½ûÂþÌìÌÃ

Local non profit lay and religious  charities tend to be good at this. 

In  Sao Paulo, if you are to enroll your kids into schooling, The Mosteiro de Sao Bento does provide bi-lingual programs aimed to impoverished children from migrants, on a first come first served basis. 

Colégio de São Bento

if you can't find online, then consider paying the monks a visit then. Downtown Sao Paulo, and their own  baked goods for sale are off the charts. The Monastery is clustered around the school yard, btw.

Lots of the enrolees are of Chinese ascestry, lately.  Plenty of other ethnicities enrolled. 

I became fluent over 10 years time, starting with daily courses for a few weeks during holidays when I was down there, then I just started to watch their TV back where we live for hours a day. When you see the actions, hear the words, and see the objects all at once, neural memory uptake is very fast.

Anywhere you can get person to person practice is especially awesome.

    I became fluent over 10 years time, starting with daily courses for a few weeks during holidays when I was down there, then I just started to watch their TV back where we live for hours a day. When you see the actions, hear the words, and see the objects all at once, neural memory uptake is very fast.
Anywhere you can get person to person practice is especially awesome.
   

    -@Gasparzinho 777

i can see where you realized improvements on your speaking / listening skills.   

my 5 cents...

Old soap operas,  sitcoms, aired around the 1980's when we had decent scriptwriters.  The actualy recently aired stuff is duck lame. 

Attending college classes, or even night classes.  No need for bilingual programs.   It will cost you money and time, but it produces results.

Being socially outgoing, Brazilians invite you n if you are socially available for outings, Social butterfly types.

Everything I know I got from Caco on Toma La Da Ca or Casseta e Planeta kkkkkkkk

Another one, if you do not mind the horrible lip synching, is to watch old American series and sitcoms.  Some channels specialize on them.

Movies to.  It sucks hearing Christopher Walken in Portuguese, but  whatever it takes. 

    Good Night... Listed below For foreigners, free Portuguese classes:
-@Nomad Mundo

@NomadMundo, thank you for the links... Great resources.  Do you happen to know whether there is Brazilian tv streaming that is accessible from US - preferably free?

Go to the Google App Store and download Globoplay for your device, or get a Roku stick for your TV and load it from there. This is for the GLOBO network.

It costs us $14 CAD per month and you get about 7 -8 channels plus a huge amount of preprogrammed exclusive shows. It's what we use.

Also, on YT you can watch RECORD, BAND, SBT, etc, which are some of the other Brasilian networks free of charge.

If you have a partner that speaks Portuguese, get them to read novels to you and don't ever speak English during the activity. I'm finding this helps a lot. You can ask for word definitions in Portuguese and practice explaining what happened in the novel in Portuguese. I'm not a big visual media consumer so I like this method.

@Nomad Mundo im interested

They really helped me helped me  when i was in a time of need

Most Brazilian Soap Operas suck. 

A few ones, mostly aired during the 80's and 90's had decent plots enough to keep you following it through.

Here's some titles worth saving....

-O Bem Amado.

It's a tell tale of the local politics and odds characters in a coastline town in

Bahia. There's not much in terms of tear jerking romance subplots.  The characters are the series.  It's not a Soap Opera, mind you, It's a Series, with episodes, just like in Bonanza. 

The mayor who built a cemetery that can't be inaugurated ad perpetum, the folkloric Odorico Paraguassu, played by the late Paulo Gracindo. 

The retired gun for hire, who never killed one who did not deserve it, Zeca Diabo, played by Lima Duarte. 

There are several others, but these two steal the scenes.

Roque Santeiro

It's about a small town and its devotion to its patron martyr and son, who shows up unanounced, and alive. 

The city lives of the saint for tourist and the commerce of totchkes . 

Several subplots and its own devised characters. 

The list of featured actors is extensive, all worth seeing.

Rainha da Sucata, or the Junkyard Queen.

It's about a rags to riches story, with several subplots. 

Some actors worth mentioning for their characters played.

Regina Duarte     She is the Junkyard Queen. Overbearing at times, crass, the emblematic noveau rich.  Father starting with the junkyard business. She inherited a string of auto dealerships.  She was, in real life, once known as Brazil''s Sweetheat.

Glória Menezes     plays a has been milionaire

Daniel Filho     Works for the Queen, and is the evil character in the plot.

Antônio Fagundes     Plays an Archeologist. His sister is played by Renata Sorrah.

Aracy Balabanian     Plays a controlling Armenian Mother.  He has a beef with the Junkyard Queen over a land deal she feels her late husband was cheated at. She wants the sky rise office building that headquarters the Junkyard Queen Heiress on the ground. Her three over protected sons run the Parachuting School. Very savvy with money.

Raul Cortez     Plays the buttler. Works for the Bankrupt Millionaire couple.  A class act.

Paulo Gracindo     Plays a bankrupt millionaire

Cláudia Raia     Wannabe Ballerina. Too voluptuous for the role. A wet dream of a voluptuous woman for many male Brazilians

Cláudia Ohana     Plays an orphan who became an agressive news chasing  beat reporter. She rooms with the Claudia Raia character.

Maurício Mattar     Runs a Parachuting school as an air pilot. Hearthrob for many Brazilian gals.  A

Brazilian Woman's wet dream.  He dates the reporter in the plot.

Marcello Novaes    Works at the Parachuting School. A sweet talking womanizer amongst his two other brothers.

Marisa Orth     She plays a comic role here, as the Archeology Professor, as a sweet and timid gall, until she discovers her own sexuality and then becomes a raging ninfomaniac.  She is tall and trophy like type of woman.

Andréa Beltrão     Witty French Educated Woman who befriend the brothers who run the Parachuting School. She is always playing the boys one against the other for her attention.

Gabriela Cravo e Canela.

The original series, aired in the mid 70's is drawn after the book written by renowned writer Jorge Amado.  it's about Bahia of the Cacau Coca boom era, in a bygone time of landowners. 

Gabriela, the main character, is a local carefree girl, who works for a Syrian shopkeeper, and draws the local men's attentions for her devil may care attitude. She is sensual and demuring ,but not sexual.  Played by Sonia Braga, who had some smaller roles in American Movies, mostly during the 80 ( a couple starred by Raul Julia).

The other characters are insteresing, the young and not so young many seem to spend an inordinate amount of time at the local bordello, while the married and proper female guard their daughters chastity and run the moral self righteous local  initiatives. 

Ti-Ti-Ti.

Pret a Porter Fashion World meets a wannabe who can't draw a figure, and yet  pass for a High Couture Savant through a series decepting practices, and yet, he becomes the plot's hero.

Played by Luis Gustavo, as common schemer Ariclenes Almeida  in the plot  , and  Victor Valentín, his alter ego, a womanizer Spaniard Couturier he invented, to perpetrate the mystic.

Tapas & Beijos

Sitcom. Andreia Beltrao and Fernanda Torres play two maids who work at a Bridal Shop in Rio.  The plots are mostly about their paramours, and their sheer poor luck their romantic au pairs. 

The restaurateur across the Street, played by Flavio Miglaccio, as Chalita, a Lebanese emigre, is comic.

The Bridal shop owner, played by Otávio Müller, is also in a way, mildly eccentric.

O Tempo e o Vento ( short TV Series )

This is a saga of generations  going  back to the colonization of the State of Rio Grande do Sul, and through the Farroupilha Secessionist  War, and it brings in a lot of the Brazilian Gaucho  mores, language traits, and their warrior  spirit.

There are several main characters , but one that stands out Capitão Rodrigo Cambará,played by the late Tarciso Meira,  a man born to fight and to equally conquer woman. Full of bragadoccio, bu a character to beckon with .

Written by renowned writer , Erico Verissimo..

The episodes introducting song track was written by Tom Jobim, who was admired by no one other than Frank Sinatra.

This series is not just about men and their exploits.  It's about strong and resilient  women too . The plot starts about the survivor of a frontier family being slaughtered , played by Gloria Pires, and her self resolve to start her family and being self reliant. 

The plots are divided into four series, each representing a distinct time in the State's Heritage.,

A Grande Familia. The latest edition is about the  lives of common people in Rio de Janeiro. You can find plenty comparables in the American Sticom Series. Such as Everyone Loves Raymond, for instance. 

It's a good place to pick up on common every day  language. 

Sai de Baixo.

It's a Stage Sitcom.  Full of gags. Excelent casting. Marisa Orth ( playing a dumb trophy wife ), Aracy Balabanian,  Luis Gustavo ( always the schemer ), Miguel Falabella, as caco, a narcisistic type.  The  many choices of a house maid are always played by a comic character. 

There are plenty others, not to be unfair.  From the late 60's to the mid to late 90's there were plenty good material out there to be seen.   

Enjoy