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Best Indonesian Course | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| Americano Senior Member Korea, South Joined 6626 days ago 101 posts - 120 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Korean | Message 1 of 9 20 October 2008 at 5:10pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Any ideas? I have looked over a few (linguaphone,TY,Rosetta)programs and I would like some advice on which is the most comprehensive. I find Rosetta Stone to be too expensive, but I worry that Teach Yourself may not be enough?
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| cemol4us Newbie Indonesia c-mol.blogspot.com Joined 5654 days ago 2 posts - 2 votes | Message 2 of 9 25 October 2008 at 9:39am | IP Logged | |||||
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i think you should see this page
http://www.seasite.niu.edu/indonesian/percakapan/indonesia7d ays/indo7days_fs.htm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Fat-tony Nonaglot Senior Member United Kingdom jiahubooks.co.uk Joined 5920 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 3 of 9 25 October 2008 at 10:25am | IP Logged | |||||
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I've been using TY Malay (TY Malay and Indonesian follow the same template with just minor adjustments),
Colloquial Indonesian and an old TY Indonesian (by JB Kwee). Personally I think the new TY course provides a solid base in the language for the potential tourist. The Colloquial course (again identical template for Malay/Indonesian with simple changes in vocab) seems to offer more scope (some business related passages, longish reading passages) and so offers less depth for the touristy situations. The older course is basically a reference grammar with vocab lists and exercises, but does provide some more bookish vocab. The above link has a very useful dictionary which not only defines the word your checking but also gives you other words from the same root. I've personally found it a very good way to get the "feel" for the verbal affixes. The "problem" with Bahasa is there is so little "grammar" in terms of inflections etc, no new script, no tones, etc, that the only task is learning vocab, which very quickly becomes tedious (even more so than normal!). Personally, I seldom follow one course through from beginning to end, but as something to supplement my own work. With Bahasa, due to the ease of script and lack of inflections, it's easy to move to authentic sources at an early stage and create your own vocab lists. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Normunds Pentaglot Groupie Switzerland Joined 5744 days ago 86 posts - 112 votes Speaks: Latvian*, French, English, Russian, German Studies: Mandarin, Indonesian | Message 4 of 9 26 October 2008 at 4:25am | IP Logged | |||||
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I've believe Assimil course if great. Except that I think Indonesian course is only available in French.
I'm a bit wary of using Malay instead, but if you work with Malay texts to acquire vocabulary, and have some fall-back Indonesian recordings to avoid acquiring Malay pronunciation, and have some way to cross-check you do not learn and reinforce the "false friends".. might be ok then. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| onebir Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6943 days ago 484 posts - 502 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin | Message 5 of 9 26 October 2008 at 10:49am | IP Logged | |||||
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It's worth mentioning "Beginning Indonesian Through Self Instruction", an FSI-style course available in book form (2 volumes, with prohibitively expensive audio) or much more affordable (USD80) DVD-rom form (which includes text, audio and video of all the dialogs and drills, except, irritatingly, four review chapters that make up 1/6 of the books - belying the claim that "but the computer-based version stands alone and can be used without reference to the print version". It also includes the grammar explanations, but I think these might be sketchier than the ones in the books).
I'm about 1/3 of the way through it. Although Indonesian doesn't have inflections, it does have quirky word order & aspect particle system that's pretty alien to me (at the moment at least). There's some info here http://your.usc.edu.au/wacana/isn/bitsi_on_cd_dvd.html I bought a copy from Cornell, but can't find the site at the mo... Anyway - despite the drawbacks, much better value than Rosetta Stone, & I think significantly more comprehensive than TY. If there's an old-style Linguaphone Indonesian course (there's one for Malay) I imagine it'd be pretty good... 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Americano Senior Member Korea, South Joined 6626 days ago 101 posts - 120 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Korean | Message 6 of 9 26 October 2008 at 1:02pm | IP Logged | |||||
I tried the link, but nothing came up. Is that a program from Northern Illinois University? I only live about 30 minutes from there. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Americano Senior Member Korea, South Joined 6626 days ago 101 posts - 120 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Korean | Message 7 of 9 26 October 2008 at 1:12pm | IP Logged | |||||
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That's some good gouge you guys gave me here. I think I'll try to use TY,and I'll check out the program you've recommended onebir. A multi-program approach is probably the best approach. I'm also going to look for some old Linguaphone programs. Once I have the pronunciation down I'm considering hoping right into simple readers with translations.
How quick do you guys find you're picking up Indonesian compared to other languages you have studied? Is the simple grammar offset by the tedious vocabulary and strange(different)word order? I'm studying Mandarin right now, which has 100% foreign vocabulary, so I understand how tedious that really can be. Edited by Americano on 26 October 2008 at 1:15pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Fat-tony Nonaglot Senior Member United Kingdom jiahubooks.co.uk Joined 5920 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 8 of 9 26 October 2008 at 1:25pm | IP Logged | |||||
Try removing the spaces, seems to happen to a lot of the links in this forum. It is from the Northern Illinois Uni website which is really excellent and covers all the national languages of SE Asia. I'd have thought it would be worth getting in contact; SOAS - the rough UK equivalent, offers loads of courses and general help/expertise to a dedicated learner. With regards to progress, the vocab is quite tedious, but I've found the language as a whole far easier than both Mandarin and Thai. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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