|
 |
Digitizing FSI | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| delectric Diglot Senior Member China Joined 7181 days ago 608 posts - 733 votes  Speaks: English*, Mandarin Studies: German | Message 185 of 237 22 September 2005 at 11:15am | IP Logged |
|
Yes I've scanned FSI books units 1-6.
Each FSI book if taken to pieces would take an hour on a manual scanner, if done efficiently. However, if you have a feeder into a photocopier that's hooked up to a computer then the process is even quicker. An hour isn't so bad though. Put a DVD on or do some foreign language learning while you scan and your time isn't wasted. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| czech Senior Member United States Joined 7194 days ago 395 posts - 378 votes Studies: English* | Message 186 of 237 24 September 2005 at 2:02pm | IP Logged |
|
By the way, Standard Chinese is not the only course available for Mandarin from the DLI. There is a DLI Mandarin Basic course which consists of 180 lessons, and deals with characters and speech, I think this is what Francois mentioned in another post but they are out of stock. The guy on the phone I talked to (at the DLI) said that it trains you to speak at a level 3 (same as FSI Spanish) and read and write at a level 2 (which probably means you learn to write everything you speak, but with literary vocabularies being much bigger, a 2 is equal to the vocab of 3 speaking).
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| cheemaster Newbie Canada Joined 7045 days ago 35 posts - 35 votes | Message 187 of 237 25 September 2005 at 3:42pm | IP Logged |
|
I apologize for my ignorance, but I am rather new to this forum, and reading through 24 pages of posts is not something I have time for.
I understand that some parts of some courses have been digitized, but are not yet available? I also understand that a member of this site has an ftp (I have attempted to contact malcolm, but he does not seem to be active anymore). Could someone explain to me what stage the digitizing process is at, and who will have access to the courses when it is complete? Thanks Note, I have both the knowledge and equipment to assist in this, but not the actual material. Perhaps I could assist with noise reduction, encoding, etc. (edited for clarity) Edited by cheemaster on 19 October 2005 at 12:26pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| braveb Senior Member United States languageprograms.blo Joined 7197 days ago 264 posts - 263 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, French | Message 188 of 237 18 October 2005 at 9:03pm | IP Logged |
|
I was able to get FSI MSA volume one from a friend of mine. Not to sound selfish, but I think I could only digitize the text and audio if I would see some financial return. Being a studnet and working fulltime just doesn't leave a whole lot of time. Would charging something small like $15-25 be wrong? The course is from the NTIS by the way. Compared to spending almost $300, I think $20 would be pretty fair. Edited by braveb on 18 October 2005 at 9:04pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Duke Groupie United States Joined 7019 days ago 76 posts - 79 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin | Message 189 of 237 18 October 2005 at 9:52pm | IP Logged |
|
Message deleted. Edited by Duke on 18 October 2005 at 9:56pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| braveb Senior Member United States languageprograms.blo Joined 7197 days ago 264 posts - 263 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, French | Message 190 of 237 24 October 2005 at 6:17pm | IP Logged |
|
Would it even be economical to go offer FSI courses for free/chump change? To hire someone to print and bind a book would cost about $30. Cassette tapes probably another 5-7 dollars. Even though I got the courses for free, and the costs for xdrive and hosting a website would be minimal, I would need to sell at least 50 copies to even make it worth while. Would people really pay 40-50 dollars(hard copy) for copied versions of these programs?
And how much would it cost per program? One program of mine has 550 pages and 35 cassette tapes(well over 40 hours). That program alone would probably take about 45 hours to work on, plus internet fees. If I offered it for a digital version, only one person would need to dowload it, and then he could just share it via xdrive. It's public domain so of course I don't have a problem over it, but it would be nice to see some return on a 40-50 hour project. I was thinking $15 for a complete download, text and audio. Let me know what you think. Edited by braveb on 24 October 2005 at 7:04pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| patuco Diglot Moderator Gibraltar Joined 7015 days ago 3795 posts - 4268 votes Speaks: Spanish, English* Personal Language Map | Message 191 of 237 25 October 2005 at 6:11am | IP Logged |
|
This would interest me since I presume that by MSA above you are referring to Modern Standard Arabic.
What size download are you talking about? I'm guessing that if there are 35 tapes and 550 pages its quite a few GB. That might be a problem since I don't have a very fast connection (1 MB takes a couple of minutes). 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| braveb Senior Member United States languageprograms.blo Joined 7197 days ago 264 posts - 263 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, French | Message 192 of 237 25 October 2005 at 6:43pm | IP Logged |
|
Well, my Hebrew program has 550 pages and 35 tapes. I plan on having 550 slides via powerpoint. I don't have an OCR to read semetic script. The MSA program is not nearly as large.
If anyone can suggest a better idea on how to present the text, I'm all ears. I guess I can put the powerpoint slides on a CD, and the same for the audio. But I want to keep the cost as low as possible. 1 person has voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
