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Platiquemos | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| pentatonic Senior Member United States Joined 7253 days ago 221 posts - 245 votes  | Message 1 of 10 23 January 2005 at 11:27am | IP Logged |
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The Platiquemos course is an updated version of the FSI Spanish course. Besides being updated to more modern material, it can be downloaded in parts at substantially cheaper prices in mp3 and pdf formats. Platiquemos site
Has anyone here used the course and, if so, what is your opinion of it? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Malcolm Triglot Retired Moderator Senior Member Korea, South Joined 7321 days ago 500 posts - 515 votes 5 sounds Speaks: English*, Spanish, Korean Studies: Mandarin, Japanese, Latin | Message 2 of 10 31 January 2005 at 1:43pm | IP Logged |
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There are 55 lessons in the full Platiquemos course (8 levels) which mirror the 55 lessons of the old 4-level FSI Spanish basic course. It's a very good course with lots of drills and dialogs, and the books that come with it are helpful. The only problem is that the sound quality is fairly poor compared with courses like Pimsleur. However, this shouldn't make a difference if you're serious about learning Spanish. Edited by Malcolm on 04 May 2005 at 3:50pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| heartburn Senior Member United States Joined 7213 days ago 355 posts - 350 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 3 of 10 02 March 2005 at 1:36am | IP Logged |
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I started learning Spanish with the Barons FSI program, but the horrible book and the speed of the recordings was very discouraging. So, I did the Pimsleur program instead. Now that I've finished Pimsleur, I started the FSI program again. But this time I'm using the Platiquemos version.
I bought the complete digital version of Platiquemos. I thought it was a bargain compared to the AudioForum prices. I also liked the fact that it was all mp3 and pdf. I didn't have to rip any CDs or tapes to get them onto my mp3 player, and I can print out just the lesson that I'm working on and carry that around instead of the whole book. Some good stuff I've noticed: There are many more voices, at least compared to the Barons version. So you get to hear more people pronouncing the same things. Juan is now Juanita, which is cool because the gender difference makes the dialogs easier to follow. Some of the drills have been reformatted. I think this is good because it makes them doable when you don't have the text in front of you. But maybe it's bad if there's some scientific reason for the original formatting. Personally, I prefer not to have to look at the text. But I still find the response drills nearly impossible without the text. I hate response drills for that reason, even though I know they're probably important. The Platiquemos book is more readable. All of the silly phonetic text has been removed and the remaining text has been nicely reformatted. Cultural notes have been added. And I think that footnotes have been added that weren't in the Barons version, but I'm not sure. I haven't examined them side-by-side. Some bad stuff I've noticed: The recordings have a cut & paste quality to them. It's quite obvious that old recordings & new recordings have been spliced together. Even within a single drill you'll hear it a few times. It doesn't bother me, but I can see where it might bother some people. It sounds as if some of the older recordings, which were originally quite fast, have been slowed down. Again, I think this will bother some people and not others. An interesting side note: the FSI program still doesn't seem all that easy even after having finished Pimsleur. The methods are so different that I don't think the FSI drills lose any value. But now I understand them better. I'm really kinda' glad to be doing both. If I come up with any more observations, I'll post them. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| heartburn Senior Member United States Joined 7213 days ago 355 posts - 350 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 4 of 10 02 March 2005 at 2:27am | IP Logged |
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oh yeah.
In case you haven't seen them, there are quite a few thoughtfully written reviews of Platiquemos, both positive and negative, on Amazon. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/customer-reviews/1582141827 /ref=cm_cr_dp_2_1/102-8570353-8236118?%5Fencoding=UTF8&custo mer-reviews.sort%5Fby=-SubmissionDate&n=283155 Edited by heartburn on 02 March 2005 at 2:30am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| pentatonic Senior Member United States Joined 7253 days ago 221 posts - 245 votes | Message 5 of 10 02 March 2005 at 4:43am | IP Logged |
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Hi heartburn, thanks for the information. You mention the Pimsleur course and compare it with Platiquemos; did you go through all four levels of Pimsleur or just the first?
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| ElComadreja Senior Member Philippines bibletranslatio Joined 7244 days ago 683 posts - 757 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Portuguese, Latin, Ancient Greek, Biblical Hebrew, Cebuano, French, Tagalog | Message 6 of 10 02 March 2005 at 7:33am | IP Logged |
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I seem to remeber there was this guy called 'happypup' that had a lengthy review of platiqimos. It's up on Amazon too.
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| heartburn Senior Member United States Joined 7213 days ago 355 posts - 350 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 7 of 10 02 March 2005 at 11:03am | IP Logged |
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Hi pentatonic.
Yes. I did all 4 levels (Levels 1-3 & Spanish Plus). Actually, I went through them all once and then again about six moths later. So, I did the entire course twice. Maybe I'm just a bad learner, but the FSI program seems to be helping me get ideas off my tongue in a way that Pimsleur just didn't. But Pimsleur did give me a very good understanding of the material in the FSI course that I just wasn't getting before. Edited by heartburn on 02 March 2005 at 11:10am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7211 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 8 of 10 04 March 2005 at 3:05pm | IP Logged |
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Tengo platiquemos tambien.
Good things: You can download lessons 1 and 3 from http://www.platiquemos-letstalk.com/ and that will give you a very good idea of what you are buying. It's very representative of the course. The price for the download edition is very reasonable. It is enough audio material to "get automaticity" in the language. (47 hours) Automaticity is a phrase I read today from a talk by the FSI about 12 lessons they've learned in language learning. automaticity is like knowing intutitively/reactively/without thinking how to read/write/say something. The 47 hours of platiquemos covers far more of the language than the 45-50 hours that all of pimsleur's spanish covers. To paraphrase Malcolm's post, he did the 45-50 hours of Pimsleur, yet that puts you only about 10 hours into Platiquemos. Obviously with Platiquemos, you have to work on each lesson longer because it covers more material more thoroughly. Things that make Platiquemos less than perfect: There are a lot of different speakers in the audio. The creator (Don Casteel)of the course says this is a strength. Maybe, but for the one searching for the "perfect" course... The problem with lots of speakers is that some talk very fast, others talk rather slow. In my humble opinion, the course might be more effective if they used the slow speakers at the beginning. One of the slow speakers is a young girl with beautiful diction. There's also an older woman who sounds like an rooster. I believe he said there are 17 different speakers in total. To me, that's almost a gimmick in that the original FSI speakers (who speak very fast and seem to drop the 's' sometimes) will be in the same lesson with the girl who speaks quite plainly. I guess once I actually finish the course, the variety of speakers will end up being a strength. I just think that using good speakers who progressively speak closer and closer to normal rate would be more effective. That's the approach bilingualamerica's course claims to use. That course is way more expensive though. The uneven quality of the audio will probably be a strength in the end too. In the real world, we don't always have perfect acoustics. But, I think the experts at FSI would say quality audio recordings with speakers who have great diction helps the learning process. I think Platiquemos is sort of a labor of love for it's creator. The course has a lot of historical and background information about latin america. Although that's nice, it's not directly related to speaking per se. Perhaps it does help one understand the people better though. There are some typos in the material, and occasionally mistakes. The typos/mistakes are obvious though. It seems to be an occasional edit error, not that the instruction is wrong per se. Bottom line is mastering all of Pimsleur will not take you to fluency (ability to speak with and understand natives well). I think it's possible for the dedicated student to approach fluency with Platiquemos. (perhaps not in six months, unless you're a whiz and have already learned couple languages in addition to having a romance language like French as your mother tongue :) Pimsleur is the wading pool, Platiquemos and FSI are "the deep end". Edited by luke on 27 April 2005 at 11:02pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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