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FSI German courses | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| tristano Tetraglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 4048 days ago 905 posts - 1262 votes  Speaks: Italian*, Spanish, French, English Studies: Dutch | Message 1 of 8 27 March 2014 at 9:18pm | IP Logged |
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Hi all,
I noticed that there are four courses for German in the FSI archive: - the FAST - the basic - the headstart - the programmed introduction I of course read all the introductions but still I'm not sure how to proceed... - should I do them all? (or some) and in which order? - should I do only the basic? Danke schön! :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| napoleon Tetraglot Senior Member India Joined 5017 days ago 543 posts - 874 votes Speaks: Bengali*, English, Hindi, Urdu Studies: French, Arabic (Written) | Message 2 of 8 27 March 2014 at 9:39pm | IP Logged |
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The Programmed Introduction course will teach you to pronounce the language. I would start with this.
Next, I would do the Basic Course. This course is filled with drills that are designed to etch the patterns of the language into your brain. This is your main course. I am not very sure about the other two courses. But I think they were assigned to diplomats who had very little time to learn the language. They could serve as good introductory material. But why waste time on them when you have the Basic Course. I wish you much success with German. :-) 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7206 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 3 of 8 27 March 2014 at 10:20pm | IP Logged |
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FAST is for the spouses of FSI employees. It is not as rigorous as Programmatic->Basic. It focuses on practical communication rather than diplomatic precision. Edited by luke on 27 March 2014 at 10:34pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Speakeasy Senior Member Canada Joined 4053 days ago 507 posts - 1098 votes Studies: German | Message 4 of 8 27 March 2014 at 11:38pm | IP Logged |
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@Tristano,
I agree with Napoleon. Like most of the basic courses, the FSI BASIC German COURSE was meant to be taught by a qualified instructor in a classroom setting. Nevertheless, although the explanatory notes might seem a little skeletal at times, an independent learner can use it quite successfully, provided that they refer to a basic German grammar for clarification of the notes. I found the FSI Basic German course to be much more of a "stand alone" course than, say, the FSI Basic French course. The audio was produced by non-voice-trained native German speakers, using less-than-stellar recording technology, in the early 1960's. The audio was transferred from large magnetic tape reels to cassettes (perhaps twice, or even thrice, successively), thence converted to mp3 files. Accordingly, the available mp3 sound files are somewhat degraded and are not of the same quality as one would expect from a commercial product. However, if you stick through the first couple of units, you'll become increasingly comfortable with audio; you might even be seduced by Frau Kunze's sultry voice. The FSI German PROGRAMMED INTRODUCTION course was published subsequent to the Basic course, as a self-study course, to help students prepare themselves for the first six units of the Basic course. It uses similar vocabulary and sentence structures, but is much more basic. Generally speaking, the audio is fairly clear when compared to the Basic course. I suggest that you use the Programmed Introduction course ONLY up to about Unit 20, and then put it aside, as the final units are not very well designed. While the "participation" exercises at the end of the Units are interesting, I suggest that you simply try them a couple of times and then move on to the next Unit; you'll get much more practice later with the Basic course. Although German grammar is not fully introduced in the Programmed course, I recommend that you start reviewing the basics (the very basics only) from the beginning. While there must be hundreds of very good grammars available, I suggest that you start with something very simple, such as "Essential German Grammar" by Guy Stern, published by Dover Publications, or "Schaum's Easy Outlines: German Crash Course", published by McGraw-Hill. The FSI FAST courses were also meant to be taught by a qualified instructor in a classroom setting. Some of them are quite extensive, such as the Italian course, whereas others are somewhat limited, such as the German course. The approach is quite different from that of the FSI Basic courses (no sentence-pattern drills). If you make it through the first half of FSI Basic German, have a look at the first few Units. The audio is quite acceptable and the dialogues are well-designed. EDITED TEXT: The DLI HEADSTART German course was published as a self-study "survival" course. While it is very limited in scope, it is fairly well-designed. The copy on the FSI-LANGUAGE-COURSES website looks like it has been redacted; it hasn't. The black rectangles that appear throughout the text were originally a grey background that was meant to highlight important parts of the text. Unfortunately, at some stage in the copying process, the grey sections became darker and now look redacted. If you're going to work on the FSI Basic German course, then you need not pay any attention at all to the Headstart course. Viel Spaβ! Edited by Speakeasy on 28 March 2014 at 5:48pm 13 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Crush Tetraglot Senior Member ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5866 days ago 1622 posts - 2299 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto Studies: Basque | Message 5 of 8 30 March 2014 at 4:32pm | IP Logged |
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One thing to keep in mind is that the German course can be painfully boring at times. I've done the Spanish course (and loved it), the French course (and thought it was ok), the Mandarin course (and struggled through it) and the German course. The German one was the only one i just wasn't able to finish. I just felt it was much more boring and the vocabulary often felt completely useless and perhaps a bit dated. The second half of the course in particular turns into a lot of English to German translation drills which i found really boring and meant you have to carry the book around with you at all times since there is no prompt, just the German translation of what you want to say. The grammar they teach is all really good and helped me out a lot. I already had a pretty good foundation in German when i went through the course, but it helped me with things like adjective endings. I wish i could've followed it through all the way as i was looking forward to finally working on things like the conditional, which i've never really formally studied, but in the end i just couldn't take it any longer and skipped all the drills just listening to the dialogs and reading the grammar notes throughout the last 6 or so units.
The first 12 units are much better, though still suffer from the vocabulary and interest issues, at least in my opinion. But they're worth going through as you'll learn a lot. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| tristano Tetraglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 4048 days ago 905 posts - 1262 votes Speaks: Italian*, Spanish, French, English Studies: Dutch | Message 6 of 8 31 March 2014 at 12:21am | IP Logged |
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Really clear, thank you all!
I know FSI can be especially though and painful, but seems to be the quickest way to learn effectively. I imagine therefore that in order to add to the precision in pronunciation and grammar I should add a resource to learn conversational speech, or FSI covers also this part on its own? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Speakeasy Senior Member Canada Joined 4053 days ago 507 posts - 1098 votes Studies: German | Message 7 of 8 31 March 2014 at 2:27am | IP Logged |
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@Tristano et al,
I support all of the comments of the other respondents. In my opinion, the continued popularity of the FSI BASIC courses is due to the effectiveness of the massive volume of very well-designed sentence-pattern drills. These courses are punishingly dull, but they work. Whether or not these courses are truly "the quickest way to learn" is open to considerable debate. Many other methods, such as Assimil, Michel Thomas, Pimsleur, Linguaphone, and Living Language Ultimate, to name just a few, could yield similar results, if used appropriately and intensively. Adding a resource "to learn conversational speech" opens up quite a different discussion and, as you are just beginning your study of German, it might be a little premature to be thinking about this level of competence. The primary goal of virtually all introductory language courses is to help students make themselves understood in the target language, in common, predictable situations, using a minimum high-frequency vocabulary. The secondary goal would probably be to help students understand a well-intentioned native speaker's responses. But is this "conversational speech" and how well do the FSI Basic courses, or any other introductory course, prepare the student? To answer my own questions, I would say "no, this is not conversation" and "it all depends on you" (and I'm not trying to be glib, here). While others might disagree, for me, "conversational speech" begins somewhere around the CEFR B2 level of speaking ability, which is: "Can understand the main ideas of complex text on both concrete and abstract topics, including technical discussions in his/her field of specialisation. Can interact with a degree of fluency and spontaneity that makes regular interaction with native speakers quite possible without strain for either party. Can produce clear, detailed text on a wide range of subjects and explain a viewpoint on a topical issue giving the advantages and disadvantages of various options." Which courses will get you there? I sometimes get the impression that half of the discussion threads in this forum, in one way or another, attempt to address this very question! Let us assume that you wish to prepare yourself for unarmed self-defense against a single adversary (conversational speech). To a certain extent, the FSI sentence-pattern drills are analogous to Karate "Kata" in that they provide thousands of exercises for practicing the fundamentals. After a few thousand hours of practice, you should have acquired the necessary skills that will support you in a real-life situation. You should realize, of course, that your first encounter in the real world will be with a professional boxer (analogous native speaker of your target language). You will find that, while your technique is good, your reflexes are not quite what they should be. However, the encounter will have been a valuable learning experience and you should seek out similar opportunities. So then, once you have completed the FSI Basic German course, I suggest that you try to find a "sparring partner" for which you might consider visiting the website "ITALKI". Keep your head up, you chin down, and your elbows close to your ribs. Edited by Speakeasy on 31 March 2014 at 2:31am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| lsilvaj Diglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 4131 days ago 34 posts - 42 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, English Studies: German, Italian, French, Russian | Message 8 of 8 05 September 2014 at 12:18pm | IP Logged |
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Does the repackaging by Barron provide better audio quality? I find some of the mp3 recordings available on internet really awful in this course.
1 person has voted this message useful |
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