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The correct way to use FSI French | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| Farley Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 7093 days ago 681 posts - 739 votes  1 sounds Speaks: English*, GermanB1, French Studies: Spanish | Message 25 of 44 29 April 2007 at 11:32pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||
French is a good language to change your “study stuff”. What is the best way to use French FSI – cheat! If you don’t like the rules rewrite them to your liking. With French, thanks to an abundance or good study material, much of the free on the web, it is easy to arrange a workable plan. The concept is simple. Both French FSI and French in Action are free on the web, so it’s dumb not to use them. All you really need a grammar book, a dictionary and browser to get started. 1) Watch the French in Action views one right after another back to back, when you get to end start over. Watch until you forget the videos are not in your native language, at you’ve got it. 2) Read the grammar book from cover to cover, over and over, until you have it down pat. Cheat and read the answers first if you want. 3) Start with French FSI and cheat, if you want, by just listening and repeating while looking at the script. Guarantied you will get something out of it, even if all you do are the dialogs. Just watching the videos, reading a book, and listening and repeating FSI (even just the dialogs) can get you to the intermediate level, and from there you should have a good idea about how to improve. After you have given French FSI a try, it might be the best way to use FSI is to skip it all together in favor of courses such as Pimsleur, Assimil, Michel Thomas and SmartFrench. I’d recommend the three steps above to anyone wanting to learn French, before embarking on a plan to make 10,000 note cards or chorus phrases 100+ times, or what ever the latest fad might be. :) John Edited by Farley on 29 April 2007 at 11:33pm 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 26 of 44 03 May 2007 at 4:47pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||
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It came to me today that if I was to allocate 2 years to learning French, I'd probably want to use FSI French as a supplement, rather than the core of my studies. The drill approach is effective, but for me it would make more sense as perhaps 25% of a comprehensive program, and not the core.
The Assimil French courses I have seem better than the Spanish courses. They have better audio and translatinos. The local library has Pimsleur. French in Action is on the web. So this is what I've been thinking: 1st month: a) Listen/read through the two Assimil courses. Don't say anything yet. Listen/read for understanding and to get an overview of the sound of the language and the material in the two courses. b) If exercising, watch the French in Action videos. From the 2nd month on: a) Start doing a Pimsleur lesson per day. Repeat the last 30 lessons starting on day 91 as part of "the memory curve". The Pimsleur phase thus lasts 120 days. b) Start doing Assimil in the prescribed manner, one lesson per day. c) If exercising, watch the French in Action videos, one after another as Farley describes. d) Start reading and listening to Le Petit Nicolas by Sempé/Goscinny. Initially, you're reading the translation. As you progress, you're reading it in French. As that gets easy, you start shadowing the audio. e) Start doing a little FSI Basic French each day. The goal is to complete about one unit per month. At that pace, it will take two years to go through the course. I don't know exactly how well this will work, but based on my experience with learning Spanish, as well as exposure to the materials listed above, I think it would be a more effective strategy than what I used for learning Spanish. For Spanish, I focused very heavily on FSI, which is better suited to the "sequential learner". I prefer the "global" approach. Edited by luke on 05 May 2007 at 1:38pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||
| leosmith Senior Member United States Joined 6551 days ago 2365 posts - 3804 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Tagalog | Message 27 of 44 03 May 2007 at 9:35pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||
Linguamor? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Linguamor Decaglot Senior Member United States Joined 6619 days ago 469 posts - 599 votes Speaks: English*, German, Italian, Spanish, Swedish, Danish, French, Norwegian, Portuguese, Dutch | Message 28 of 44 04 May 2007 at 3:07am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||
The videos are the only components of the French In Action course that I am familiar with. I think they are an excellent source of comprehensible input for the beginning French learner. I think it's a good idea to jump-start language learning with Pimsleur - it's gives you a good start with pronunciation and aural comprehension. Edited by Linguamor on 04 May 2007 at 3:10am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||
| montyd Newbie United States Joined 6540 days ago 32 posts - 38 votes Speaks: English* | Message 29 of 44 04 May 2007 at 5:13pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||
I couldn't disagree with you more. First, if you know the language well then sure you can build up a personalised course by taking the best bits from others. But one of the problems you face as a learner is that you don't yet know what you need to learn. And as someone who has tried this sort of thing in the past, you soon move from switching between textbooks because you think that something is explained better, to switching because another way sounds easier (even if it only makes it easier by missing out large chunks), to switching because you can't be bothered, to just giving up completely. So start off at first by exploring the different courses around, and maybe trying out one or two lessons of what you think are the best. But then pick one course, follow it pretty much as it tells you to, and stick with it right to the end. Yes there will be times when it gets a bit dull, and times when you get so stuck that you hurl it into a corner and do nothing for a few weeks. That is part of the learning process, and finally getting past those walls brings its own satisfaction. And having one wall to attack is a lot easier in the end than just vaguely fizzling out on 3 or 4 courses without being able to say exactly what the problem is. Then once you finish your course completely you should be in a far better position to assess the other courses available, and to see where they are better or worse than what you have done ( and if they all still look hard then your first course was rubbish, no matter how good it made you feel - and that means you Michel Thomas). Finally, the FSI courses are to some extent based around the assumption that you will stick it out to the end. Vocabulary is introduced gradually, but lots of grammatical concepts appear in early dialogues but are not explained until later chapters. When the explanation appears you usually understand it because it answers a few questions that you had about those early dialogues. And the more effort you put into learning the dialogues by heart, the more questions you will have waiting for later answers. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||
| leosmith Senior Member United States Joined 6551 days ago 2365 posts - 3804 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Tagalog | Message 30 of 44 04 May 2007 at 8:02pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||
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Well, I didn't mean to start a debate about changing learning tactics, but this is interesting so let's continue!
When I said my methods aren't the best, I should have explained a little better. First, let me say I've had a great deal of success with languages. I attribute this mostly to my desire to learn, and willingness to work hard. But I sort of "hit the wall" with Japanese, a diabolically difficult language. I got over the hump by busting mine. That's when my methods, which involve a high percentage of drilling, became a lot more tedious than I'd like. But drilling is the way I learn best. It's almost impossible for me to pick up words passively, for example. I have to hear words dozens of times before they sink in this way. Another example, I have to use a study list with Pimsleur (not at the same time, but on the same day) to avoid having to listen to lessons a dozen times. With a word list, I exceed the 80% mark, which Pimsleur requires, in 2 or 3 listens. I have this yearning to become a better passive learner, something like Linguamor and Ardaschir. I'm 45, so this may not be possible, but I'll experiment by at least moving a little bit in that direction. It just sounds so much more appealing not to have to drill or use flashcards. Read books, watch TV, talk to people - sounds like more fun to me. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||
| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6944 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 31 of 44 05 May 2007 at 12:48pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||
Leo, your success may be more of a "problem" than your age. Looking at the impressive list of languages you speak, it seems unlikely that you haven't by now zoomed in on the techniques that work well for you, and weeded out those that don't. I will hazard a guess that you can learn more "passively", but that you will find the gained fun factor offset by the whole process taking longer than with your tried and true methods. That's not to say you can't find some areas of improvement with judicious experimentation, but for a more radical change you have to be prepared to lose some time, possibly irretrievably. In my own case, after reading a number of Lingamor's and Ardaschir's posts and looking back on my own experimentation of the last 12 to 14 months with Italian and German, excluding the elements of their approaches that are already present in my way of learning, the only area where I still see a chance of a fairly radical change that could potentially bear fruit is Ardaschir's idea of relying on bilingual editions for an extended period of time for vocabulary acqusition - again, this is just my experience, which may be different for others.
I also found it more efficient not to use multiple courses at the same time. That still leaves the choice of whether to master one course and just move on to the next level or go through several foundational courses. With one course one moves faster to the next level, which is especially important for those with limited time for studying, but one is also more likely to be left with "holes" in the fundamentals that way, so if one's study schedule is leisurely enough, there are some benefits to going through more than one course. Doing so sequentially rather than in parallel may be one way to alleviate the attention span problem you mention. Edited by frenkeld on 05 May 2007 at 5:28pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Farley Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 7093 days ago 681 posts - 739 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, GermanB1, French Studies: Spanish | Message 32 of 44 05 May 2007 at 1:50pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||
…And I couldn’t disagree with you more. Really I don’t see how your objections refute anything that I wrote above. My intention is to draw attention to good material to use rather than explicitly say how to use them. If anyone is looking for a way to learn a language without exclusively relying on note cards and drills then French is a good candidate – mostly due to the a course called French in Action.
I completely agree with you. That is why I recommended in step 2 to “Read the grammar book from cover to cover, over and over, until you have it down pat.” The point here is to know what there is to master first before turning to drills and note cards.
I don’t see the disagreement here.
I don’t see the disagreement here either. You name the French course, I have probably tried it, bought it, or borrowed it. Base on my experience, I tried to pass on specific courses and specific techniques that would make learning French easier. The three steps I listed above will teach, “what you need to learn” with the least amount of pain.
If you follow the steps I listed above you will be in the similar position. I wish I could claim it for my own but I was following this guy's recommendation. I followed his advice and it worked for me. In fact, I second everything he has to stay about “French in Action” and “Conversational French in 20 Lessons”. My recommendations are just footnotes.
Yes, but given the quantity and quality of French learning material you can use FSI as a supplement just as Luke mentions above. I would recommend at least trying French FSI up to lesson 5 before deciding not to use the course and going with something else. Other “something else” combinations for step 3 would include: Pimsleur and the French in Action audio and workbook components Or an Assimil, Michel Thomas and SmartFrench combination 1 person has voted this message useful |
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