Celebrating the release of BYKI Gold Portuguese and the first 7 months of the Portuguese Blog, we offer you, our reader, a fun challenge!

See if you can find the answers to the following questions and email me your answers at codonnell [at] transparent.com

• Name a type of drum used by samba schools.
• Why do Brazilians speak Portuguese (short answer is fine).
• How do you say ‘red’ in Portuguese?
• Name a band from Rio de Janeiro.
• What does ‘cueca’ mean?
• What word do you use to confirm and appointment or social obligation?
• How do you say ‘thank you’ in Japanese?
• What is a common spelling of ‘cheeseburger’ in Brazil?
• Name another Portuguese -speaking country other than Portugal and Brazil.
• Where is the 2014 World Cup to be held?
• Name two Brazilian holidays.
• Voce ja foi a Bahia?
• Name a site that you use to learn Portuguese.
• What is one difference between European and Brazilian Portuguese?
• Name a Brazilian song.
• Name a neighborhood in a Brazilian city.
• What URL (web page address) will keep you up to date on the sites I bookmark?
• How do people in Sampa say ‘Dude?’
• When is Brazilian Independence Day?
• How/Where can you listen to Brazilian radio on the internet?

The reader who answers the most questions correctly, and emails me their responses by December 3rd, 2007, will receive a FREE copy of BYKI Gold Levels 1 and 2 Bundle for Mac or Windows!! (In the event of a tie, we will draw a winner’s name from a hat)

What is BYKI Gold?

Great question. As you may know, BYKI is the terrific software made here at Transparent Language for learning foreign language. We offer a free Lite version in 64 languages, with an upgrade option to the Deluxe, with more features and content, for $39.95.

The Gold project grew out of experimenting with new content concepts for BYKI, and I was lucky to be part of the team that put this exciting new content set together! It was an interesting and engaging challenge, and I am pleased to give the product my personal endorsement.

BYKI Gold is different from BYKI Deluxe in three ways; it is:

• Culturally focused
• Phrase and scenario based
• Progressive in its learning style

It starts at the beginner level, with casual conversation terms like ‘Tudo Bom?’ and works its way up to sentences with advanced tenses and vocabulary. The product was designed to be EASY the whole way through.

I am really curious to hear what you all have to say about it. As you can see we offer the first 11 lists for free, so you can give me feedback even if you aren’t interested in continuing the course, since the product follows the same pattern from the beginning to the end.

Below are the different ways you can get BYKI Gold. We offer a great discount; the bundle (Levels 1 and 2) is just about the best language-learning value in the world, no exaggeration.