Portuguese Book for Spanish Student?
 

Any suggestions for a good book with which to learn Portuguese for someone who has studied Spanish for a couple of years? I saw a couple of "teach yourself Portuguese" books in the bookstore, but I figured I'd do some asking around before picking one up.

Very good question satchrocks, since the World Cup will be upon us before we know it, and surprising no one has yet replied. I too am interested although I have heard it can be more challenging for people who already speak Spanish than for those who come to it directly from English only. Good Luck, and maybe we can both learn!

1-Beware of "Portunhol" (or "Portuñol"). It's very easy to mix the languages. You need someone to hit you over the head with a frying pan whenever you stray. Don't lean too much on your knowledge of Spanish because it will betray you sooner or later and as often as possible. Portuguese grammar is more difficult than Spanish grammar, there are more tenses (I'm talking about the future subjunctive and the personal infinitive), the rules for "ser" and "estar" are different, etc. However, the language is not impossible.
2-There is a good book entitled "Ojo los Falsos Amigos" about false cognates. It may be over your head, but it's a good resource. (Come to think of it, the book is for speakers of Latin American Portuguese and Spanish. If you are learning Luso-Portuguese, it may not be of value to you.) I may have the titles wrong, but I believe a professor named Thomas wrote "A Syntax of Spoken Brazilian Portuguese", and there is another book possible entitled "Dictionary of Informal Brazilian Portuguese". Both are excellent. As of a few years ago, there was a Brazilian bookstore in Florida that sold books over the Internet. A Google search will find it.
3- Note the differences in sentence structures. There is a tendency, for example, to express "yes" not with "sim" but by repeating the main verb.

¿Habla español? Sí. / Fala português? Falo.
¿Vives cerca de aquí? Sí. / Mora pertinho? Moro.

Courtesy is important in both languages, of course, but it is expressed differently. Learn and imitate.
4-Spoken Brazilian Portuguese is often quite different than the written language. Be aware of "gírias" and regionalisms. Gírias form a language within a language. Regionalisms of different states/regions in Brazil are as different as they are from country to country in Spanish.
5-Don't trust books that promise to make you fluent in Portuguese in a few months. It's not going to happen. Don't take shortcuts: study, practice, correct your mistakes. and study some more. Many Brazilians have insisted to me that they spoke Spanish. Not true. They THOUGHT they spoke Spanish. Portuguese is a different language and it requires study and practice. I lived in Rio Grande do Sul, just above Uruguay. It was very rare to find a speaker of one language who had studied the other language. The tendency was to take shortcuts.
6-I am a big fan of Luis Veríssimo. His humorous short stories are a great way to learn the language. Stay away from his dad, Erico. The old man is known for his books in the Gaucho dialect. It's not going to help you.

Boa sorte, cara!