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| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5373 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 201 of 344 18 July 2014 at 4:35pm | IP Logged |
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I found having a printed copy was preferable also. I bought the Barron's books on Amazon for $0.50 plus shipping. Well worth it. I only wish they had the third and fourth books.
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| BOLIO Senior Member United States Joined 4656 days ago 253 posts - 366 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 202 of 344 18 July 2014 at 7:11pm | IP Logged |
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Nice call. I just bought Level 2 from Barrons for $1.99. Much cheaper than ink toner.
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| Crush Tetraglot Senior Member ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5863 days ago 1622 posts - 2299 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto Studies: Basque | Message 203 of 344 19 July 2014 at 2:21am | IP Logged |
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With Platiquemos it's not really necessary to pre-read the dialogs as they're introduced with the English translation, but the notes are really helpful (i'd go so far as to say necessary, especially if you're using it from a beginner level).
Also, in Spain i was able to print out the FSI French and German courses relatively cheaply, i think it cost me around 30€ to print out both (that is, around 15€ each). There might be something similar in the US. It's not quite that cheap, but at Lulu i believe you could print volume 3 of the FSI Spanish course for about $20, and that would be bound (not loose pages). There're also tons of useless pages, like the vocab pages at the end, which you could leave out. Anyway, just a thought. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5260 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 204 of 344 19 July 2014 at 1:41pm | IP Logged |
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I gave up print a long time ago. I find a tablet works great for indoor pdf reading. When HP decided they wanted to take on Apple in the tablet market with the "touchpad" I snagged a 32 gb model for $99 when the inevitable happened and they discontinued it.
What I like is the ease of paging, ability to increase font size, take notes, highlight words all at the touch of a finger. Also, not necessarily for FSI, but there's the ability to simultaneously read and listen to the mp3 files- all while reclining on the sofa or in the sack. My HP touchpad gave up the ghost a few months ago and I found a Chinese "Cube" tablet ideal for what I need. Running the latest version of Android and with a "retina" screen all for $150, I thought it was a good deal. A couple of weeks ago, I bought a cheap $47 7 inch new generic Chinese tablet from ebay. Battery life is short, memory low, but even with just 8 gb it can hold several pdf courses and accompanying audio. If you travel a lot, it sure makes it easier to carry all your course materials with you. When I was studying Haitian Creole intensely, almost all my material was pdf and mp3- DLI course, IU course, KU listen and read, etc. If I would've had to have had printed versions of everything, I would've been out at least $150. That right there justifies the cost of a tablet. Now, my Ladino courses were only available in book form. What a drag. Windows are open all the time here in the tropics. I go to pause the mp3, a breeze comes up and blows me off my page. Or, I have to have the fan blowing on me and, whooosh, there go the pages. The books, including my thick paper dictionary take up space in my bag and weight. Plus, hot, damp tropical weather is pure hell on paper. I'll gladly do without the "tactile" experience and "the something about having a real book" thing. Give me pdf's! But, whatever works for y'all is fine. Me, I'll never go back. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Crush Tetraglot Senior Member ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5863 days ago 1622 posts - 2299 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto Studies: Basque | Message 205 of 344 19 July 2014 at 9:43pm | IP Logged |
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To a large extent i agree with you, though for FSI files your average tablet is really just not big enough. A few months back i went and shelled out $300 for a large-screen Onyx Boox eReader. I honestly can't say that i like it better than a book, it's pretty slow and jumping back and forth between pages (for example, checking answers in the back or looking over a verb chart) is a bit of a pain, but overall if you're just going from left to right, page 1 to page 100, it serves my purposes just fine. I haven't actually used it to read any books, just for study, and i think that's where the convenience will really come in.
For me it's not so much that "something about having a real book", it's being able to easily flip back and forth between pages, check a chart on the previous page, jump to chapter 2 real quick to review irregular 1st conjugation verbs, etc. I agree that it's great to have everything in one place and i'm not upset that i bought it, but if i had the option i'd still prefer to have a paper version of the book. Maybe when the ink screens get better and aren't so slow it won't be so much of an issue. Both have positive and negative things to them, i think the positives to a tablet/eReader far outweigh the negatives, but they aren't perfect and still frustrate me. Tablets tend to be faster, but i still don't think they're as fast as flipping back and forth in a paper book. They're also harder to see when you're outside and that's where i prefer to study. If there is a nice index, though, that helps a lot. (EDIT: By index i mean a sort of Table of Contents where you can click on the chapter to jump to) One thing that makes me shudder just thinking about it is having to use a paper dictionary, ever since i got a small Android phone to load Pleco on i've really enjoyed having Goldendict on there as well, loaded with tons of Spanish, French, Italian, Catalan, Basque, etc. dictionaries so i never have to waste time flipping through a paper one ever again. Before i just wrote words down and looked them up in online dictionaries. I still do that a lot since it's much easier to type on a computer than on a small tablet, but if i really want to know it's right there. What i did with the FSI courses i printed out was have two piles, one pile for the units i'd already gone through and one for the units i've yet to go through. I put the current unit i was working on in one of those presentation folders so that they wouldn't blow away (i did most of my studying outside walking around or sitting in parks). Edited by Crush on 19 July 2014 at 10:23pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| BOLIO Senior Member United States Joined 4656 days ago 253 posts - 366 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 206 of 344 21 July 2014 at 4:00pm | IP Logged |
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I can use the FSI on my desktop and laptops but when I go to the old Ipad I have it does take forever to move from one page to the next. The audio has moved on to the next page by the time the Ipad opens up the PDF. I looked yesterday for a newer and faster version of tablet. We will see how it goes.
I was a little disappointed with the amount of study I got in this weekend. We visited family and thought I was going to have a large amount of down time but I was wrong. 90% of my time was planned for me. I was still able to work a little on FSI 13 and listen to Learn in Your Car, lessons 70-81. Which brings me to this question; "Te comprenden ellos". Why is it not "Ellos te comprenden." I worked that exercise 15 ways and all of them were structured similarly to "Ellos te comprenden" except this one. Also; él le compra un regalo a ella What is the purpose of the "LE"? What makes "él compra un regalo a ella" incorrect? ANd the "Le" is attached or related to the "Ella" so if the gift was bought for them it would be "Les". Either way it does not seem to have a purpose. It is not needed because it does not identify who the action is being done for because we already have the "Ella or Ellas". Am I crazy? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5373 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 207 of 344 21 July 2014 at 4:28pm | IP Logged |
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you are not crazy. These are the sort of "little things" that are annoying. I am certainly not the expert (and I need to work on these things myself), but here are my thoughts for you.
With "te comprenden ellos" it is merely a matter of emphasis. It is the way to put the emphasis on THEY by putting it at the end. It is like the difference between us emphasizing the two different words in English with a bit more force/emphasis: "THEY understand you" versus "they UNDERSTAND you" versus "they understand YOU" all mean something slightly different. By putting ellos at the end it is merely a signal that the "ellos" is what is more emphasized in terms of importance. On the "el le compra un regalo a ella" that is a tricky situation for a couple reasons. Comprar is often a bit contradictory if you think of it as a direct translation of "to buy" in English. It can mean both "to by for her" and "to buy from her" depending. I will leave it to someone else to get into the finer points of this issue because I don't think that is what is your issue here (and I'd probably screw it up a bit). I think you are more asking about the "le." I think you need to have the "le" in there to be correct, but, you are right, it does not seem to add anything to the sentence because you also have the "a ella." The way I think of it is that you always need the "le" and then simply add the "a ella" or "a ustedes" or whatever in order to make it clear who you are referring to. When it is a sentence in which you can add "a ella" then you know that you usually need to use "le" instead of lo/la. Edit: by the way, I don't think you need the "a ella" if the context is clear who the "le" refers to. So, in your example, I think "el le compra un regalo" is correct, but "el compra un regalo a ella" is not correct. Edited by James29 on 21 July 2014 at 4:32pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Crush Tetraglot Senior Member ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5863 days ago 1622 posts - 2299 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto Studies: Basque | Message 208 of 344 22 July 2014 at 1:57am | IP Logged |
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In Spanish you'll often have two parts covering the same object:
Indirect: LE compré un coche A ELLA SE lo dije A TU PADRE Direct: TU COCHE NUEVO ya LO he visto ¿LO has visto A MI HERMANO? With the indirect object (a ella) you'll always have the clitic pronoun (le, les, me, te, etc.), sometimes you'll want to add extra information to clarify. For example, "le" could refer to usted, él, ella, or even ello, so sometimes a little clarification is necessary. "Él compra un regalo a ella" is incorrect because you nearly always mark the indirect object with the clitic pronoun. Some nouns are more flexible (for example, you might here something like "siempre ofreceré mi ayuda a quien me la pida". Using "le ofreceré" here isn't wrong here, so if you just use the clitic always with indirect objects you won't have any problems. With time you'll get a feel for it and you'll also start to hear the "clitic doubling" with direct objects, too, which i believe is a bit more informal. With the word order, both are possible. As James mentioned, it's just a matter of emphasis. It's sort of like saying "Son ellos quienes te comprenden (y no yo)." FSI works the clitics pretty hard, so soon all of this will be second nature :) 1 person has voted this message useful |
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