32 messages over 4 pages: 1 2 3 4
Ocius Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5589 days ago 48 posts - 77 votes Speaks: English*, German, Ancient Greek Studies: French, Latin, Sanskrit
| Message 25 of 32 12 October 2009 at 1:31am | IP Logged |
A bit. The Basic Sentences really took no time at all because they're all together at the end. For the Drills it takes probably 10-15 mins, since it's just alternating English-german-english-german, etc. Once you know where the English starts you just delete every other sound, which is easily determinable simply through the visual in Audacity. The only other trick is that every 4-6 sentences a new drill is introduced (i.e. he says "Number 4, treffen to meet), so you just have to remember to delete that part every now and then. But that's not so bad because the sound wave is visually different when he's introducing a new drill than when he's giving the English equivalent of an L2 sentence.
So, in summary, it doesn't take that much time. It took longer before I got used to it, but towards the end it took maybe 10 minutes per drill. 15 for the longer ones. I think it's worth that time investment for what I get out of it (i.e. pure comprehensible L2 audio with a large variety of sentence examples for listening comprehension).
And that said, if anyone's doing the German FSI course and wants any of the edited audio, feel free to send me a message.
Edited by Ocius on 12 October 2009 at 3:44am
1 person has voted this message useful
| PL Newbie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6261 days ago 33 posts - 34 votes Speaks: Spanish
| Message 26 of 32 12 October 2009 at 2:26am | IP Logged |
I would like to be able to say that I've finished FSI, but I wind up burning out. It's a great program but I've started
and stopped several times after becoming too bored with it. There have been some good responses to this post
that have motivated me to want to try again. I'm fortunate in that I'm able to speak with native speakers almost
daily as a part of my job, but I know I would improve if I completed FSI. Funny thing is that I enjoy repetitive drills;
it may be the voices that put me to sleep. Good post.
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jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6908 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map
| Message 27 of 32 12 October 2009 at 6:11pm | IP Logged |
I have gone through the whole German course, but just about half of the Mandarin. The drills - no matter how useful, were boring me to death. Maybe I'll have a look at both courses again some time.
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| Crush Tetraglot Senior Member ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5864 days ago 1622 posts - 2299 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto Studies: Basque
| Message 28 of 32 14 October 2009 at 8:06am | IP Logged |
I finished Platiquemos a few weeks ago, and as for it being boring, maybe, but at this point basically any Spanish interaction is exciting for me. That's what Platiquemos was for me, my chance to speak (and study) Spanish, and I always looked forward to it. When I had the time, I could easily spend entire days (well, 5-6 hours) going through a unit. Right now, I am not studying any languages that really match that enthusiasm I had for Spanish when going through Platiquemos, and so I think for those languages going through FSI would be more difficult. But then again knowing that FSI provides a pretty complete backbone/studyguide for the language (at least that was the case with Platiquemos) might be enough to motivate me and keep me motivated.
2 persons have voted this message useful
| xtremelingo Trilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 6286 days ago 398 posts - 515 votes Speaks: English*, Hindi*, Punjabi* Studies: German, French, Arabic (Written)
| Message 29 of 32 14 October 2009 at 10:04pm | IP Logged |
Take FSI slow and steady. I've done the intensive routine and whilst it works you will need to have lots of time and rest to do that. Now that I am very busy with work again, I can not utilize the intensive routine.
Do 10-15 min a day max. It doesn't even have to be everyday, it could be every other day.
As long as you're getting some kind of audio comprehensible input everyday (from whatever source), you will be making progress.
I don't stay attached to any single program everyday.
I switch between FSI, FIA, Linguaphone, Michel Thomas, Pimsleur, DLI, Assimil, French by PodCast. Because I have all these programs on IPHONE, it makes it very easy to switch whenever I want too without little effort. Whenever I get bored of one, I switch to the other.
Any program you use, after you've been using it for a while, you are bound to get bored - no matter how good the program is. Even FIA can get boring. That's when it is time to switch (only temporarily), to give your learning experience variety. When you return back to a program, resume where you left off.
The great part about language-learning is, all audio input whether it is basic or advanced is always useful comprehensible input! If you advance in one program really far and return to another program where you left off at the beginner stage, there is no harm continuing in the beginner stage, it will only reinforce your learning and it is NOT a waste of time.
Every program is different and has their own spin on things that even if you reached advance level in other programs, that doesn't mean you can't learn something new at the beginner stages of another program.
Keep switching and you will find none of these programs (including FSI) will ever dull you. As long as you have designed an easy and convenient way to switch effortlessly, you will see the impact this can have.
My main goal in language-learning is to get at least 1-2 hours of comprehensible audio input everyday, whether it be from one source or a variety of sources.
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| Crush Tetraglot Senior Member ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5864 days ago 1622 posts - 2299 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto Studies: Basque
| Message 30 of 32 15 October 2009 at 3:48am | IP Logged |
I don't know if I would recommend only spending 10-15 minutes a day on FSI. I don't think you would remember very much, and even if the information did stick it would still take you several years to finish (and really, probably closer to a decade).
2 persons have voted this message useful
| Ocius Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5589 days ago 48 posts - 77 votes Speaks: English*, German, Ancient Greek Studies: French, Latin, Sanskrit
| Message 31 of 32 01 November 2009 at 8:40pm | IP Logged |
I recently uploaded the edited Basic Sentence audio (which I mentioned earlier) for the first 8 lessons of FSI German. I also have the audio for the drills for each unit if this is interesting to anyone. As far as what exactly these audio files are:
-For the Basic Sentences, I simply took the repetition out and got rid of any lengthy silences. Essentially, I just turned them into fast-paced dialogues.
-For the Drills, I edited the English out and placed a 1 second silence between each sentence.
Here are the first 8 Units. They were uploaded for free to rapidshare, so unfortunately they have a 10 download limit. If you find these useful, feel free to mirror them.
Unit 1
Unit 2
Unit 3
Unit 4
Unit 5
Unit 6
Unit 7
Unit 8
Edited by Ocius on 02 November 2009 at 3:17am
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| karizmakat Newbie Joined 5922 days ago 5 posts - 5 votes Studies: Spanish
| Message 32 of 32 05 November 2009 at 6:44am | IP Logged |
Are you talking about FSI Basic or Programmatic?
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