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Your favorite language program? | ||
Tags: TellMeMore | Fluenz | Living Language | Colloquial (program) | DLI | Linguaphone | Teach Yourself | Platiquemos | Rosetta Stone | Michel Thomas | Listening-Reading (L-R) | Pimsleur | Language Program | FSI | Assimil | Book | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| oziohume Bilingual Hexaglot Newbie Belgium Joined 4738 days ago 30 posts - 43 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish*, Catalan, Italian, French, German Studies: Dutch | Message 321 of 376 12 November 2013 at 5:31pm | IP Logged | |||||
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As my approach usually includes a great interest in grammar, I am a fan of Grammar books.
Speaking of which, does anyone know why Routledge's: A Comprehensive Grammar series, has only a few languages (and a strange selection, I might add)? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| embici Triglot Senior Member CanadaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4610 days ago 263 posts - 370 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Greek | Message 322 of 376 12 November 2013 at 5:37pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Michel Thomas and Language Transfer are quite limited but I have to say, what I learned
in those programs, I REALLY learned. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4828 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 323 of 376 12 November 2013 at 8:20pm | IP Logged | |||||
Can you tell me / us something about Language Transfer? Thanks. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| embici Triglot Senior Member CanadaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4610 days ago 263 posts - 370 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Greek | Message 324 of 376 12 November 2013 at 8:32pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Language Transfer is inspired by the Michel
Thomas method and available in just a few languages: Greek for English speakers, Spanish for English speakers and English for Spanish speakers. It's all audio and the recordings have a teacher and a student. They are free to download. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Kunji Newbie United States Joined 4041 days ago 19 posts - 24 votes Studies: Spanish | Message 325 of 376 04 December 2013 at 3:32am | IP Logged | |||||
I enjoyed the LT Spanish lessons in your link. I added them to my playlist on youtube. Unfortunately they only have 2 lessons. They don't have enough content to shake a stick at yet. Even a total beginner would probably be better off starting with a longer course. I think MT's method is great and should be incorporated into anyone's studies. BACKGROUND I have been studying Spanish for just over 2 months now and I have tried a lot of different courses and spent quite a bit of $$$. Luckily even though I have only been studying a short time, I have been buying these programs up for years thinking it would motivate me, but it never worked. The first month and a half I spent about 2-4 hours a day studying. Now I am dong to about a hour. This doesn't count cartoons I watch in Spanish with my kids or trying to talk to people on Skype. I feel like I have made good progress in such a short time. When I try to speak with people in a Google handgout or Skype they are amazing at how long I have been learning. PROGRAMS + Pimsluer (just started 2 of 4) + Rocket Spanish (finished 1 of 3) + Michel Thomas (basic course) + Rosetta Stone (half way through 2 of 5) + Assimil with Ease (lesson 17 of 109) + Personal Lessons with iTalki.com tutor (completed 7 one hour lessons) + Verbling classes (attended just a few) + Duolingo (I am a level 8 - give or take a level) + FSI (didn't make it past the first part) + LiveMocha (a few quick lessons) Rosetta Stone, Pimsluer, Michel Thomas, Assimil, Rocket Spanish I like all of these courses a lot. I think I have gotten the most out of Rosetta Stone. Followed by Pimsleur and Michel. Out of these I feel like I have gotten the least form Assimil. I think the method works, it just takes longer to feel the results. Actually I think the Assimil method (understanding blocks of conversation) is the best way to learn a language, but the course is kind of cheap and unpolished. The text was not professionally put together and the accents are not pleasant. That might also be making it harder for me to get into it. Most of my programs are more expense but more professionally made. Rocket Spanish is very similar to Assimil except more audio based. It stars off with dialog and breaks it down bit by bit until you understand the whole conversation. iTalki Lessons and Verbling Personal lessons are not nearly as beneficial to me as my self study. I am not sure if it is the teacher or the format. I learn far faster on my own. Same with Verbling group classes. I will not buy more packages once I finish the lessons I have already purchased. Duolingo, FSI, & LiveMocha Duolingo, LiveMocha, and FSI are free and you get what you pay for. These are the ones I wish I could get my time back and put to better use. Duolingo is a nice looking, polished fun app, but it was meant for people who already know the language and want to brush up their skills. Duolingo is great for taking someone with a background in a language and teaching them to be a translator (which makes sense because that is how they make money). Duolingo is not good for teaching a language. LiveMocha and FSI I could not get into at all. FSI might be a very complete course, but if it is no fun it doesn't matter how much content it teaches. I have nightmares about that course. This wins my all time worse course award. Every time I hear anyone recommend FSI in a post I generally stop reading what they have to say. Everyone learns different, if FSI helped you, than I am probably pretty different than you and I would not do well to take your advice. CONCLUSION All in all, I have still spent much less than the cost of classes at a college or over seas language courses. I have spent more than others and I am okay with that. I enjoy it so it was worth it. Again, I didn't spend all this at once. It was accumulated over the years thinking each one will motivate me to start. I have not completed any 2nd level course. My opinions might change once I get into the more difficult levels. Edited by Kunji on 04 December 2013 at 5:13am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4909 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 326 of 376 04 December 2013 at 10:27am | IP Logged | |||||
I agree that Assimil is probably the best method of a course, but it can be hard to get into. For people who want fast results, things like Michel Thomas, Pimsleur and others feel like they take you further with less effort. But for long-term learning, Assimil has more you can learn, use and reuse. It must be said that the Spanish course for English speakers has a very mixed reputation (I've never even looked at it, so I can't say anything).
Like you (I think) I used Duolingo a lot for a few weeks, getting up to level 8 before stopping completely. I think, however, it is good for more than learning to be a translator. I have been realizing that my French spelling is atrocious, and that is one thing that Duolingo is very good at working on, so I have been planning to get back into it (although not very motivated to do so). Regarding FSI (and hoping you'll read on even though I am speaking in its favour) I think it's very useful. People who turn to FSI are those who realize that all of those "easy and fun" methods aren't really helping them as much as they'd hoped. Yes, drilling is boring, but there's little else to do that will develop automaticity (if that's a word) in grammar usage while speaking. Speaking a lot, like you do on Skype, is good, but you will make the same mistakes, or forget the same unusual form every time it comes up. Personally, I could never really get into FSI sitting on my sofa, text in hand (on a tablet) while listening. I use it when I go for a long bike ride or walk. I use the text afterwards to check words I couldn't quite hear well enough. The audio quality ranges from poor to awful, but that helps train your listening ability. Okay, FSI and Assimil are not for everyone. But the people I see using them are people who are looking for long-term improvements, and are not interested in a quick fix. Those who complain that 3 months is too long to get to B1 will never use FSI or Assimil, but I also suspect they will never get to B1. (Caveat: I'm not saying you are one of those who is looking for a quick fix. But in my limited experience on these boards, often those people who want to learn fast are the ones who don't like long-term courses like Assimil and FSI. You hit the nail on the head when you said about Assimil, "I think the method works, it just takes longer to feel the results.") Edited by Jeffers on 04 December 2013 at 10:30am 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 4144 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog | Message 327 of 376 04 December 2013 at 10:56am | IP Logged | |||||
I could not agree with you more about verbling classes! I took only one - what a waste of an hour (and three dollars. Ha!). It was horrible. Round-robin style, each person saying one or two sentences. I watched several other lessons, and they were all the same. Definitely not the best use of time or resources, in my opinion. If you're not getting much out of your one-on-one lessons, then I suspect that you have the wrong teacher. I think that the best use of a Skype tutor is conversation. I can teach myself grammar, but I can't practice talking by myself. Some teachers are really attached to their "lesson plans". If your teacher won't adapt to your needs (which, in my case, means ditching those lesson plans altogether and practicing in a more natural conversation), then you need a new teacher.
I think that FSI is much more useful for an intermediate student than a beginner. Had I started it at the beginning, I would have *hated* it. But I started it when I already had a decent overview of the grammar. Used as a review, I find it very useful for building automaticity. But I have to be moving to use it. If I'm not walking, then there's no way I'm doing it. I wouldn't do it instead of other learning, but as a supplement to what I do like (native materials and Skype conversations, mainly), I find it very helpful. We all have to figure out what works best for us, based on our learning styles, needs and goals! 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 4144 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog | Message 328 of 376 04 December 2013 at 11:05am | IP Logged | |||||
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As a teacher, I like Pimsleur - my students who work with Pimsleur have a beautiful accent and have
internalized some very useful basic structures. While I don't think that any language program is really enough on its own to teach you a language, and Pimsleur moves pretty slowly, I do think that it's a very good starting point for an absolute beginner. As a student, I also like Pimsleur - but only the first part that I can get for free from the pubic library. It's too expensive otherwise. While I haven't actually used Assimil, I really like the format, and I would definitely give it a try in the future if I learn a language that they teach (although my next language - Tagalog - isn't covered by Assimil). From the perspective of both a teacher and a student, I'm not the biggest fan of Rosetta Stone. I've had conversations with people who've gone through all five (?) levels of French, but can't hold their own in a simple 10-minute conversation. While I can see RS being useful as a supplement, I don't recommend it as the main resource. I think that people can become overly reliant on language programs, overall. A language program can help you learn the basics, but it won't teach you to take part in a conversation or to read a novel on its own. I firmly believe in including native materials and conversation practice (either with a language exchange partner or a teacher) as soon as possible. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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