|
 |
Living Xxx: A Grammar Based Course | ||
Tags: Language Program | Grammar | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6971 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes  Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 1 of 3 11 July 2010 at 6:31am | IP Logged |
|
Browsing in a bookstore yesterday, I discovered a German textbook I haven't seen before. It was called Living German: A Grammar Based Course. It is based on an old textbook and comes with a CD. I was in a rush and didn't look at it carefully, including how much it has been updated.
Searching Amazon uncovered: Living French: A Grammar Based Course Living Italian: A Grammar Based Course Living Spanish: A Grammar Based Course Now my curiosity is totally piqued. If anyone has used any of these, what do you think of them? Edited by frenkeld on 11 July 2010 at 6:50am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| daristani Senior Member United States Joined 7172 days ago 752 posts - 1661 votes Studies: Uzbek | Message 2 of 3 11 July 2010 at 7:00pm | IP Logged |
|
Thanks for pointing this "new" series out, Frenkeld; I did a double-take when I saw the title, since "grammar-based" courses seem to be fairly anachronistic these days.
But I looked at the links you provided, and the author of the Italian one struck a bell. I've got a copy of what seems to be an earlier edition of the book (the third edition, with 320 pages, as opposed to 352 pages in the new version). The book was first published in 1961, and indeed is grammar-based. Each lesson has (in order) grammar points, vocabulary list, reading selection, and exercises. There's a key to the exercises in the back of the book. The book ends with tables of irregular verbs, Italian-English and English-Italian glossaries, and an index of grammatical points. The book also italicizes the vowels in accented syllables when they're not the penultimate syllable, but doesn't show the distinctions between open and closed vowels the way some Italian textbooks do. It's a small-format book, a bit smaller than the current Teach Yourself books. (A note on the inside of my book says that tapes were available separately; I don't imagine they were too extensive, or that, given the low price of the new version, the new version contains any great quantity of audio.) Nonetheless, looking at the book I've got, it does seem to provide a pretty good introduction to the language, with good coverage of the grammar, and would probably be particularly useful for people working with other audio-based or "conversational" materials who might want a more systematic presentation of the grammar as a supplement. I looked at your other links, and the others in the series are all new to me; how similar they may be to the Italian volume I can't say, but personally, I think the renewed availability of some grammar-based resources for major languages, and at a low price, is probably a nice development. So thanks again for pointing these out. ADDENDUM: Looking further through the chaos of my bookshelves, I see I also have an earlier version of "Living Spanish", by R.P. Littlewood. The first edition was originally published in 1949. Mine is the second edition, with 358 pages, published in 1984. The general outline is the same as for "Living Italian", except that the reading selection precedes the grammar portion of each lesson. Like most books published in the UK, it deals with Spain rather than Latin America. My copy portrays a rural, village-based Spanish life, e.g., lesson one, following "el buey", adds the note: "In rural parts of Spain the bullock is still used for ploughing and drawing carts." Both of my books were published by Hodder and Stoughton, and so it seems that the new series is a (presumably at least somewhat updated?) re-issuance of an earlier series. Edited by daristani on 11 July 2010 at 7:38pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6971 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 3 of 3 11 July 2010 at 11:03pm | IP Logged |
|
daristani, thank you for taking the trouble to find and review the two older editions.
The recently updated "Made Simple" series of courses are also quite traditional in their approach, but there are no recordings for them. I stopped by Barnes & Noble again today and looked at the German and Spanish textbooks from the updated Hodder Arnold series that they had in stock. With the same page count, the Spanish one consists of about 25 chapters, while the chapter count of the German text is in the mid-forties, so they may be somewhat different in their approach and scope. I couldn't find the past subjunctive mentioned in the Spanish text, although the present subjunctive is covered. Thus it may not offer a complete coverage of Spanish grammar. The Spanish textbook seems to have a larger number of exercises and, as I recall, usage notes on some of the words used in the readings. This may partly explains the smaller number of chapters. Many of the introductory reading passages for each chapter are marked in the text to have an accompanying recording on the CD that is included with the book, but I didn't check every single chapter to make sure there are no gaps. The German textbook has a rather concise Grammar summary section at the end, which the Spanish one doesn't. It also has an additional reading passage at the end of some of the chapters, especially the later ones. The additional reading passages are never marked as recorded. Each chapter is introduced by a reading passage, some of which are dialogs. Only a fraction of these have been recorded. I didn't check it thoroughly, but my impression is that all of the dialogs may be recorded, but some of the non-dialog texts are as well. I would guess that maybe 25% of the chapters have been recorded, but this is an extremely rough guess. Personally, I would consider this to be a lot better than nothing; there are are a number of otherwise quite useful old courses that can be quite awkward to use because there are no recordings for them at all. Having a fraction of the chapters recorded may be enough for a language with a consistent spelling system to prevent one from being forced to use a separate audio course when a traditional course is all you are after. I wasn't sure which grammar topic would be a good 'litmus test' of whether the coverage of German grammar is incomplete. I checked the two subjunctive forms, and both seem to be addressed, if rather concisely, but brevity may be the overall style of this book. All in all, I tentatively find the updated German textbook from Hodder Arnold to be a somewhat safer bet than the Spanish one, but that may depend on one's requirements. ADDED: There are reader reviews of these courses on Amazon.co.uk. Edited by frenkeld on 14 July 2010 at 9:46pm 2 persons have voted this message useful |
If you wish to post a reply to this topic you must first login. If you are not already registered you must first register
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
