anakapuana Hexaglot Newbie Panama Joined 5129 days ago 3 posts - 11 votes Speaks: English, French*, Indonesian, German, Italian, Spanish Studies: Hindi, Greek, Russian
| Message 25 of 59 09 March 2011 at 1:39am | IP Logged |
Very interesting thread.
I approached different methods to start with Modern Greek. By far and by large, the FSI and DLI are the best. FSI does throws you into the language a bit brutally, I would say: the rate of speech in their audio - right from the outset - is mind boggling.I settled for the more gentle but absolutly perfect DLI course. It is undoubtedly one of the very best courses I ever came across in any language. Granted, we are not all interested in military talk but the little specialized vocabulary thrown in that we have no use for is a small price to pay for an otherwise so impeccable course.
I just completed the Pimsleur's Russian in 3 volumes (you can read my assessment in the Russian section) I am now go further with DLI's Russian. If it is half as good as the DLI Greek course, it is still bound to be excellent.
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daristani Senior Member United States Joined 7105 days ago 752 posts - 1661 votes Studies: Uzbek
| Message 26 of 59 09 March 2011 at 2:00am | IP Logged |
Just as a reminder for those not aware of the site, most of the older DLI materials that are being discussed here can be downloaded at:
http://jlu.wbtrain.com/sumtotal/language/DLI%20basic%20cours es/
Each language has a different mix of materials, and the site is not all that well organized in terms of making it clear what's what, but for a good many of the languages covered, there are extensive PDFs and MP3 audio to accompany. Some of them are indeed a bit aged in terms of terminology, but I still think that they offer a great deal of useful material for a good many languages.
Edited by daristani on 09 March 2011 at 3:36pm
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napoleon Tetraglot Senior Member India Joined 4977 days ago 543 posts - 874 votes Speaks: Bengali*, English, Hindi, Urdu Studies: French, Arabic (Written)
| Message 27 of 59 23 April 2011 at 9:53pm | IP Logged |
Thanks for the link
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AntonioJBrown Newbie New Zealand Joined 5505 days ago 10 posts - 16 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Spanish
| Message 28 of 59 30 June 2011 at 7:01am | IP Logged |
Is anybody learning Spanish from the DLI Basic course that can be found at the above link. I'm planning on restarting my Spanish study (after failing badly with Assimil some time ago). The course materials I'm looking at are the ones dated December 1997
Looking through the textbook though, while there is some instruction, it appears to consist mostly of a series of activities. So presumably during the class the teacher delivers a lecture, and then the students complete the activities with the teacher helping. So while a lot of vocabulary is used in the activities it is not defined anywhere before it is used (although it does appear later in the glossary). Are you supposed to refer to the glossary while doing the activity?
So does anyone know if there is a separate instructor's manual? Also is anyone learning Spanish using these materials? If so what is your strategy for tackling the material.
Also I'm kind of curious why the audio is such bad quality considering the course isn't that old? There is so much popping and hissing its really putting me off. I think I might have to switch to Platiquemos, even though the DLI course looks to be quite good.
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brumblebee Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6736 days ago 206 posts - 212 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese
| Message 29 of 59 12 December 2011 at 6:03am | IP Logged |
Where can you buy FSI? I've tried to look for it online, but the websites I've found don't seem entirely legitimate.
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Elexi Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5526 days ago 938 posts - 1840 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, German, Latin
| Message 30 of 59 12 December 2011 at 11:38am | IP Logged |
The FSI online websites are legit as the US government, in an act of immense generosity, allow the courses to be freely distributed. Here is normally best
http://fsi-language-courses.org/Content.php
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Norvasc Newbie Canada Joined 6450 days ago 30 posts - 31 votes Studies: French
| Message 31 of 59 13 December 2011 at 3:46am | IP Logged |
Does anyone have instructions to download the entire french DLI as one download instead of
breaking per lessons.
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daristani Senior Member United States Joined 7105 days ago 752 posts - 1661 votes Studies: Uzbek
| Message 32 of 59 14 December 2011 at 2:07pm | IP Logged |
I think you can download the entire FSI Basic French course here:
http://www.freelanguagecourses.com/language/french/french-la nguage-courses-8/
and some of the other FSI courses can also be found for downloading in "one gulp" from here:
http://www.freelanguagecourses.com/direct-downloads/
although in some cases the FSI site provided above by Elexi has more materials available, such as for the Turkish course.
ADDENDUM: Norvasc, my eyes read "DLI" but my brain said "FSI"; I've rar'ed the DLI French course and have uploaded it here:
http://ifile.it/j0y19be
(Note that you'll have to un-rar it after you download it.) It's a fairly large file, at almost 600 megabytes. Good luck in your studies.
Edited by daristani on 14 December 2011 at 5:49pm
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