luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7203 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French
| Message 41 of 68 19 February 2007 at 5:57pm | IP Logged |
Dandy wrote:
If a person were to complete FSI Programmatic Spanish and also complete Penton's Spanish 24, would he be further along than completing FSI Basic Spanish? |
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It sounds like an interesting approach. Vocabulearn would give you a larger vocabulary, and immersionplus has a good 40 minutes of pure dialogues. The translation exercises from "in your car" are decent. I think FSI Basic may give you a better handle on the spoken language in the end though. It has a larger variety of drills and concentrates on a relatively small nucleus of vocabulary. You could develop a real solid foundation with what you have on hand right now though. Programmatic + Penton 24 can probably take you to the point where you could continue learning by reading, listening to the radio and podcasts, watching TV, etc. If you're not happy with your speaking ability after finishing Programmatic and doing your best with Penton 24, Basic may be available at fsi-languages.com.
Edited by luke on 19 February 2007 at 6:03pm
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roy2005 Diglot Groupie Hong Kong Joined 6548 days ago 70 posts - 75 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English Studies: Spanish, Portuguese, German
| Message 42 of 68 02 March 2007 at 11:30am | IP Logged |
I found no "student text" for the Spanish Basic Course in the FSI courses website. Is the text not necessary/ useful?
In addition, what should I expect after finishing just the Basic course (i.e. without the programmatic course)? I'm asking this because there appears to be not many tapes for the Basic Course. I'm not sure whether it doesn't teach you very much, or whether some tapes are missing.
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luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7203 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French
| Message 43 of 68 02 March 2007 at 2:34pm | IP Logged |
The text for FSI Basic Spanish is useful. Since it's not up on fsi-language-courses.com yet, you could:
1) Scout the platiquemos-letstalk.com site for instructions, although you won't find the full text there.
2) Get the book for Mastering Spanish by Barrons.
3) Try to figure out things on your own. Some drills have examples, but in general, this would be a hard way to get going.
4) Start with Programmatic.
5) Wait for the book to be scanned.
Only the first 9 units are on fsi-language-courses.com. There are 55 units. Mastering all 55 units should give one a very solid base in Spanish.
Edited by luke on 02 March 2007 at 3:21pm
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daristani Senior Member United States Joined 7142 days ago 752 posts - 1661 votes Studies: Uzbek
| Message 44 of 68 02 March 2007 at 2:57pm | IP Logged |
Almost the entire FSI Basic Spanish course is now available at this site:
http://www.loquella.com/index.html
They treat the text and the audio differently, breaking them down into thousands of tiny pieces that you do on-line. The disadvantage is that you can't download the materials to use off-line; the advantage, the way they have it set up, is that you can repeat each sentence any number of times just by clicking the "repeat" button. As far as I can tell, the audio is absolutely identical to the FSI Basic course, as is the text (although I've found a few misprints, which may indeed have been in the original as well.)
In any event, while waiting for the full FSI course to be posted on gdfellows' site, you can drill to your heart's content on the Loquella site above.
Good luck!
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BryanH Newbie United States Joined 6344 days ago 6 posts - 7 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin, Spanish
| Message 45 of 68 31 August 2007 at 12:49pm | IP Logged |
I know this is an old thread, but I'm hoping some of you guys are still out there listening... Thanks to everyone for sharing their experiences with these methods. I have just started FSI Programmatic (I just finished Unit 9) but am considering starting FSI Basic (perhaps via Platiquemos?) as well. Luke, if you had to do it again, would you work on both concurrently as you did or take an alternate approach. Also, do you guys think it's worth it to purchase Platiquemos over Barron's due to legibility,extra drills, etc?
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luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7203 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French
| Message 46 of 68 31 August 2007 at 1:16pm | IP Logged |
BryanH wrote:
Luke, if you had to do it again, would you work on both concurrently as you did or take an alternate approach. Also, do you guys think it's worth it to purchase Platiquemos over Barron's due to legibility,extra drills, etc? |
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It sounds like you are making rapid progress with Programmatic. I would finish it off if I could. At that point, if you really like drills and have an aversion to native materials, I'd consider Basic or Platiquemos. It's somewhat off topic, but I think I invested way to much on language programs when learning Spanish. For French, I imagine I'll be able to get by on about $100-$150 worth of materials. For me, learning how to learn a foreign language is the biggest lesson. Each must find their own path and adapt the programs to their personal preferences. Then again, if you like sequential learning, you may not have to adapt as much as some of us.
One lesson I learned is to postpone your purchases until you need them. They may be available free in the future, or you may find they don't suit your style, or they may come out with an improved version. I'm glad I didn't drop $800 on FSI French a couple years ago imagining I wanted to learn it after Spanish.
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F3DRIVR Diglot Newbie United States Joined 6499 days ago 30 posts - 33 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish
| Message 47 of 68 31 August 2007 at 5:43pm | IP Logged |
Luke,
Do you think it would be worthwhile to do Programmatic after Platiquemos? I have completed Pimsleur 1-3 and LSLC 1 & 2. I am currently on Lesson 85 in the Active Phase of Assimil Spanish With Ease and Unit 25 of Platiquemos. I plan to complete Assimil Using Spanish after With Ease. I expect to finish Using Spanish and Platiquemos around the same time. Would I gain much by doing Programmatic at that point or would it be better to move on to Native Materials? Perhaps it might be worth doing Programmatic Spanish 2 only? I have read that it does a good job on teaching the subjunctive mood so it might be worthwhile for that.
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Cage Diglot aka a.ardaschira, Athena, Michael Thomas Senior Member United States Joined 6622 days ago 382 posts - 393 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Portuguese
| Message 48 of 68 31 August 2007 at 7:05pm | IP Logged |
Yes I did 4 levels of FSI Basic and level two only of prgramatic for the extra work on the subjunctive. Behind the wheel Spanish Subjuctive isn't bad either. It comes with 9 hours audio and is available on Amazon.com. Learning Spanish like crazy is very good also. Luke what materials are you using for French?
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