So, I turn to the Internet for help. Of the seven (?) that result from my Google search term "practica portugues preterito" two are Spanish-related. There are flashcards such as: http://www.cram.com/tag/perfecto-portuguese-preterito/7 (this one turns up twice, another time under a different address). These are user generated and most seem to have several tenses at once. Therefore, it's useful for those revising, but not for those learning. There are a few that help figure out and practice the different usage of the imperfect and preterite: http://www.easyportuguese.com/Portuguese-Lessons/Imperfect.html and this one even has a cute frog: http://conjuguemos.com/activity.php?id=12&source=public&language=spanish. Again, these presuppose that you have memorised both. There's a wiki list: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Portuguese/Contents/Preterite_tense_regular_verbs. Useful if you don't have the list to hand. Not a great return. The results for similar searches all lead to Spanish-learning websites.
I try an English search term "practice Portuguese preterite". It returns ten, none Spanish, some are the same or similar to the above: two that compare between the imperfect and preterite http://www.netplaces.com/brazilian-portuguese/verb-tenses-an-overview/the-preterite-versus-the-imperfect.htm and http://www.learn-portuguese-with-rafa.com/Learn_Portuguese_with_Rafa_Newsletter-preterite-vs-Imperfect-in-portuguese.html, a quick introduction to verbs and tenses that is handy for those unfamiliar with grammar: http://www.linguanaut.com/portuguese_verbs.htm, a language learner's forum entry: http://help.berberber.com/forum65/15674-past-tense-regular-verbs-1st-ending-ar.html and the conjuguemos, flashcards, and wikis above.
There is a curious one that gets you to translate 91 verbs from English against a clock that counts down from 11 minutes: http://www.sporcle.com/games/benjaminritsema/portuguese-irregular-verbs-conjugation-past-tense. Not for me, but might appeal to others.
This is exactly what I'm looking for: http://www.verbs-online.com/portuguese-verbs/portuguese-verbs.htm. It allows me to practice the tense and I have to write it out, which helps further. The only flaw is it supplies a series of letters with accents or cedillas, but there is no 'i' even though this is required to complete the exercises correctly.
I'm surprised that there isn't more out there. I may be missing things, but equivalent Spanish searches resulted in thousands of results (173,000), some of whom I am very familiar with and have used in the past with students. For now, I can only conclude that Portuguese language learning has a long way to go before it can be considered to be well served by the Internet but there are useful things to be found. I would love to know ones that others have encountered.
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