Portuguese language courses

[brn]

Dear Expats,

I am currently based in the UK and hope to move to Lisbon in February (2009). My aim is to learn (speak and write) Portuguese as fast as possible and I would appreciate any advice on the best schools/courses available. Equally I would like to know if there are any schools/courses that I should avoid.

It is easy to find on the internet several schools that offer intensive language courses (15hrs + /week) but they seem to be excessively expensive (900+euros/month, and a lot more if you want the accommodation service). My Portuguese partner, although never having used such schools feels that they are hugely overpriced and in all likelihood are taking advantage of us fellow expats. Also my Portuguese friends have suggested that there may well be local schools that do not use the internet and may well have a better quality of teaching. Does anyone have an opinion on how true this is? And if so can you recommend a good school in Lisbon?

Potentially the most interesting course that I have so far found is taught at the University of Lisbon, at 540euros it is substantially cheaper than most of the private courses however there is no mention of class size. I think that a smaller class size will promote faster learning, and suspect that the university based course will be more interested in filling seats as opposed to maintaining high standards.

I would greatly appreciate everyone’s opinions, especially from those who have taken a university or private course, regarding the best (and worst) approach to learning the language.

Many Thanks,

PS, my intention is to spend at least 3 months solely learning the language, and then hopefully get a job and continue my learning.

[silvers]

Hi,
The course I attend charges me 54 euros a month for 2 hours per week, so it's not exactly cheap, and this is central Portugal not Lisboa. There are some local schools that run courses for free but these tend to be in large ex-pat areas and run by the local camera.
There is a good website that will give you a little headstart and you can download the basic program for free. It gives you numbers and basic introductions to learn. Please make sure you download European Portuguese and not Brazilian.
Learn Spanish, French, German, Italian and over 70 languages with Byki software.
Boa sorte

[omostra06]

Most towns run free language lessons, you need about 10 people to get the class started, in Tomar where we are two different schools run several lessons for free, the one I go to os tuesday and thursday night, one and a half hours each lesson, great way to learn the lingo but best of all its free.