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Have you Completed FSI?

  Tags: FSI
 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes Post Reply
32 messages over 4 pages: 1 2 3
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.
1 person has voted this message useful





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.
1 person has voted this message useful



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.

3 persons have voted this message useful



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

3 persons have voted this message useful



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?


1 person has voted this message useful



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