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6WC - August - German Discussion

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35 messages over 5 pages: 1 24 5  Next >>
dleewo
Groupie
United States
Joined 5818 days ago

95 posts - 131 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: German, Mandarin

 
 Message 17 of 35
03 August 2011 at 6:49pm | IP Logged 
LebensForm wrote:
Okay, ya I know I am going to sound very lame, but what exactly is FSI,


It's the Foreign Service Institute course. Here is a link to the FSI German Basic course:

FSI German Basic


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LebensForm
Senior Member
Austria
Joined 5050 days ago

212 posts - 264 votes 
Studies: German

 
 Message 18 of 35
03 August 2011 at 7:02pm | IP Logged 
Ohhh danke! Thank you so much lol.
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LebensForm
Senior Member
Austria
Joined 5050 days ago

212 posts - 264 votes 
Studies: German

 
 Message 19 of 35
03 August 2011 at 7:13pm | IP Logged 
Ya, so I am listening to the first lesson now, but I already know this stuff, so I am not sure where to begin, am I just suppose to repeat after it speaks to me or what? Not gna lie, but the voices sound kinda creepy coming through my lap top lol. Maybe I will jump to another lesson, or maybe I should just go through it from the beginning, how do you guys attack the FSI thing?

This is new to me lol.
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seldnar
Senior Member
United States
Joined 7132 days ago

189 posts - 287 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Mandarin, French, Greek

 
 Message 20 of 35
03 August 2011 at 9:54pm | IP Logged 
dleewo wrote:
seldnar wrote:
On day 2 of Assimil and Deutsche Welle. So far, so
good. I do have one question though.
On the DW audio, the letter "R" before an "O" or a "U" sounds to me like a "T" sound.

Is it my imagination or does the "R" change its sound slightly before certain vowels?


Do you have an example of an actual word where you think the sound changes? For all
the 'r' words I can think of, none sound like a 't'.



The examples I have are from the first lesson in the DW course. It may simply be the
person's accent, but when the character Ioana says the word "Russisch" I always hear it
as if she were saying "Toissisch."

Thanks.
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dleewo
Groupie
United States
Joined 5818 days ago

95 posts - 131 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: German, Mandarin

 
 Message 21 of 35
03 August 2011 at 10:03pm | IP Logged 
LebensForm wrote:
Ya, so I am listening to the first lesson now, but I already know this stuff, so I am not sure where to begin, am I just suppose to repeat after it speaks to me or what? Not gna lie, but the voices sound kinda creepy coming through my lap top lol. Maybe I will jump to another lesson, or maybe I should just go through it from the beginning, how do you guys attack the FSI thing?


I too know a lot of the stuff in the first few lessons. I'm still going through each lesson, but I'm just doing it faster.

For the dialogs, I simply repeat to ensure I have the pronunciation correct.

I think the "meat" of the course is the various drills: substitution, variation, vocabulary where you say your response and the recording says the correct answer so you can tell if you got it correct or not.

As a quick example, a substitution drill would work like this:

- The recording would say "Wo is der Bahnhof?" which is the "model"

- It would then say "Tee" and you have to respond "Wo is der Tee?"

- It may then say "Restaurant" and you have to response "Wo is das Restaurant?". In this example, it's testing your ability to get the correct form of der/die/das. Other drills may test getting the correct pronoun or verb form.

The drills are endless which many people don't like as it can get a bit boring. I actually like the drills though.

Derek







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Luai_lashire
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
luai-lashire.deviant
Joined 5828 days ago

384 posts - 560 votes 
Speaks: English*, Esperanto
Studies: Japanese, French

 
 Message 22 of 35
04 August 2011 at 12:48am | IP Logged 
You guys have sold me. I think I will try FSI. I have been using audio grammar drills for the first time in my
Japanese class and I really like them. I've always heard FSI is "dry" but if that's just because there are lots of drills,
well, I can handle that.
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The Stephen
Diglot
Groupie
United States
Joined 5052 days ago

65 posts - 77 votes 
Speaks: English*, German
Studies: Czech, Hungarian

 
 Message 23 of 35
04 August 2011 at 4:14am | IP Logged 
This is probably a question for a native speaker, but since you guys are talking about FSI German: I remember there being a male speaker on there (he's one of the main ones and sounds pretty young) that doesn't sound very native. For example, he pronounces "s" like an English "s" instead of an English "z" (as in sehr; he pronounces it like "ssehr"). His "r"s are also rolled like in Spanish and not the back-of-the-throat uvular type (sorry, I don't know the technical phonemic terms). I know some regions do use this rolled "r" sound, but when combined with the rest of the way he speaks, he sounds like an American who isn't trying all that hard to sound German.

I was wondering: Is this some sort of strange regional accent or what? And if it is, why would they use an accent that sounds like it's disregarding all the pronunciation rules they're trying so hard to teach you? Why not keep it all Hochdeutsch?

This question has been bothering me a long time, but it only just now occurred to me that this would be an ideal place to ask it. And by the way, good luck you guys! FSI moves pretty slowly, but it takes the time to really hammer the language into your head! Although I must confess I'm one of those people who couldn't finish it, I guess due to the "dryness" or whatever...
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The Stephen
Diglot
Groupie
United States
Joined 5052 days ago

65 posts - 77 votes 
Speaks: English*, German
Studies: Czech, Hungarian

 
 Message 24 of 35
04 August 2011 at 4:29am | IP Logged 
seldnar wrote:
dleewo wrote:
seldnar wrote:
On day 2 of Assimil and Deutsche Welle. So far, so
good. I do have one question though.
On the DW audio, the letter "R" before an "O" or a "U" sounds to me like a "T" sound.

Is it my imagination or does the "R" change its sound slightly before certain vowels?


Do you have an example of an actual word where you think the sound changes? For all
the 'r' words I can think of, none sound like a 't'.



The examples I have are from the first lesson in the DW course. It may simply be the
person's accent, but when the character Ioana says the word "Russisch" I always hear it
as if she were saying "Toissisch."

Thanks.


That is interesting. I always thought pre-vowel r's (as in "rot") sounded, if anything, like a "g". At least in producing them yourself it's the closest English letter to the German r.


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