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Your favorite language program?

 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes Post Reply
376 messages over 47 pages: 1 2 3 46 7 ... 5 ... 46 47 Next >>
patuco
Diglot
Moderator
Gibraltar
Joined 6774 days ago

3795 posts - 4268 votes 
Speaks: Spanish, English*
Personal Language Map

 
 Message 33 of 376
05 October 2009 at 6:15pm | IP Logged 
tommus wrote:
When people list their favorite language programs, it would be a lot more useful and meaningful if they also would list the language they studied with that program.

OK, here goes:

French - French in Action, Linguaphone full basic course, Linguaphone advanced course
Italian - Pimsleur full course, Linguaphone full basic course
Portuguese - Assimil's El Nuevo Portugués sin Esfuerzo, Linguaphone full basic course
Catalan - Assimil's El Catalán sin Esfuerzo, TY Catalan, Colloquial Catalan
German - Pimsleur full course, Linguaphone full basic course, Linguaphone advanced course
Russian - Pimsleur full course, TY Russian Script, Linguaphone full basic course
Arabic - TY Arabic Script, Mastering Arabic Script, Linguaphone full basic course, Al-Kitaab series (including Alif Baa and books 1-3)
Dutch - Pimsleur compact course, Linguaphone full basic course

DISCLAIMER: I haven't actually used all these courses (I will some day, though) but I have them, I have reviewed them and they are my favourites.



EDIT: Forgot about learning the cyrillic alphabet with TY. It's now updated.

Edited by patuco on 07 October 2009 at 1:12am

10 persons have voted this message useful



zorglub
Pentaglot
Senior Member
France
Joined 6759 days ago

441 posts - 504 votes 
1 sounds
Speaks: French*, English, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese
Studies: German, Arabic (Written), Turkish, Mandarin

 
 Message 34 of 376
06 October 2009 at 1:05am | IP Logged 
Well , i like Assimil and don't make translations all the time.
At first you do need a translation to understand the meaning, but that's it .
maybe you don' t use it the way that would suit you.

Fasulye wrote:
I have no access to Paypal and therefore no access to all of these language learning programs based on English. But I know Assimil, which is not suitable for me, because it is based on making translations all the time. The Vera Birkenbihl method is only useful for me an additional audiotraining. It's a bit of a disadvantage that I'm not familiar with the favourite English based language programs of the majority of the forum members here.

Fasulye

1 person has voted this message useful



zorglub
Pentaglot
Senior Member
France
Joined 6759 days ago

441 posts - 504 votes 
1 sounds
Speaks: French*, English, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese
Studies: German, Arabic (Written), Turkish, Mandarin

 
 Message 35 of 376
06 October 2009 at 1:10am | IP Logged 
Albanian ?
Just found those 4 [German]

German
[French]

French
[Spanish]

Spanish
[Serbian]

Serbian

Ciahna wrote:
There is a great course called the skillcruiser. Out of all methods I have used so far it is the one that suits me most.

I have tried everything before.... reading, grammar books, primsler, rosetta stone, langenscheidt, open courses in evening language classes.... nothing convinced me more than this so far.

Skillcruiser ia an audio course... but very different to others. Goes very deep, very fast. And sticks!

I downloaded the Albanian course from their website. Instant download.. not too expensive. (www. skillcruiser.com if I remember correctly)

2 persons have voted this message useful



zorglub
Pentaglot
Senior Member
France
Joined 6759 days ago

441 posts - 504 votes 
1 sounds
Speaks: French*, English, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese
Studies: German, Arabic (Written), Turkish, Mandarin

 
 Message 36 of 376
06 October 2009 at 1:33am | IP Logged 
I'd say :
PImsleur
Assimil except Arabic
Michel Thomas

Pimsleur is absolutely fantastic to start from scratch and acquire the core of a language.

I used:

Assimil L'allemand (for revision of my school learnt German):***


Pimsleur Brazilian Portuguese 1-3 *****
Assimil le brésilien sans peine *****
Assimil le portugais sans peine ***
Will review with next "Le brésilien" due to be released next November.


Pimsleur Spanish 1-4 *****
Assimil l'espagnol sans peine *****
Assimil L'espagnol *****
Assimil Perfectionnement espagnol *****
Platiquemos (FSI modernised) : maybe good for the serious learner, but sooooo boooring. Gave up. (Listened to a few FSIs: very boring not for the laid back lazy learner)

Pimsleur Italian 1-3 *****
Assimil l'italien sans peine *****
Assimil l'italien *****
Assimil perfectionnement italien ****


Pimsleur Eastern Arabic 1, 2 and doing 3: *****
Michel Thomas Arabic foundation/advanced ****
Assimil Arabic 0 gave up , too slow , does not sound arabic
Linguaphone Arabic (MSA) (longcourse) in the middle of it:    **
- very good sound track.
- very complicated cumbersome use of the multiple books
- no transliteration for the exercises
- short in explanations

Michel Thomas Mandarin foundation and advanced ***
- Allows for tones pronunciation I think.
- Slow
- Difficulty understanding the teacher's difficult American accent: needed to rewind many times.
- Don't like the continuous prompting for sentence construction.
- Makes you realise learning mandarin is possible ***
- A tiny start.


Assimil l' anglais and perfectionnement anglais to improve my pronunciation and vocabulary: ***** very good voices , texts , idioms, and speed.
But I'd prefer the "perfectionnement" to be either in British English or American English , not both.

Pimsleur 10 lessons courses for survival and courtesy when travelling:
Croatian
Greek
Czech
Norwegian
Danish
Swedish
Dutch
gets you lots of friendly smiles

Projects:

I periodically listen to or shadow my Assimil CDs in my car or running (iPod) for revision, according to next travel.

Pimsleur Greek 1/2 Maybe Michel thomas greek. Turkish 1. Both for travelling.

Maybe Pimsleur Japanese 1-3 or Mandarin1-3

Note that I learn mostly in my car or running. Audiolearning.




Edited by zorglub on 07 October 2009 at 6:03pm

8 persons have voted this message useful



hobbitofny
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5992 days ago

280 posts - 408 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Russian

 
 Message 37 of 376
07 October 2009 at 3:32am | IP Logged 
DaraghM wrote:
daristani wrote:
Leopejo:

I think this is probably what DaraghM was referring to:

http://www.amazon.com/Modern-Russian-I-Bk-1/dp/0878401695/re f=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1254605379&sr=8-2


This is exactly what I was referring to. It's an FSI style course for Russian which has tons of audio material. However, the language is slightly outdated.

E.g. в ГУМе - At the GUM


The slightly outdated language has been helpful. I was visiting Russia and used correctly words for some references to Soviet era. It impressed the host. I have limited vocabulary, but he felt I had depth to my Russian knowledge and a sense of the past era. Simply due to my slightly outdated Russian. It may not matter ordering dinner or buying a gift. However, it served well on establishing a relationship.

I think the program is one of the best for Russian. I would also add the Spoken Language course is great. At first, I thought the comments about smoking were outdated. However last visit at 11pm on a Moscow street, I needed the words and phrases. A man did not have a light and needed one. Smoking is still big in Russia. If you do not travel in a tour group, these older courses can aid you.

By the way Spoken Russian used the term for outhouse and not the current term for toilet. If you are visiting in the a countryside home with an outhouse. They will be impressed you know the term. Simple do not mix them up. Asking for an outhouse in a big city like Moscow will get odd looks. :)

Modern Russian I and II (Goverment courses for colleges and government training 1960s. At first refered to as the Syracuse University Project. In the early 1960s, a major language training location for the US government. After a change of publishers to Georgetown University, the reference to Syracuse University Project was removed from title. Has most hours of audio of any Russian program.)

Spoken Russian 1 and 2 (First designed for WWII training needs. The series has had some updating through the years. The audio has both English and Russian.)

Linguaphone Russian PDQ and the full course. (The full course was designed by staff of Moscow State University in 1970s. A good course for self study.)

N.B. Karavanova's Survival Russian: A Course in Conversational Russian 8th Edition(2008) with mp3 cd

Now You're Talking Russian in No Time 3rd edition (Barron's Phrase Book with cds. It is good tool for filling in gaps.)

Дорога В Россию (The Way to Russia) 4th edition Moscow State University(MSU) course books and cds 2008 If you go to MSU to learn Russian, they use this method for teaching. (The course books present the needed skills to pass the Russian Federation's standards tests for Russian language, Test of Russian as a Foreign Language or TORFL (Тест по русскому языку как иностранному or ТРКИ) )


Survival Russian will give you good modern Russian with about 700 words. It will explain culture commentary for everyday life. Most chapters give 6 or more dialogues. They do a wonderful job of presenting the common exchanges you will have with a Russian. I was surprise how often the exchange presented the most common dialogues you will hear and need. The book is worth it at less then $50 with the cd. It can be used to start learning Russian or after completing another course. The title is very correct for the content.

If you want Russian language courses from Russia, MSU produced or tested are best.

Edited by hobbitofny on 07 October 2009 at 11:43am

5 persons have voted this message useful



Kyrie
Senior Member
United States
clandestein.deviantaRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5488 days ago

207 posts - 231 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Portuguese

 
 Message 38 of 376
07 October 2009 at 3:52am | IP Logged 

[Portuguese]
- Pimsleur Brazilian Portuguese
- FSI Programmatic Portuguese

[German]
- Pimsleur German
- TY German
1 person has voted this message useful



lagwagon555
Diglot
Groupie
New Zealand
Joined 5878 days ago

38 posts - 47 votes
Speaks: English*, Esperanto
Studies: Japanese

 
 Message 39 of 376
08 October 2009 at 4:12am | IP Logged 
Teachh Yourself Esperanto - being the only complete language course I have completed from beginning to end (so far). Very short, but so well written, and entertaining. The amount it manages to cram into such a small book is probably due to the implicit simplicity of Esperanto, but that doesn't change the greatness of this book.

Remembering the Kanji - Although not a complte language learning method, it's the closest thing to a miracle in language learning I've come across. Most people still don't believe I've only been learning kanji for a few months.
5 persons have voted this message useful



irrationale
Tetraglot
Senior Member
China
Joined 5809 days ago

669 posts - 1023 votes 
2 sounds
Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Tagalog
Studies: Ancient Greek, Japanese

 
 Message 40 of 376
08 October 2009 at 6:15am | IP Logged 
Pimsleur,
FSI.

I always start a language with Pimsleur. FSI rounds it out to the intermediate/advanced level where you can speak independently and thus continue to learn on your own with the core vocab you need. They are very complimentary programs and have worked fantastically for me.


5 persons have voted this message useful



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