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The Cortina Method | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| MichaelM204351 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5442 days ago 151 posts - 173 votes  Speaks: English*, Biblical Hebrew Studies: Modern Hebrew, German, Spanish | Message 1 of 21 01 January 2010 at 12:32am | IP Logged | ||
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I haven't really seen any discussion on the Cortina Method. I find that surprising, seeing that Professor Arguelles says good things about it. I have the Spanish program, but haven't done much with it (yet). Has anyone else used this method? What are your likes/dislikes and how did you use it (shadowing, standard, etc.)?
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| Splog Diglot Senior Member Czech Republic anthonylauder.c Joined 5667 days ago 1062 posts - 3263 votes Speaks: English*, Czech Studies: Mandarin | Message 2 of 21 01 January 2010 at 2:09am | IP Logged | ||
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I have the Cortina books for French, Spanish, German, Italian, and Russian. I like them a great deal, although the dialogs are a little bit dated, as is some of the language use. Also, I bought the books without audio, since the audio is very expensive compared to the books alone. This meant I could not "shadow" and was mostly restricted to reading out loud, which was somewhat limiting.
Having said that, I did enjoy working through the French, Spanish, and German books. Perhaps less so the Italian and Russian - which I personally felt were most in need of updating. For such small books the do manage to cram a lot in there, and I think they get a good balance of vocab, dialogues, and grammar. All things considered, I find them good value for money, and worth having as part of an overall programme of study. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| fanatic Octoglot Senior Member Australia speedmathematics.com Joined 7144 days ago 1152 posts - 1818 votes Speaks: English*, German, French, Afrikaans, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Dutch Studies: Swedish, Norwegian, Polish, Modern Hebrew, Malay, Mandarin, Esperanto | Message 3 of 21 01 January 2010 at 11:33am | IP Logged | ||
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I have the books for Italian and German in hardcover and new paperbacks for Greek and Portuguese. I like them. I haven't used them as a sole means to learn a language but they are very useful supplements to your language study. They deal with conversational language, they teach the basics of the grammar and have a worthwhile dictionary at the back.
The language is dated but that is easily fixed. My older Linguaphone and Assimil courses are dated too but it is not hard to learn the up to date words and expressions. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| MichaelM204351 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5442 days ago 151 posts - 173 votes Speaks: English*, Biblical Hebrew Studies: Modern Hebrew, German, Spanish | Message 4 of 21 01 January 2010 at 5:22pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks for the replies! I think I'll start working through it to supplement my Living Language Ultimate program (and maybe an Assimil course)....
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| OlafP Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5433 days ago 261 posts - 667 votes Speaks: German*, French, English | Message 5 of 21 12 January 2010 at 1:53pm | IP Logged | ||
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After having seen Prof. Arguelles' youtube video on Cortina, I bought the Russian version. I must say that I'm impressed with the amount of material in it. But how do you use it best? It seems to be straight forward with the dialogs, because they are bilingual, but the extensive excercises are only in Russian. I think that I would need a translation, not for understanding the phrases, but in order to build sentences in Russian and then compare the vocabulary and, more important, the correct conjugation of verbs and declension of adjectives and nouns. How do use monolingual excercises? Do you just read through them, write them down, learn them by heart, ...? The only thing missing in the book seems to be an introduction about what the author had in mind. Edited by OlafP on 12 January 2010 at 2:00pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ruskivyetr Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5479 days ago 769 posts - 962 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Spanish, Russian, Polish, Modern Hebrew | Message 6 of 21 13 January 2010 at 3:41am | IP Logged | ||
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I'm still waiting for my Cortina Russian and Spanish to come (I plan on purchasing for future languages, you never know when books will go out of print). I have high hopes for the practice I will get from using the Russian one. It has pattern drills which are important. I am not replacing it with my Living Language Ultimate because of the audio situation, but I am really looking forward to receiving it.
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| psy88 Senior Member United States Joined 5589 days ago 469 posts - 882 votes Studies: Spanish*, Japanese, Latin, French | Message 7 of 21 13 January 2010 at 4:10am | IP Logged | ||
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The reviews here seem to be about the Cortina books. Has anyone had experience with the audio courses? In particular I am curious about the Master Linguist Course in Spanish. Any help would be appreciated. The courses are listed as "in depth" programs.
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| MichaelM204351 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5442 days ago 151 posts - 173 votes Speaks: English*, Biblical Hebrew Studies: Modern Hebrew, German, Spanish | Message 8 of 21 20 January 2010 at 4:46am | IP Logged | ||
I have the Master Linguist program in Spanish. I've been using it for about a month now. I've been very happy with it. It has a lot of info and the audio is quite clear. I do wish, however, that the audio did not have so many pauses and gaps. I'm using it along with Living Language Ultimate (LLU), FSI, and Michel Thomas. I would highly suggest using either tLLU or Assimil seeing that Cortina's dialogues take a good 5 minutes or so to listen to, whereas Assimil and Living Language's are around a minute (easier to listen to when you're in a time crunch). I do think that the Master Linguist Program is well worth the money and time! 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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