Stone?

We just don't feel Rosetta Stone is worth it with all the other options available these days.

Rosetta Stone has spent millions advertising their software in magazines, airports and online. They claim it's intuitive, that it "allows you to learn a foreign language like you learned your native language". They've marketed themselves rather effectively and even fancy themselves an international standard for diplomats, companies and organizations wishing to prepare for working and living abroad.

Free Language is not sure about all of that, but we do know it costs an awful lot for Rosetta Stone's software. In recent years the language-learning climate has been stormed with new and innovative ways to teach and learn languages. Many of these new products and services are in the form of websites, some of which are free!

Above you will find some products and services that we do recommend, and that offer enough free materials to get you started for free.

Summary

This is an excellent, high-quality podcast from the University of Texas for learners of Brazilian Portuguese - especially those that speak or have studied Spanish.

The lessons are well-designed by professors and the material is quite helpful.

Bravo UT!

From Website

Our podcasts are designed to help those who are learning Portuguese, especially if you have a previous background in Spanish. First, you find some pronunciation podcasts that are built around dialogs illustrating specific sound differences. You can also download pdf transcripts and participate in a discussion blog for clarification of questions.

Next, you find grammar podcasts that focus on grammatical differences between Spanish and Portuguese. All of the lessons are also built around some cultural aspect that makes Brazil so awesome.

Try it out, and join our Brazilpod community. There are no registration fees or restrictions, just great chances to learn more Portuguese.

Visit Tá Falado Podcast.

Subscribe

Subscribe to Tá Falado Podcast.
Subscribe to Tá Falado Podcast via iTunes.