Are planning on going to a Portuguese-speaking country for whatever reason; on business, missionary work, or for fun... let me give you some help with its practice.

Think that Portuguese is a minor language? Think again!

Portuguese ranks sixth among the world's languages in terms of the number of native speakers. More than 200 million people speak Portuguese today. So there is a market for Portuguese and opportunities related to its learning.

Portuguese originates from the Iberian peninsula in southern Europe and is often described as an Iberian Romance language. This page from Wikipedia explains the language's roots in the Roman empire.

Today, like English, it has spread far beyond Europe, and in addition to being the official language of Portugal, it is also the official language in Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, and Sao Tome and Principe, and is spoken in many other countries. For example there is a Portuguese-speaking community in South Africa! 

According to the Brazilian government business between Brazil and China has created waves of immigration from China to Brazil. The president of the Chamber of Commerce Brazil-China, Paul Liu, says there are more than 200,000 Chinese people living in Brazil, including 70,000 Taiwanese. About 15,000 Chinese arrive in Brazil every month with business visas.

In Manaus, in the state of Amazonas, there are not only Chinese and Taiwanese, but Korean, Japanese... really many people from Asia.

Now, if you are planning on going to a Portuguese-speaking country for whatever reason; on business, missionary work, or for fun...let me give you some help with its practice. Well, there are many places where you can read, listen and watch Portuguese in real time. Look up for Globo News, i.e..

Practicing is the most important part of the process of acquiring a language, any language. Now when you are in US, China or Korea it probably isn't that easy to find a native speaker to talk to, right? So here are a some thing you can do besides looking for TV websites in Brazil or Portugal:

Reading is a great way to acquire vocabulary and internalize grammar, the best kind of grammar actually is the empirical one -- you know it is that way, but not necessarily why it is so. This grammar knowledge can be acquired by reading and listening to good material.

Comparative reading is another nice tool. Get yourself a world classic, let's say Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe, you may have one in Taiwanese/Chinese/English and another in Portuguese, done!

You can go turning the pages together and enjoying your practice without the need for tedious work with the dictionary.

You could use the Bible, yes the Good Book,  it has been translated to almost all languages of the world. It could also be any other religious book of your liking. With the Good Book you may go to a section and read it; like Philemon or better Paul's Letter to Philemon, a one page book. You may read it in your own language two or three times, then go to the Portuguese version and study it knowing all its meaning verse by verse. You may buy "Nova Tradução na Linguagem de Hoje" a today's Portuguese Bible here at Ebay. http://search.ebay.com/na-linguagem-de-hoje_W0QQfromZR8QQssPageNameZRC0021

Intermediate and advanced students can get grammatical help searching the web for "Gramática".

Portuguese music can also be a great help. Here at Ebay you can bay brazilian Bossa Nova music and songbooks . Use the search facility and look for examples by Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Kid Abelha, Tom Jobim... http://search.ebay.com/bossa-nova_W0QQfromZR40QQfsooZ2QQfsopZ3QQsbrsrtZl

There you are! Dear Ebay reader, should you want some help just drop a line and I will see what I can do, ok? Now go, have fun and learn!