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Question about order to use FSI courses | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| Journeyer Triglot Senior Member United States tristan85.blogspot.c Joined 6867 days ago 946 posts - 1110 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, German Studies: Sign Language | Message 1 of 7 29 April 2013 at 5:45am | IP Logged | ||
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I just got done searching through this site and reading several threads about FSI, but didn't find a direct answer to this question:
In FSI programs where there are several courses or levels such as FSI German Programmed Introduction FSI German Headstart FSI German FAST FSI German Basic does one need to go through them all? I would assume that if one is going to do them all, it would be in the order that I listed, as the Introduction gives in depth pronunciation drills, which is important (although I doubt I'd take the time to go through 600+ pages of pronunciation drills). Headstart looks more like just phrases. FAST looks like it's more in depth to get a serious beginner's feet wet, and Basic looks like it's what you'd complete with. But my other question is this: If you are going to do the Basic course, is it really worth going through a Headstart or even FAST course? In my case, I already speak German reasonably well, but am trying to refresh it due to lack of use for a long time. I'm skipping the pronunciation and probably don't need the headstart since I'm not a complete beginner. But there are other FSI courses I'd like to use for languages I've not yet studied. Thanks! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| TerryW Senior Member United States Joined 6356 days ago 370 posts - 783 votes Speaks: English* | Message 2 of 7 29 April 2013 at 9:27am | IP Logged | ||
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I'm a little confused, because you say that you have spoken German reasonably well in the past, but you also
say that in-depth pronunciation drills are important? The FSI Programmatic courses spend a lot of time on pronunciation, broken down into the tiniest elements almost to a fault. The first Programmatic lesson for Spanish tests you about 1000 times whether you can distinguish the difference of someone saying PApa vs. paPA. If that, plus starting with sentences like "Wo ist der Bahnhof?" Will drive you crazy, maybe skip over the 1st X chapters of Programmatic, or else go right to Basic. The Programmatic courses *are* very good for learning pronunciation, though. Although most agree that the Italian FSI course, only available in Programmatic, is pretty awful, I learned great pronunciation with it. A native Italian guy at work was surprised, and told me that I spoke Italian with no accent, after I ran some phrases by him. I haven't done any Head Start or FAST courses, but you can probably skip over them and go with the more substantial Programmatic and Basic. I did Vol 1 of FSI Basic German a long time ago (several years after 3 years of high school German), and I thought the drills for knowing when to use der, die, das, den, dem, des, etc. were excellent, but I really like drills. I would suggest trying Unit 1 of Basic, and see if you like it enough to continue on with it, and bag the other 3. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7204 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 3 of 7 29 April 2013 at 10:32am | IP Logged | ||
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I looked at FSI German once and got the distinct impression that the Programmed course was meant to be used before FSI Basic.
The FAST course is more for the spouse of a diplomat. They don't get the full treatment on the language, but important themes like transportation, renting, shopping, etc are all covered. FAST is not so much about grammatical precision but about communication. (Courses for diplomats do place an emphasis on precision of accent, grammar, etc). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Journeyer Triglot Senior Member United States tristan85.blogspot.c Joined 6867 days ago 946 posts - 1110 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, German Studies: Sign Language | Message 4 of 7 29 April 2013 at 4:19pm | IP Logged | ||
I meant pronunciation practice in general is important. I don't need to use the programmatic course for German at this stage, myself. Just that I'd probably want to go through them for other languages that I haven't studied. So, if a person goes over a basic course, it covers pretty much everything that is in a FAST course, or is it that Basic is more for professional topics, whereas FAST is more for around the house, shopping, etc? And yes, I enjoy drills too! :-) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4706 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 5 of 7 29 April 2013 at 4:32pm | IP Logged | ||
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Basic covers everything, FAST covers only the essentials a diplomat would need if being
sent out at short notice. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Journeyer Triglot Senior Member United States tristan85.blogspot.c Joined 6867 days ago 946 posts - 1110 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, German Studies: Sign Language | Message 6 of 7 29 April 2013 at 5:07pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thank you tarvos.
Have you used FSI for any of your languages? I'm going to use it for Hebrew, myself. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4706 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 7 of 7 30 April 2013 at 12:16am | IP Logged | ||
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I used it for Swedish. I have materials for other languages not on my list of things to
work on at the moment. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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