Language learning - Day 1

The Pimsleur Approach audio CDs arrived in the mail yesterday. I am excited to try them out and start learning Portuguese. In the small instruction booklet, they made it very clear that it was only auditory learning and I'm not to try and read or write anything out. This is only about speaking and doing anything else could derail my learning. No workbooks? Sounds good to me!

As the lessons are about 30 minutes long, which is exactly my one-way commute time to work, I decided to try to learn in the car. Lesson 1 started out with a brief conversation between a man and woman. They said "Excuse me. Do you understand (or speak) English?", "Are you American?", and "I understand (or speak) a little Portuguese." - as well as the responses to those questions. They broke down each word for me to repeat then put them back into a sentence. When we moved on, they went back briefly and asked me to repeat something that was said earlier on. In the beginning, my mind went blank several times, but within a few minutes, I really started catching on. Near the end of the lesson, they repeat the conversation and ask you to listen and try to understand what was said. I definitely caught quite a bit more of the conversation than the first time.

 Over 4 hours later, I can honestly say that I can speak all of the phrases that I learned. The teacher asks you questions like, "How do you tell a woman that you speak a little Portuguese" and you are to then answer in Portuguese. They recommend that you be able to answer at least 80% of the questions correctly before moving onto the next lesson and that you shouldn't do more than one lesson per day (but you can repeat your daily lesson if you like). I am definitely planning on repeating this lesson on my way home from work. While they don't expect you to be totally proficient at the end of each lesson, I would like to make sure I have a good grasp prior to moving on. It seems to me like they are really focusing on the phrases that one would need to traveling in a Portuguese-speaking country.

 Review after lesson 1 - Thumbs up! Excited to repeat today's lesson and learn more tomorrow.