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Your favorite language program?

 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes Post Reply
376 messages over 47 pages: << Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ... 42 ... 46 47 Next >>
timinstl
Triglot
Groupie
United States
timsviajes.com
Joined 6905 days ago
88 posts - 92 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, French
Studies: Italian, Mandarin

 
 Message 329 of 376
07 December 2013 at 5:32pm | IP Logged 
I like Pimsleur simply because you can listen and repeat. It's great for my 40 minute drives to work. I've used
Pimsleur for Mandarin, Arabic (not currently studying), Italian, and German. I also really like FSI stuff although the
materials available are quite antiquated. I've used FSI for French, Spanish, and German. I have not tried Rosetta
Stone but I've heard it's pretty useless for teaching actual conversation. Any thoughts?
1 person has voted this message useful



habadzi
Super Polyglot
Senior Member
Greece
Joined 5362 days ago
70 posts - 106 votes 
Speaks: Greek*, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian, Hindi, French, German, Italian, Ancient Greek, Modern Hebrew, Arabic (classical), Indonesian, Bengali, Albanian, Nepali

 
 Message 330 of 376
24 December 2013 at 1:32pm | IP Logged 
Pimsleur is just right for 40 minutes of driving. You are lucky.
For FSI, disregard the aged content of the materials. We all have available a treasure trove of grammars taught very analytically. It may sound boring, but it is a method that the adult brain finds easiest to consolidate.

Rosetta stone involves guessing and is pretty useless, expensive, merely over-advertised.
1 person has voted this message useful



Mikinek
Bilingual Hexaglot
Newbie
Slovakia
Joined 3728 days ago
2 posts - 2 votes
Speaks: Czech, Slovak*, Hungarian*, French, English, German
Studies: Hindi, Modern Hebrew, Arabic (Egyptian)

 
 Message 331 of 376
11 February 2014 at 12:13pm | IP Logged 
I have a very easy and fast learning programme, if I may call it a programme. Simply said, with decades of language self-learning I have developed and easy and fast method that is always very efficient.
Learning languages is my hobby so it's the best way of distraction.
Right now I'm looking for a text book of basic/intermediate Hindi with transliteration of pronunciation. It needs not necessarily be accompanied with Hindi script. Please, advice.
Those books available on the web are too sophisticated. Their editors think the fancy/modern language methods facilitate or enhance the way to memorize/learn. It's a wrong conception. Structuring the textbooks should be simple accumulating the knowledge of the former lesson with slow build-up, thus in 3 months one can speak whichever language with basic communication skills. I can assure anyone about this and I am sure I am not the only one.
By the way, I find the FSI materials absolutely efficient. It's not about that it's outdated but about simplicity and effectiveness. Only, some of the materials are not available, better to say not each every language has the same structure. I have been learning another language from FSI sources and it's just excellent. In a month I can already communicate with ease.

Edited by Mikinek on 11 February 2014 at 12:21pm
1 person has voted this message useful



Jeffers
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 4697 days ago
2151 posts - 3960 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German

 
 Message 332 of 376
11 February 2014 at 12:32pm | IP Logged 
Mikinek wrote:
I have a very easy and fast learning programme, if I may call it a programme. Simply said, with decades of language
self-learning I have developed and easy and fast method that is always very efficient.
Learning languages is my hobby so it's the best way of distraction.
Right now I'm looking for a text book of basic/intermediate Hindi with transliteration of pronunciation. It needs not necessarily be
accompanied with Hindi script. Please, advice.
Those books available on the web are too sophisticated. Their editors think the fancy/modern language methods facilitate or enhance the
way to memorize/learn. It's a wrong conception. Structuring the textbooks should be simple accumulating the knowledge of the former
lesson with slow build-up, thus in 3 months one can speak whichever language with basic communication skills. I can assure anyone about
this and I am sure I am not the only one.


There's not a whole lot out there for Hindi, and I'm not sure if you would judge any of them as fitting your method. I'm not sure I
understood what you meant. Do you mean that each chapter adds a bit more knowledge, building on the previous chapters? That sounds
like almost any textbook.

Anyway, the Teach Yourself Hindi series pretty much monopolizes the Hindi market. Teach Yourself Get Started in Hindi is very well
designed, and does not require the Hindi script. I would recommend this as the starting place. If you finish it you will be capable
of holding a basic conversation. At that point Teach Yourself Complete Hindi will give you an excellent review, take you much further,
and add new layers such as the most familiar form (there are three layers of familiarity in Hindi). In addition, the author Rupert
Snell has created a vocabulary discussion podcast for every chapter of Teach Yourself Complete Hindi, available for free on the web.
Even if you don't use the TY series, his podcasts are definitely worth using as supplementary material.
1 person has voted this message useful



aspie.sharaf
Tetraglot
Newbie
Denmark
Joined 4156 days ago
21 posts - 39 votes
Speaks: Danish*, English, Serbo-Croatian, Dutch
Studies: Persian, German, Russian, Arabic (Written), Turkish, Thai, Polish, Bulgarian, Pashto, Urdu, French

 
 Message 333 of 376
11 February 2014 at 1:03pm | IP Logged 
Jeffers wrote:
Mikinek wrote:
I have a very easy and fast learning programme, if I may call it a programme. Simply said, with decades of language
self-learning I have developed and easy and fast method that is always very efficient.
Learning languages is my hobby so it's the best way of distraction.
Right now I'm looking for a text book of basic/intermediate Hindi with transliteration of pronunciation. It needs not necessarily be
accompanied with Hindi script. Please, advice.
Those books available on the web are too sophisticated. Their editors think the fancy/modern language methods facilitate or enhance the
way to memorize/learn. It's a wrong conception. Structuring the textbooks should be simple accumulating the knowledge of the former
lesson with slow build-up, thus in 3 months one can speak whichever language with basic communication skills. I can assure anyone about
this and I am sure I am not the only one.


There's not a whole lot out there for Hindi, and I'm not sure if you would judge any of them as fitting your method. I'm not sure I
understood what you meant. Do you mean that each chapter adds a bit more knowledge, building on the previous chapters? That sounds
like almost any textbook.

Anyway, the Teach Yourself Hindi series pretty much monopolizes the Hindi market. Teach Yourself Get Started in Hindi is very well
designed, and does not require the Hindi script. I would recommend this as the starting place. If you finish it you will be capable
of holding a basic conversation. At that point Teach Yourself Complete Hindi will give you an excellent review, take you much further,
and add new layers such as the most familiar form (there are three layers of familiarity in Hindi). In addition, the author Rupert
Snell has created a vocabulary discussion podcast for every chapter of Teach Yourself Complete Hindi, available for free on the web.
Even if you don't use the TY series, his podcasts are definitely worth using as supplementary material.


We should also remember this one: http://fr.assimil.com/methodes/le-hindi-sans-peine
1 person has voted this message useful



markmsb
Newbie
United States
Joined 3706 days ago
16 posts - 20 votes
Speaks: English*

 
 Message 334 of 376
09 March 2014 at 5:48pm | IP Logged 
My favorite language programs so far have been Assimil French with ease and Assimil French Without Toil. I am using the old and new course in conjunction with each other. I believe the complement each other well. The material is different enough in the courses to keep you on your toes and not get bored by doing similar lessons.

As for pimsleur, I finished pimsleur 1 and was too bored to continue. Michel Thomas French was very useful to give you a base in the language and to get you to start speaking.
3 persons have voted this message useful



fortheo
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4824 days ago
187 posts - 222 votes 
Studies: French

 
 Message 335 of 376
15 March 2014 at 5:13am | IP Logged 
markmsb wrote:
My favorite language programs so far have been Assimil French with ease and Assimil French Without Toil. I am using the old and new course in conjunction with each other. I believe the complement each other well. The material is different enough in the courses to keep you on your toes and not get bored by doing similar lessons.

As for pimsleur, I finished pimsleur 1 and was too bored to continue. Michel Thomas French was very useful to give you a base in the language and to get you to start speaking.


We seem to be following a very similar path regarding our French studies. I too used Pimsleur for a while but I am at the end of Pimsleur one and feeling extremely bored with it. I also did Michel Thomas, which was a decent introduction to the language. Assimil is great so far, I'm looking forward to devoting more time to it.

There's something about a good text book and audio combination that can't be beat.
1 person has voted this message useful



soclydeza85
Senior Member
United States
Joined 3695 days ago
357 posts - 502 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: German, French

 
 Message 336 of 376
15 March 2014 at 7:23pm | IP Logged 
I use Pimsleur, FSI and RS (among books for grammar). I also have Michel Thomas which is great but I want to wait until I finish Pimsleur before I continue with it.

Pimsleur is great. I can see how it can get boring, but when I first started it I would speak to my native German coworkers/clients and they were surprised how fast I was learning how to say things. So I think the excitement of knowing how much I can actually gain from it helps me push through each lesson. Everyone is different though, maybe it just doesn't click with some people.

I started FSI German about a week ago and though it is still very basic for my current level, it is helping me solidify some of the basic stuff. It is VERY dry, but I feel like this shouldn't matter if you are serious about learning a language.

Rosetta Stone gets a lot of bad press, but here is my take on it: It is great as a supplementary program. I have learned a lot of vocab from it that I hadn't learned other places and it is a good way to expose yourself to concepts that you learned elsewhere. The problem is that it is advertised as (and viewed as) being the only program you need to learn a language. This is where it fails because A) there are no grammar explanations and B) the stuff you learn to say is not the stuff you would be saying if you are just starting out with a language, so beginners would find little practical use for it (i.e. it is not very conversational). Then there's the pricetag. I was lucky enough to get 5 levels for free from a friend and I find it as a great asset to my arsenal, but I don't think I would buy it if I had to, it's just too expensive.


1 person has voted this message useful



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