Loading Events
  • This event has passed.

September 17, 2022 @ 11:00 am - November 5, 2022 @ 1:00 pm

Enrollment for Fall 2022 is now over. Please stay tuned for future semesters!

For true beginners, students who know very basic Portuguese, or speak Spanish

Fill out an application form, followed by a link to register at the end of  this form (the assessment is not needed for this class)  

https://forms.gle/Niy8GHAsJJKcwyJ96

Português Básico 1 is a beginner’s class with a focus on listening, speaking and developing communication skills in Portuguese from the first day, without resorting to translating into one’s native language.

This course will give you a solid base and allow you to start communicating with Portuguese native speakers.

The instructor will use visual materials, music, and conversation between participants during the learning process, focusing on her native Brazilian Portuguese, and also examine some differences between Brazilian, African, South Asian and Continental (European) Portuguese.

The program will introduce grammar structures in practical ways, and some writing exercises. The course runs weekly, with 2 hours on Zoom and an extra hour of expected practice exercises.

As you develop your language skills, we will also engage with the history of Brazilian people, its revolutionary struggles, and other means of resistance.

Join us for an introductory course on the basics of Portuguese with a glimpse on historical and contemporary contexts of the working classes and social movements in Brazil, and other Portuguese-speaking countries.

DETAILS

  • This course runs on Zoom on Saturdays every week (for 8 weeks) from September 17– November 5
  • 11am – 1pm EST
  • $160 – $320 sliding scale cost for students*

Fill out an application form and REGISTER:

https://forms.gle/Niy8GHAsJJKcwyJ96

 

More information: 

Portuguese is a language with roots in Portugal and also the official language spoken today in 10 countries: Brazil, Mozambique, Angola, Portugal, Guinea-Bissau, East Timor, Equatorial Guinea, Macau, Cape Verde, and São Tomé and Príncipe. Portuguese is arguably among the 9 or 10 most spoken languages in the world, but only 5 percent of its speakers live in its original home Portugal. It is estimated that 270 million people speak Portuguese today, amongst which nearly 254 million are native speakers. It is the second most spoken Romance language, after Spanish. Brazil’s 211 million people is the largest Portuguese-speaking population in the world.

As a colonial language, it suffered many transformations, particular to each locale. It is nowadays also a result of cultural resistance of the indigenous and enslaved people during colonialism. It is spoken in the U.S particularly in the Northeast, in California and in Florida, where native Portuguese speakers, who are immigrants from Africa, South Asia, Europe and Brazil have concentrated historically. In nearby regions, it is more widely spoken in areas of Newark, New Jersey; Astoria, Queens; in the coastal regions of Connecticut, and Massachusetts.

 

Background: 

Since the 16th century Brazilians started to incorporate dialects, words and sounds into Portuguese, particularly from the Tupi and Guarani indigenous linguistic branches that make up the majority of the pre-Columbian indigenous languages of Brazil’s current territory. With enslaved workers brought from Africa, more heavily during the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, many different languages and backgrounds were also influential.

Brazilian Portuguese continued to evolve as the common language amongst all living in Brazil, and the one permitted to be spoken by the colonizers. However, new words referring to foods, materials and relationships with no correlations in Europe, started to influence Continental Portuguese, even though the grammar and syntax structures remained the same.

Revolutionary literacy methods created for adults, by the influential educator Paulo Freire in the 1960s, author of the Pedagogy of the Oppressed, finally started to prioritize local people’s needs and generate wider political consciousness about the role of language in political emancipation to the elite oppressors. It is still used to combat illiteracy and poverty, and to help achieve freedom, much beyond Brazil’s borders.

Instructor

  • Natalia de Campos
    Natalia de Campos, born in São Paulo, Brazil, is a performance and theater artist, producer, writer, educator, translator, and activist. Natalia has taught English and Portuguese to non-native speakers since she was 19 years-old in various settings. She moved to New York in 1998, founded the multidisciplinary arts collaborative Syncretic … Read More ›

Details

Start:
September 17, 2022 @ 11:00 am
End:
November 5, 2022 @ 1:00 pm
Event Categories:
, ,

MAKE AN URGENT DONATION: Let Cuba Live

X