INTRODUCTION
The Portuguese Language is a Romance language, i.e.,
it comes from the vulgar Latin language. It has more than 170 millions speakers
(more than 160 millions in Brazil), what gives it the status of the 7th
most spoken language in the world. It’s the language of countries like Portugal
(Europe), Brazil (South America), Angola, Mozambique (Africa). So, learning
Portuguese is not an eccentricity.
Its closest language is
Galician, spoken in Galicia, Spanish region in the north of Portugal (in truth,
Galician and Portuguese were the same language in the Middle Age, and split in
the XIV century). Spanish is very close to Portuguese, too, which allows
speakers of both languages in Latin America to understand each other sometimes,
but in many times there is misunderstanding and embarrassment.
This course’s audio files are all in the .mp3 format. Just click and
wait for your MP3 program to open (it’s recommended that you choose not to
save, just to open the file).
Please put your sound
volume as loud as possible, because of the bad and low sound recording.
Below, you see how to type special Portuguese language
characters, both the Portuguese keyboard way (try this way first) and the character code. Make sure to have the
Num Lock key turned on. Press
the Alt key (left) and then type in the code (do not forget the 0 (zero).
á ‘ (acute accent)+ a Alt
(left) + 0225 (number pad)
à ` (grave
accent)+ a Alt
+ 0224
ã ~ (tilde)
+ a Alt
+ 0227
â ^ + a Alt
+ 0226
é ‘ + e Alt
+ 0233
ê ^ + e Alt
+ 0234
í ‘
+ i Alt
+ 0237
ó ‘ + o Alt
+ 0243
õ ~
+ o Alt
+ 0245
ô ^ + o Alt
+ 0244
ú ‘ + u Alt
+ 0250
ü “
+ u Alt
+ 0252
Á (just include the “shift” key) Alt + 0193
À Alt + 0192
à Alt
+ 0195
 Alt
+ 0194
É Alt
+ 0201
Ê Alt
+ 0202
Ó Alt
+ 0211
Õ Alt + 0214
Ô Alt + 0212
Ú Alt
+ 0218
Ü Alt + 0220
ç Alt
+ 0231
Ç Alt
+ 0199