I have about 80 a month and 6 hours a week for Portuguese. Option A is two 30 minute sessions weekly with a structured teacher. Option B is free self study with a grammar book plus one hour of conversation practice with a much cheaper community tutor. I am roughly A2 and my problem is that I understand far more than I can say. Which is the better use of the money at this level?
Two 30 minute sessions beat one 60 minute session for retention, so do not dismiss A entirely. But at this budget I would do the conversation hour plus one structured lesson a month where you bring the specific things that broke.
Whatever you pick, the 6 hours a week matters more than the 80. Lessons are where you find your holes, the rest of the week is where you fill them. People buy lessons, do nothing between them, and then wonder why it is slow.
Just use a free language exchange, paid tutors are a waste at A2.
Exchanges are great for confidence and poor for correction — the other person is usually being polite, and half your hour ends up in English. Worth doing alongside, not instead.
@brine_percent_bo · 12mo ago · 3 replies
B, but not for the reason you think. At A2 with an output problem, what you are buying is speaking minutes, and a structured teacher will spend half of each 30 minute slot explaining things you can get from a book for free. Buy the cheapest competent human who will let you talk for the full hour and correct you afterwards. Save the structured teacher for when you hit a wall you cannot name yourself.
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@seedstart_sib · 12mo ago
How do you ask them to correct you without them interrupting constantly?
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@brine_percent_bo · 12mo ago
Tell them at the start: note the mistakes, do not interrupt unless I am incomprehensible, send me the list at the end. Any decent tutor already has a system for this.
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