Portuguese Language Program Objective

The Boston Language Institute, New England’s leading language school, offers Portuguese language courses to individuals and companies. The quality of instruction provided in our Portuguese language classes are on a par with the best native Portuguese language school.

We consider it to be the major goal of our program to have you use Brazilian Portuguese in as large a variety of real-life situations as possible. To that end, our Brazilian Portuguese courses have been designed to build fluency in both the spoken and the written language. Communication in a warm and relaxed environment is an important feature of our programs, as is homework, which includes exercises for review and practice of the material taught in class. Moreover, by keeping the class size limited to twelve students, we ensure that each student will be able to actively participate.

Portuguese Level 1
Upon completion of this course, students can expect to be able to hold basic conversations about their daily activities using present and future tenses. This course aims to provide beginning students with a practical command of the vocabulary and grammar of the language. Topics include phonetics, expressions of time and quantity, subject pronouns, articles, possessives, interrogatives, and the present indicative, present progressive and compound future tenses of common verbs.
(Travessia, Preliminary Unit-Unit Three, Part One)

Portuguese Level 2
Upon completion of this course, students should be able to converse with greater ease on an increasing range of topics as well as being able to read and write longer texts. Building upon the basic foundation provided in Level 1, topics include prepositions, contractions, irregular verbs, demonstrative pronouns, ordinal numbers, adverbs, pronouns and tag questions. Students develop their ability to conjugate verbs in the preterit imperfect, preterit perfect, past progressive and present indicative verb tenses.
(Travessia, Unit Three, Part Two-Unit Five)

Portuguese Level 3
Building upon the skills studied in Level 2, students rapidly expand their vocabulary and begin to express themselves more precisely as they learn to use the simple future, past perfect and subjunctive tenses. Among the topics introduced at this level are idiomatic expressions, object pronouns, reflexive verbs, comparative and superlative forms, telling time, adverbs, and the passive voice.
(Travessia, Unit Six-Unit Eight, Part One)

Portuguese Level 4
Upon completion of this course, students should be able to discuss with greater precision topics including Southeastern and Southwestern Brazil, travel, study, work and festive occasions. Building upon the skills already acquired, students study reflexive verbs and pronouns, linking words, adjective and adverb clauses, diminutive and augmentative forms, and the preterit future tense.
(Travessia, Unit Eight, Part Two-Unit Ten)

Portuguese Level 5
For students who wish to further expand their skills, this course introduces more advanced topics including the compound subjunctive and the personal infinitive. This course helps students to tie together all the elements of grammar and usage covered up to this point. Students practice and refine their skills by discussing topics including Southern Brazil, media, sports and other social activities, clothing, parts of the body and health.
(Travessia, Units Eleven and Twelve)

Conversational Portuguese
This program is designed for students who are already proficient in the skills taught in Levels 1-5 and who want to increase their conversational abilities. Conducted entirely in Portuguese, this course provides students with an opportunity to markedly improve their speaking and listening skills. Magazines, video and audio tapes, and other resources designed to provide practical opportunities for vocabulary and skill development are selected to match student interests. Grammatical topics are addressed as needed.

Private Programs

Immersion Program

Text and Supplementary Materials

Since communication in a foreign language requires an understanding of the cultural context, our aim is to teach you the living language through carefully selected textbooks, newspaper and magazine articles and other relevant materials, rather than have you repeat and memorize tourist phrases.

Over the past twenty years, we have reviewed many university-level Portuguese textbooks and have selected Travessia as the one that best fulfills the objectives of our students in beginning and intermediate levels. Corresponding to the lessons in this book is a complete set of tapes with challenging exercises, which you may borrow for home listening from our Cassette Lending Library. Teachers provide suggestions for texts and supplementary materials at the higher levels. Books may be purchased at the Boston University Bookstore, 660 Beacon St., Boston or from our on-line bookstore specializing in foreign language textbooks, study guides and audiocassettes.

Tuition and Course Organization

Tuition for the Portuguese program at all levels is $449. There is a non-refundable $35 registration fee for first-time students only.

In addition to our core program, we offer a Daytime Intensive program which covers three to four semesters in eight weeks - offering the greater likelihood of actually speaking, as well as reading and writing, the language than a traditional university course. Tuition for the Daytime Intensive Program is $1,796.

The Boston Langauge Institute Guarantee

Because of the individualized nature of our programs and the high quality of our instruction, we guarantee your satisfaction. If you are not satisfied with the quality of instruction within the first two weeks of a main session, or the first week of an accelerated session, we will refund your tuition in full.
Refund requests must be made no later than the business day after the second meeting of a once-a-week or the fourth meeting of a twice-a-week class of a Main Session; and no later than the business day after the first meeting of a once-a-week or the second meeting of a twice-a-week class of an Accelerated Session.

Class Schedules

We encourage students to register at least a week before the session starts, especially since classes are limited to 12 students. A Program Coordinator will be happy to take registration information by phone (617-262-3500 x241), fax or e-mail.