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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6012 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes  Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 89 of 162 30 November 2008 at 1:13pm | IP Logged | ||
Well, I may not be majoring in linguistics, but I think I can answer that. Theoretically, yes, but it would have to be a study of thousands of people over several years -- the effectiveness of the method is incomparable after completion of the intial courses as each covers different material. Compare at opposite ends: a course that teaches just grammar with minimal vocabulary; and a course all based on phrases and dialogues in common situtations. The sort of test the students would be expected to sit are completely different. Instead what you'd need to measure is how long it took to acheive fluency after completing the course, and the accuracy of language in the long term. But obviously everyone is going to go through different experiences, so the set of people in the study must be very large to allow a useful subcategorisation (eg lived in the country; visited the country; never visited the country) or to average these out. It's a massive undertaking, and no-one's going to fund it. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Kugel Senior Member United States Joined 6539 days ago 497 posts - 555 votes Speaks: English* | Message 90 of 162 30 November 2008 at 3:43pm | IP Logged | ||
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I was thinking about asking aspiring polyglots to use Linguaphone for Italian, Assimil for French, and FSI for Spanish; it could be any three languages, just as long as they are in the same language branch. The end goal could be reading articles from a random newspaper, measuring the effectiveness for each language program. The caveat here would be not knowing the quality control of the language programs' lineups: Assimil is great for French, but could possibly be poor in Italian, and FSI's quality could vary greatly as well. Naturally, one would have to follow a rigid learning timetable, not giving one language more time than the other.
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| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6012 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 91 of 162 01 December 2008 at 3:45pm | IP Logged | ||
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What you mean have the same person learning all three simultaneously? Then you would want to do it with languages from completely different families -- the fact that Italian, French and Spanish share so many grammatical rules would mean it would be hard to say for certain that the students actually picked up their Italian from the Italian course.
In your example, I reckon you would find that Spanish would be the students' worst languyage, as FSI's just technical work, BUT it would be impossible to say that Assimil or Linguaphone is better than FSI because it may just have been FSI that taught the rules that they then applied to French and Italian, but that the Linguaphone and Assimil courses simply provided (in effect) additional meaningful practise. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 6152 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian | Message 92 of 162 02 December 2008 at 10:46am | IP Logged | ||
I don't think this would be an effective test for the language programs, even if the article had to be read aloud. To properly test the programs you would need a listening test, a written composition, an oral exam, in addition to reading comprehension. The main problem is how to construct a language test that is fair, and doesn't contain product bias. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| MarcoDiAngelo Tetraglot Senior Member Yugoslavia Joined 6448 days ago 208 posts - 345 votes Speaks: Serbian*, English, Spanish, Russian Studies: Thai, Polish | Message 93 of 162 07 January 2009 at 6:43am | IP Logged | ||
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And here is the Serbian translation of Lesson 1 with explanations:
Ана: Здраво, Томе! (1) Том: Ћао, Ана! (2) Како си? Ана: Добро, а ти? Том: Одлично, (3) хвала на питању (4). Морам да идем. Видимо се касније! Ана: Ћао! (5) Додатак: Добро јутро! Добар дан! (6) Добро вече! Лаку ноћ! Serbian language uses both the Cyrillic and Latin alphabet. Both are phonetic and transcribe foreign names, so Anna becomes Ana: Ana: Zdravo, Tome! Tom: Ćao, Ana! Kako si? Ana: Dobro, a ti? Tom: Odlično, hvala na pitanju. Moram da idem. Vidimo se kasnije! Ana: Ćao! Dodatak: Dobro jutro! Dobar dan! Dobro veče! Laku noć! Explanations: (1) When they call someone by his or her name, the Serbs use the vocative case. For example: Том – Томе, Влада – Владо, Лазар – Лазаре. Many names don’t change their form in vocative. (2) Ћао (from Italian “ciao”) is another way of saying hello. (3) Одлично means excellent. (4) хвала на питању means thanks for asking. (5) Ћао also means bye. It is an informal word. (6) Добар дан! actually means Good day! Edited by MarcoDiAngelo on 07 January 2009 at 6:43am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| MarcoDiAngelo Tetraglot Senior Member Yugoslavia Joined 6448 days ago 208 posts - 345 votes Speaks: Serbian*, English, Spanish, Russian Studies: Thai, Polish | Message 94 of 162 07 January 2009 at 11:06am | IP Logged | ||
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I have an idea that could improve your brilliant project. You have certainly noticed that Assimil makes use of many jokes and aphorismes, witty texts. Of course, thematic dialogs are a must, but instead of inventing complicated scripts at a later stage of the course you could use jokes, well-known anecdotes, perhaps even plays, which would be much more entertaining and much less time consuming. Edited by MarcoDiAngelo on 07 January 2009 at 11:07am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| senor_smile Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6387 days ago 110 posts - 115 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Latin, Russian | Message 95 of 162 26 February 2010 at 1:44am | IP Logged | ||
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I think an active effort into this project would be amazing. I see that it has been more or less dormant for 2 years. I have started cleaning up entries by spammers and have fixed a few sentences to make them sound just a little more professional. Any one else interested in this project any more?
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| senor_smile Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6387 days ago 110 posts - 115 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Latin, Russian | Message 96 of 162 26 February 2010 at 7:55am | IP Logged | ||
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I have added MarcoDiAngelo's Serbian translation and notes to the wiki.
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