Register  Login  Active Topics  Maps  

Which FSI courses are good and which not?

 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes Post Reply
13 messages over 2 pages: 1 2  Next >>
atropos
Diglot
Newbie
Austria
Joined 5749 days ago

24 posts - 24 votes
Speaks: German*, English
Studies: Spanish

 
 Message 1 of 13
19 April 2009 at 10:59pm | IP Logged 
What I read so far, are FSI French and FSI Spanish good courses. What about the rest?
1 person has voted this message useful



dmg
Diglot
Senior Member
Canada
dgryski.blogspot.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 7009 days ago

555 posts - 605 votes 
1 sounds
Speaks: English*, French
Studies: Dutch, Esperanto

 
 Message 2 of 13
20 April 2009 at 1:32am | IP Logged 
I've heard that the Standard Chinese (Mandarin) course _would_ be fantastic if it used hanzi, but instead it only has Pinyin. Thus, that course cannot be used on its own as can some of the other FSI courses. You'd need to find another method of acquiring the written language. That means there will likely be a more obvious disconnect between what you can talk about (the contents of the FSI course) and what you can read/write (the contents of whatever writing course you end up choosing).



1 person has voted this message useful



DaraghM
Diglot
Senior Member
Ireland
Joined 6149 days ago

1947 posts - 2923 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish
Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian

 
 Message 3 of 13
20 April 2009 at 10:44am | IP Logged 
FSI Hungarian is fantastic. I'd regard it as one of the best Hungarian courses I've ever used. FSI Spanish is a good course, but I didn't like FSI French due to the audio quality. I wish they'd a Russian course with the same amount of audio as the others.
1 person has voted this message useful



Tabula Rasa
Newbie
United States
Joined 5718 days ago

7 posts - 12 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: French, German, Greek

 
 Message 4 of 13
20 April 2009 at 6:12pm | IP Logged 
I'm trying the Turkish that is available in the public domain, but the audio is too fuzzy to really be useful for
anything other than getting a general idea about how a sentence may sound. The written guide makes quite a nice
textbook, however.

My friends who have gone through full-time, real-life FSI courses end up somewhere between proficient and
relatively fluent in 6-10 months, so I'm thinking FSI language learning in general must be pretty darn good.    
1 person has voted this message useful



AlexL
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 7082 days ago

197 posts - 277 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish
Studies: Italian

 
 Message 5 of 13
22 April 2009 at 10:02pm | IP Logged 
Standard Chinese (Mandarin) is excellent.
1 person has voted this message useful



Fat-tony
Nonaglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
jiahubooks.co.uk
Joined 6138 days ago

288 posts - 441 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, Russian, Esperanto, Thai, Laotian, Urdu, Swedish, French
Studies: Mandarin, Indonesian, Arabic (Written), Armenian, Pali, Burmese

 
 Message 6 of 13
22 April 2009 at 10:50pm | IP Logged 
They're generally excellent but, IIRC, the Thai, Lao and Khmer courses don't introduce
the script during the basic course - separate script courses are available though.
(Korean and Hebrew courses do use script, not sure about Hindi)
1 person has voted this message useful



sprachefin
Triglot
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 5744 days ago

300 posts - 317 votes 
Speaks: German*, English, Spanish
Studies: French, Turkish, Mandarin, Bulgarian, Persian, Dutch

 
 Message 7 of 13
23 April 2009 at 1:24am | IP Logged 
Tabula Rasa wrote:
I'm trying the Turkish that is available in the public domain, but the audio is too fuzzy to
really be useful for
anything other than getting a general idea about how a sentence may sound. The written guide makes quite a
nice
textbook, however.

My friends who have gone through full-time, real-life FSI courses end up somewhere between proficient and
relatively fluent in 6-10 months, so I'm thinking FSI language learning in general must be pretty darn good.    


I tried FSI Turkish with a website that provides live audio streaming and a PDF of the textbook. It was indeed
very fuzzy, and you had to listen hard to understand the different consonants. I also found it was a bit vague,
and that you might need a native speaker to help you out. I would prefer something more explanatory, and a
little more informational.
1 person has voted this message useful



!LH@N
Triglot
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 6819 days ago

487 posts - 531 votes 
Speaks: German, Turkish*, English
Studies: Serbo-Croatian, Spanish

 
 Message 8 of 13
23 April 2009 at 11:42am | IP Logged 
I have always heard that people make great results with FSI but I have never found an understandable description of how the course is really supposed to be used (a step by step, idiot proof guide).

Regards,
Ilhan


1 person has voted this message useful



This discussion contains 13 messages over 2 pages: 2  Next >>


Post ReplyPost New Topic Printable version Printable version

You cannot post new topics in this forum - You cannot reply to topics in this forum - You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum - You cannot create polls in this forum - You cannot vote in polls in this forum


This page was generated in 0.4844 seconds.


DHTML Menu By Milonic JavaScript
Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved
No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization.