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Deciding between two Spanish programs | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| Jake Day Newbie United States Joined 5030 days ago 30 posts - 35 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 9 of 16 18 March 2011 at 6:46pm | IP Logged | ||
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How much is a lot? Vocabulary, grammar, subjunctive, conditional, false cognates, voseo, etc.--is everything
covered in the 1970-2000 generation Linguaphone? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| daristani Senior Member United States Joined 7145 days ago 752 posts - 1661 votes  Studies: Uzbek | Message 10 of 16 18 March 2011 at 8:32pm | IP Logged | ||
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Jake, I think you may be laboring under a misconception regarding the FSI Basic Course and Platiquemos: Platiquemos is essentially a reworking of the original FSI Basic Course, primarily in terms of cleaning up and slowing down the audio, and modernizing the written portions a bit, but per my understanding, the essential contents are the same. So Platiquemos will be, I think, just as government-oriented as the original FSI course.
That said, the "officialese" aspect of the course deals primarily only with some of the vocabulary and the settings of the dialogues; the main function is to impart the basic grammar and vocabulary and impart a degree of automaticity in speaking. So I don't think that, after having completed it, you'll only be able to function in a government office and will have trouble asking for the bathroom... In any event, you can get most (well, 3/4) of the FSI Basic Course here, and so can sample and study to your heart's content for free: http://fsi-language-courses.org/Content.php?page=Spanish%20B asic 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| tractor Tetraglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5454 days ago 1349 posts - 2292 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, Catalan Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 11 of 16 18 March 2011 at 8:35pm | IP Logged | ||
I have only used the (European) Spanish course, and it covered a fair amount of both vocabulary and grammar. It did teach the subjunctive, and, as far as I remember (alas, it's more than twenty years ago now), both the present and the imperfect subjunctive. It also covered the conditional. I have no idea if it covered false cognates. I had the Norwegian edition of the handbook, and I was pretty ignorant of cognates between Spanish and English anyway. It certainly didn't teach the voseo. It taught Standard Peninsular Spanish in it's purest form, as it is spoken by the well educated middle and upper classes of northern Spain, without any mention of anything considered either Latin American or dialectal. Although I haven't used the Latin American Spanish course, I imagine it would teach roughly the same amount of vocabulary and grammar. Edited by tractor on 18 March 2011 at 8:39pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| delta910 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5876 days ago 267 posts - 313 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Dutch, German | Message 12 of 16 18 March 2011 at 10:10pm | IP Logged | ||
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I say if you are still trying to decide on which two language courses to get I would say get both. You can't go wrong
with having more hitting power and more stuff to cover when learning a language. Go through one of those courses first and then move on to the other one. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| anothername Triglot Groupie Brazil Joined 5062 days ago 96 posts - 195 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Spanish, English | Message 13 of 16 19 March 2011 at 4:05pm | IP Logged | ||
In fact, you surely can "go wrong" in a real Spanish speaking environment if you mix two different modalities of the same language, because sometimes vocabulary differences can lead to misunderstanding, to say the least. Not to mention accent mixing, and even some grammar differences. In my view, the serious learner should choose a modality from the early beginning, be it mexican, Spanish, etc., and stick to it for a while. Unless you just want to pretend you are learning some kind of "unified" Spanish, which in reality doesn't exist. By the way, there is no such thing as "latin american Spanish" either. What Platiquemos teaches is mexican Spanish, with some caribbean speakers once a while. You will listen to very different modalities of Spanish in Colombia and Argentina, for instance. Anyway, that's my two cents. Edited by anothername on 19 March 2011 at 4:07pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| zashikibuta Newbie United States Joined 5484 days ago 11 posts - 13 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Russian, Uyghur | Message 14 of 16 12 April 2011 at 3:55am | IP Logged | ||
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I actually have both.
Platiquemos/FSI - uses more of the Latin American/Mexican accent but it is incredibly comprehensive. It's learning system is quite different and I feel I could learn alot, if I only I could stick to it. It's looong and not very PC - but what can you do. It forces you to practice your speaking skills - which is key. Linguaphone - 1950s - Found it on ebay. Uses the Castillian accent. I'm just starting it but I love the fact that there is NO English spoken whatsoever. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Chris Heptaglot Senior Member Japan Joined 7122 days ago 287 posts - 452 votes Speaks: English*, Russian, Indonesian, French, Malay, Japanese, Spanish Studies: Dutch, Korean, Mongolian | Message 15 of 16 12 April 2011 at 6:17am | IP Logged | ||
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Linguaphone now has an advanced Spanish course. Anyone used it?
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| TerryW Senior Member United States Joined 6358 days ago 370 posts - 783 votes Speaks: English* | Message 16 of 16 13 April 2011 at 2:58pm | IP Logged | ||
Don't be silly, dictators and diplomats need to use restrooms like everybody else. ;-) From the FSI Basic Spanish I, Unit 2 (of 15), page 2.5: "Where's the bathroom? There to the left. There to the right. There straight ahead." Now, the previous line to the above is literally "Where's the American Embassy," but it can't hurt to know this if you're traveling to who-knows-where. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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