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If only I’d known about ...

 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes Post Reply
22 messages over 3 pages: 13  Next >>
iguanamon
Pentaglot
Senior Member
Virgin Islands
Speaks: Ladino
Joined 5264 days ago

2241 posts - 6731 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French)

 
 Message 9 of 22
27 April 2012 at 12:56pm | IP Logged 
There are two other FSI Italian courses. The first one is from 1976: FSI Italian Programmed in pdf format but without audio, and a lot of English, unfortunately.

The more thorough course dates from 1965 and is available at ERIC here: FSI Italian Post Language Course 1965 The pdf has 633 pages. There's no audio available and the pdf should be ocr'ed and/or optimized in order to be more readable. According to the preface of the document: "This tentative course, which does not contain either explicit instructions to the user nor fully detailed explanations of grammar, provides lesson materials for a short course in Italian. It was produced by the staff of FSI Post Language programs in Italy and is designed for use in short, introductory courses for U.S. personnel in the field by instructors trained by and operating under the supervision of an FSI Regional Language Supervisor."

Seems to be a good introductory course. It may be useful as a supplement, even if without audio and somewhat dated- talk of mimeographs, stencils, onion paper and typewriters. Hey, what do you expect from 1965?

Edited by iguanamon on 27 April 2012 at 1:32pm

2 persons have voted this message useful



DaraghM
Diglot
Senior Member
Ireland
Joined 6153 days ago

1947 posts - 2923 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish
Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian

 
 Message 10 of 22
21 June 2013 at 3:23pm | IP Logged 
Since my French is upper intermediate (B1+) approaching Basic Fluency (B2), I won't start any new courses. I've plenty to keep me going as it is. I just wish I'd looked into French in Action earlier in my studies. I knew about the television programs, but I didn't know the course books were also entirely in French, with over sixty hours of audio. I've listened to the audio and it's really cleverly constructed. It's not like FSI drills but more interactive and designed to aid spoken proficiency. The audio quality is also very good compared to FSI or DLI

Edited by DaraghM on 21 June 2013 at 3:24pm

7 persons have voted this message useful



vogue
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4256 days ago

109 posts - 181 votes 
Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish
Studies: Ukrainian

 
 Message 11 of 22
21 June 2013 at 5:04pm | IP Logged 
en.fr.es wrote:
Not a language product as such but I wish I had found Anki when I was still at school. It
really has changed my approach to language learning and is now an important part of vocab
learning and practising grammar exercises that I make for myself.


I second this; I would have gotten much better grades in my arabic and Spanish classes!
1 person has voted this message useful



Teango
Triglot
Winner TAC 2010 & 2012
Senior Member
United States
teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5558 days ago

2210 posts - 3734 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, Russian
Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona

 
 Message 12 of 22
21 June 2013 at 9:16pm | IP Logged 
HTLAL!
6 persons have voted this message useful



montmorency
Diglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 4830 days ago

2371 posts - 3676 votes 
Speaks: English*, German
Studies: Danish, Welsh

 
 Message 13 of 22
21 June 2013 at 10:17pm | IP Logged 
If only I had known about the concept of comprehensible input and how best to make use of
it, when I started self-learning of languages.
4 persons have voted this message useful



Serpent
Octoglot
Senior Member
Russian Federation
serpent-849.livejour
Joined 6599 days ago

9753 posts - 15779 votes 
4 sounds
Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese
Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish

 
 Message 14 of 22
21 June 2013 at 10:52pm | IP Logged 
I mostly wish I had realized earlier that I'm an aural learner. And also the huge difference that massive listening makes.
From the more minor things, the cloze deletion format for flash cards.

edit: also Destinos, GLOSS and lyricstraining. And Criminal case game though mostly because they keep adding new cases and catching up is so hard.

Edited by Serpent on 21 June 2013 at 10:54pm

2 persons have voted this message useful



Gala
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4552 days ago

229 posts - 421 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish
Studies: Italian

 
 Message 15 of 22
22 June 2013 at 12:01am | IP Logged 
FSI, without a doubt. By the time I encountered it my Spanish was already at least
high-intermediate for passive skills and writing, but I was not happy with my speaking
skills; I was functional, but lacking in automaticity and fluidity. I went through just
the audio portion of FSI Spanish Basic in its entirety (just finished a couple months
ago) and benefited tremendously from it. But I can't help but wonder what kind of
difference it would have made if I had gone through the entire course, books and all,
when I was at a stage where doing so would actually have been a learning experience
rather than a speaking practice exercise. I did use Destinos (as well as many other
resources, both native and non)beforehand, both books and videos, which I still highly
recommend as a comprehensive course, although I wish I had done the audio for it. But
I'm enough of a fanatic about my Spanish that I would have done both Destinos and FSI
concurrently if I'd known about the latter.

I don't actually want to develop automaticity in speaking French, as I'm afraid it
would interfere with my Spanish, which I will be teaching. My goal for French (and
probably any other language I take up in the future) is just speaking functionality
with a decent accent and advanced passive skills, so I won't be using FSI.
3 persons have voted this message useful



YnEoS
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4256 days ago

472 posts - 893 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: German, Russian, Cantonese, Japanese, French, Hungarian, Czech, Swedish, Mandarin, Italian, Spanish

 
 Message 16 of 22
23 June 2013 at 4:58am | IP Logged 
I wish I knew about Audacity's truncate silence and apply chain features. It's made a lot of courses much better for study, and it would've saved me many many hours of editing courses manually if I had known about it sooner.

Not a big deal, but I wish I knew about the Margarita Madrigal courses earlier in my French studies, since they're really terrific beginner courses. Still getting something out of them though, and I'm quite excited to be using the Russian course from the beginning.

For Cantonese, I wish I knew about the old Teach Yourself/Linguaphone course sooner and spent less time trying to work through the crappy new one.

Still a pretty new language learner though, so I'm sure there will be many more discoveries to come.


1 person has voted this message useful



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