DevonAero Newbie United States Joined 4181 days ago 34 posts - 38 votes Speaks: English*
| Message 1 of 4 02 August 2013 at 6:23am | IP Logged |
I'm just curious and trying to stay motivated. I'm working my way through unit 11 and
just thought I'd post a discussion thread. I heard it takes to superior (C1), but I don't
know. It doesn't have to be just for Spanish, but the other languages that you've used
FSI for.
Also my logs here if you wanna read it: http://how-to-learn-any-
language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=36303&PN=1
Edited by DevonAero on 02 August 2013 at 6:24am
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dbag Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5021 days ago 605 posts - 1046 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish
| Message 2 of 4 02 August 2013 at 7:15am | IP Logged |
I think this has been discussed before, and the general consensus seems to be that it takes to about a high B1. C1 is way to high a level to reach with a course, in fact I think the same could be said for B2.
However completion of the course can make it easier to jump into the higher levels,because you internalise all of the main structures of the language, meaning that you can hook new vocabulary on to these structures very easily. It also develops your automaticity when speaking like no other course ever will. I can usually produce pretty rapid, flowing speech when needed even though sometimes I don't speak the language for months at a time.
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iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5261 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French)
| Message 3 of 4 02 August 2013 at 12:38pm | IP Logged |
dbag wrote:
I think this has been discussed before, and the general consensus seems to be that it takes to about a high B1. C1 is way to high a level to reach with a course, in fact I think the same could be said for B2. ... |
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I agree with dbag. No course will lead you to the "promised land" on its own. As messy and uncomfortable as it is, you must engage with the language as it is in the real world in order to learn a language. This means, speaking with natives, listening to native content, reading native content and writing in the target language as often as possible, even while doing your course, especially while doing your course. Look at it this way, DevonAero, would you trust a course, any course, to take you all the way to your driver's license without ever having been behind the wheel of a car on the public streets? Better yet, would you want to be on the road with other drivers who learned that way? That's why most licensing authorities have a road exam. Learning to drive means more than doing a course it also includes practice in real-life driving situations. Platiquemos/FSI is highly recommended here and many learners have used it to gain speaking ability, but it won't take you to C-1 level on its own.
No matter how good your course is, it can only simulate real-life situations so much. You get better at what you're learning by doing. Go back and look at your first posts when you were asking for advice. You'll see that people advised you to use several resources to engage all the aspects of learning a language. If you want to actually "speak" the language then you're going to have to engage it on many fronts.
¡Buena suerte!
Edited by iguanamon on 02 August 2013 at 6:49pm
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luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7204 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French
| Message 4 of 4 04 August 2013 at 8:40am | IP Logged |
For me, Platiquemos/FSI has been a cornerstone of my success with speaking Spanish grammatically correct and often with automaticity. As you know by your progress to unit 11, each unit brings a couple of features of the language into focus and then they can be drilled until that feature comes to you without effort.
I'm with the other posters that a single course may not give you the whole enchildada, but a course like FSI Basic Spanish can provide a solid foundation that other experiences can rapidly build on.
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