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LearningSpanishLikeCrazy (LSLC) w/ FSI | ||
Tags: Fake Reviews | LSLC | Platiquemos | Pimsleur | Reading | FSI | Book | Grammar | English | Spanish | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| ElComadreja Senior Member Philippines bibletranslatio Joined 7266 days ago 683 posts - 757 votes  2 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Portuguese, Latin, Ancient Greek, Biblical Hebrew, Cebuano, French, Tagalog | Message 9 of 193 04 March 2005 at 7:12pm | IP Logged | ||
It's things like that which pop up from time to time that get really frustrating. Even in English I would think that it is supposed to be "she won a small cookie." I remember some Spanish drills that have you plug in "de" and I was pretty sure there were multiple places to plug it in. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7233 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 10 of 193 04 March 2005 at 9:04pm | IP Logged | ||
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The fortune cookie example was meant as kind of a joke.
Generally the FSI material doesn't have humorous examples. Oh wait, here's one I think they were trying to be funny. teacher: Why didn't you do the lesson? student: I had to take my son to the hospital. teacher: Oh gosh, what happened? student: He fell off the sofa and hurt his head. So I'm imagining this is a joke about a lazy teenage son. (seems I heard my dad tell the same one many years ago :) I do remember un ejercicio where the "d" sound could be thought of as meaning "part d", when it really means "de" in a phrase. (or vice versa). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| heartburn Senior Member United States Joined 7235 days ago 355 posts - 350 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 11 of 193 04 March 2005 at 9:07pm | IP Logged | ||
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Luke, there's another topic in this category called "Comparing various editions of FSI Spanish" which is a survey of the different FSI versions. Maybe you could answer the questions for the LSLC version? Edited by heartburn on 04 March 2005 at 9:10pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7233 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 12 of 193 04 March 2005 at 10:00pm | IP Logged | ||
Barrons is the first two levels of the Basic course. Barrons also added some cultural notes. Other than the cultural notes, the audio and book are essentially identical to what FSI produced. Platiquemos is an altered version of the Basic course. It is essentially the same, but not identical to what FSI produced. Some (like happypup) would say the original recordings were better than the newer ones. Platiquemos is less expensive though. I agree with the Platiquemos authors that the phonetic alphabet used in the original course isn't particularly helpful since once you know the rules of spanish pronunciation, you can tell by the spelling how things are pronounced. (The original FSI text, which Barrons Mastering 2 seems to have basically just copied, sometimes doesn't include the spanish spelling. (it may have only the phonetic spelling, and a translation). It seems like in Barrons Mastering 1, Barrons may have actually added some of the spanish to the book they supply. At least, the mastering 1 book looks a bit more polished than the mastering 2 book. But I don't think the books are as much a core part of the Basic course. (The audio is the core). One could describe the Basic course as 80-90% audio and 10-20% book. Whereas Programmatic Spanish is more like 50% book, 50% audio. I give the higher percentage to the book in Programmatic Spanish because it's essential to the course. Since Platiquemos is derived from the Basic course, it too is more like 80% audio, 20% book. I give the platiquemos book a bigger percentage than Barrons because the platiquemos texts are more useful. I was surprised to see the LSLC price change so much. I had been watching the site (led there by amazon reviews). It went from $97 to $49. When I saw a sudden drop in the price and what appeared to be both programmatic spanish vol 1 and 2 included as a bonus, I jumped at the deal. I got a "download" edition. That is mp3 and pdfs. No CDs. (with Linux, I can create my own mp3 or traditional CDs.) Since I'm in the habit of constantly editing down my language learning audio files, a download edition was perfect. They have added the "quick start" FSI course, made programmatic spanish vol 2 an official (instead of just strongly hinted at) bonus since my purchase. As I understand it, the original FSI spanish course was called "Basic Spanish". It had 4 levels (2 of which are the Barrons Mastering series). The other two levels are what multilingualbooks.com call "Advanced". It seems to me, what multilingualbooks.com offers is 4 levels. The first two being programmatic spanish vol 1 and 2. Levels 3 and 4 are from the original "Basic" course. Programmatic Spanish was done around 1965-1970. The Basic course was done around 1957. I get the idea FSI was working to improve the course, and partnered with the Peace Corps (as far as budgeting is concerned) to do Programmatic Spanish. Originally they were going to have 4 levels (4 * 25 lesson courses). It ended up begin 2 levels (2 * 25 lesson courses). I got the impression they pulled the plug on the last two levels perhaps for budgetary reasons. And it's quite possible that once you've done programmatic spanish vol 1+2, jumping to levels 3+4 from the advanced course works well. It did for Francois. This "switching courses in midstream" is one of the criticisms the Platiquemos authors have against other people offering FSI material. I don't know what today's students who go to the FSI school actually use. Another difference between the programmatic version and the original (or platiquemos) version is programmatic really begins verb conjugation with the preterite, rather than the present tense. Madrigal's Magic Key to Spanish does this as well. The reasoning Madrigal gives for this is knowing the present tense means you can say things like "I eat a lot", but knowing the past tense opens up so more possibilities, "Last night my {boy|girl}friend and I ate .... and then we ...." The basic course lessons 1-30 teaches the present, present perfect, progressive, preterite and imperfect tenses. Programmatic spanish also hits on the subjunctive tenses in it's two levels (lessons 1-50). The basic course (or platiquemos) lessons 31-55 go into past/present/future subjunctive and past perfect verb tenses, as well as other grammatical areas not concerning verb conjugation. BTW, I just looked at http://www.learninglikecrazy.com/ and it looks like their $97 deal no longer includes programmatic spanish. :( Edited by luke on 05 March 2005 at 5:42am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7233 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 13 of 193 05 March 2005 at 5:23am | IP Logged | ||
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The creator of LSLC also wrote up some tips on learning
spanish. I've been using some of these too, and they are helpful: http://www.learningspanishlikecrazy.com/Ten_Secrets.html "Secrets" I've made more a part of my life include having more spanish TV/movie programming in my life. When I go to blockbuster, I often get a spanish movie. If I watch a DVD that isn't in spanish but has spanish subtitles, I turn them on. I'm not entirely disciplined on this. I haven't forced myself to watch hollywood movies with dual english/spanish sound tracks in dubbed spanish. When I eat out, I usually go to a restaurant with Latino employees serving "mexican" or "tex/mex" food. I order in spanish. They seem to be entertained. Most of these restaurants have spanish language periodicos. Not necessarily "newspapers" per se, but something put together by members of the Latino community. I was doing some of both of those things in the past, but do it more frequently that before reading the "ten secrets" article. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7233 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 14 of 193 05 March 2005 at 6:01am | IP Logged | ||
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Another note on LSLC. Each month they post 4 new
lessons (mp3 + pdfs). Apparently they want to post these on the 5th of each month. In the few months I've been watching, the lessons haven't been there on the 5th. They get posted some days or weeks later. If you look at the posting date of the lesson, you wouldn't realize the lessons were put up late if you just "joined". 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| heartburn Senior Member United States Joined 7235 days ago 355 posts - 350 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 15 of 193 05 March 2005 at 7:55am | IP Logged | ||
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Ahh, yes. You reminded me of the other thing I wanted to ask. LSLC seems to periodically add new material. Is there a subscription fee?
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7233 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 16 of 193 05 March 2005 at 11:12am | IP Logged | ||
The subscription fee I got was $20/month. Before that, $97 was for everything and a 6 month subscription. Edited by luke on 27 March 2005 at 10:30am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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