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DLI vs FSI | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| ericblair Senior Member United States Joined 4696 days ago 480 posts - 700 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 33 of 59 06 January 2012 at 9:14am | IP Logged | ||
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Is there no DLI Italian?
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| atama warui Triglot Senior Member Japan Joined 4686 days ago 594 posts - 985 votes Speaks: German*, English, Japanese | Message 34 of 59 20 January 2012 at 10:09pm | IP Logged | ||
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When you speak of DLI courses, do you mean the G.L.O.S.S. material available for download?
I wonder if there's actually a real course to follow for Japanese - FSI only has a text, and that's it, so a DLI course would be appreciated. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| daristani Senior Member United States Joined 7129 days ago 752 posts - 1661 votes Studies: Uzbek | Message 35 of 59 20 January 2012 at 10:16pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think that when most of us speak of the DLI "courses", we're referring to the full courses, most of them from a few years ago, that are available at this site:
http://jlu.wbtrain.com/sumtotal/language/DLI%20basic%20cours es/ Some of them are a bit old, but most have VERY extensive materials, both text and audio. Unfortunately, Japanese doesn't seem to be among the languages available at that site. And to respond to the earlier post re Italian, it doesn't seem that they have Italian, either. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| atama warui Triglot Senior Member Japan Joined 4686 days ago 594 posts - 985 votes Speaks: German*, English, Japanese | Message 36 of 59 20 January 2012 at 10:54pm | IP Logged | ||
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Ahh.. too bad. Thanks for the link though, maybe it'll be more useful for others.
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| dbag Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5007 days ago 605 posts - 1046 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 37 of 59 20 January 2012 at 11:28pm | IP Logged | ||
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Barrons mastering Japanese apears to be something like a comprehensive fsi basic course for Japanese.
Maybe its worth a look if thats the kind of thing you are after? 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| zenmonkey Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6537 days ago 803 posts - 1119 votes 1 sounds Speaks: EnglishC2*, Spanish*, French, German Studies: Italian, Modern Hebrew | Message 38 of 59 21 January 2012 at 12:04am | IP Logged | ||
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I can't recommend the German FSI course - I started with it, it seems reasonable but the tapes are poor quailty and the vocabulary is ancient - it uses words and structures best left to the diplomats of the sixties.
Imagine learning to speak English for America by using such phrases as "Perchance Madame could tell me the location of the embassy?" "Might one have matches?" For German, stick to more modern material. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| daristani Senior Member United States Joined 7129 days ago 752 posts - 1661 votes Studies: Uzbek | Message 39 of 59 21 January 2012 at 5:24pm | IP Logged | ||
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Sorry, but I feel obliged to take up the cudgel in defense of the FSI German course.
A frequent comment that appears on this and other forums is that certain language materials are "old fashioned" and that the language has changed. I think this is generally a very misplaced concern, as most languages don't change all that much. Technology certainly does, and slang expressions do as well, but the underlying structures and vocabulary of most languages remain relatively constant over long periods. Accordingly, I think the criticism of "ancient vocabulary " and "words and structures best left to the diplomats of the sixties" is a bit unfair. Most people learning a foreign language would be happy to be able to attain the ability to speak like a diplomat of the sixties. As for the FSI German course in specific, I rise to its defense because, despite its age and the quality of the audio, which still reflects the technology available at the time it was produced, it's the most extensive material I'm aware of that allows a self-learner of German to assimilate, orally and aurally, the grammatical patterns of German. I agree that the "drill and kill" approach is not fun, but think that it can be very useful for enabling the learner to gain automaticity in things like adjectival endings, the proper usage of prepositions and their cases in different circumstances, etc. (I recall that other contributors to the forum have made this point explicitly regarding this particular course, and there have been similar reports of success from the FSI Spanish and French courses as well, which are of roughly similar vintage.) The course definitely teaches a formal language, but that formal language is still used in German in many contexts, and anyone who wants to attain a high level of German needs to be able to function in these registers as well. The subjunctive, for instance, is still very alive in German, and a learner needs quite a bit of practice to learn to use it effectively. The FSI course provides this in a fuller way than other materials I'm aware of. Re the audio, let's face it: For English speakers, German pronunciation is not too difficult, and is reflected pretty accurately by the spelling, and so the quality of the audio is less of an issue than for languages like, say, French, Arabic, etc. The value of the course is not so much in the audio itself, but in the volume of guided aural/oral practice it allows the independent learner to engage in. Certainly German society, and especially technology, has changed since the time the course was prepared. (I can't recall many examples, but the idea of scheduling long-distance telephone calls in advance, which appears in one of the early lessons, will strike most younger learners as almost medieval.) But linguistically, the language is still pretty similar, and indeed learners with any sort of literary or cultural interests will probably find themselves reading things written long before the 1960s. So I think it makes sense to treat the FSI course not so much as one's sole or even primary learning material, but rather as a supplemental resource to help develop spoken fluency. For that rather specific purpose, I think it can be highly useful. So while acknowledging the age of the course, I think it would be a big mistake for learners of German, particularly those living outside German-speaking areas, not to at least give it consideration, as a free resource that, at least in its volume of audio material, far exceeds anything else available for the specific purposes cited above. Edited by daristani on 21 January 2012 at 6:47pm 12 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Hampie Diglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 6644 days ago 625 posts - 1009 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: Latin, German, Mandarin | Message 40 of 59 21 January 2012 at 5:47pm | IP Logged | ||
Might one have matches? sounds like something that would probably be said using ‹Mann› in both German and Swedish, it’s just English that for some reason detest the third person common pronoun. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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