I have now finished 5 of the 10 lessons in Pimsleur's European Portuguese program. The first 3 lessons were pretty easy. Although many of the words were pronounced differently, I felt like I had already learned the bulk of it and it was easier to catch on. Lesson 4 is when it started to get harder. As with the other lessons, it reviewed things I'd already learned. Then it added a couple words that I am having the hardest time pronouncing and remembering- United States and restaurant. The former is pronounced Eesh-ta-doosh Ooh-nee-doosh and the latter is Resh-tere-ront (with R's rolled, of course). I can't seem to remember how to say United States whenever it is brought up. I think I'll stick with "I'm from America." Restaurant doesn't look bad, but with Brazilian Portuguese, I was Res-tere-ronch. So, the middle and the end are different. I feel like I have to say it really slow to get it right. That's what practice is for, right? I have just under 4 months to get it down.
When I stopped learning Brazilian Portuguese, I stopped at lesson 5. The Pimsleur lesson structure is basically identical, so moving on to lesson 6 tomorrow will be a whole new territory for me. Overall, I'm really happy I switched. With these core differences in both common words and pronunciations, I think that I wouldn't have hardly had any benefit from learning Brazilian Portuguese and traveling to Portugal.
This past Monday (2/3/14) was the 4 month mark till my June trip. My concentration right now is saving up for my trip. I also have a wedding in Hawaii in late July, so I would ideally like to have only one of the trips come out of savings (and hopefully I can save more than the Hawaii trip costs and can put it towards Portugal).
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