|
 |
What programs are good to learn grammar? | ||
Tags: Language Program | Grammar | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| Master Moron Newbie United States Joined 5379 days ago 19 posts - 20 votes | Message 1 of 12 21 February 2010 at 3:20am | IP Logged | ||
|
Right now I'm mainly using Byki to learn Spanish words. It's really good for learning vocabulary as I've learned over 2,000 items at this point, but I still need a lot of work on the grammar. Learning how to conjugate verbs correctly and using the correct pronouns can be difficult. Are there any programs that can help me with grammar? I am of course aware of the websites that simply lay out the grammar rules like a text book, but without any way to test your knowledge it doesn't seem very useful. Are there any programs out there that actually help you learn grammar? And keep in mind I have no money, so I'm talking about free programs here.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Paskwc Pentaglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5472 days ago 450 posts - 624 votes  Speaks: Hindi, Urdu*, Arabic (Levantine), French, English Studies: Persian, Spanish | Message 2 of 12 21 February 2010 at 3:45am | IP Logged | ||
|
I'm still getting acquainted with Spanish, but from what I can tell the best (legally)
free things are FSI Spanish and the Destinos videos. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 5806 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 3 of 12 21 February 2010 at 11:56am | IP Logged | ||
|
MM,
You get what you pay for, as they say. FSI is outdated and a dubious methodology. Most of the free courses on the net are amateurish, basic and somewhat confusing (if someone has put a lot of time and money into working out how to teach something, they're going to want some return on their investment). But here's the good news: you also get what your taxes pay for, so pop into a local library and talk to them about what they have in their catalogue. Even the charges for an inter-library loan are likely to be pretty small compared to the benefit you'll get from a proper course. I'm a big fan of Michel Thomas, but there are plenty of other popular courses out there. Edited by Cainntear on 21 February 2010 at 11:57am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| reltuk Groupie United States Joined 6611 days ago 75 posts - 110 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, French | Message 4 of 12 21 February 2010 at 5:52pm | IP Logged | ||
I definitely don't agree with this quote. While a lot of free materials on the net aren't that great, some actually are. The two most expensive components for French in Action, for example, are available for free. All 3 levels of Rosetta Stone, on the other hand, cost $539 USD, while 3 levels of Pimsleur cost $1035 USD. Neither of them will take you as far as an $90 USD Assimil with Ease course. All prices are MSRP from the manufacturers website, so you can find much better prices other places, including free from the library or piracy, relationship of more expensive == better definitely doesn't seem to hold as a general rule. While it's true that the FSI no longer employs their courses which are available for download from sites on the internet, I don't think this indicates a "dubious" methodology. These courses aren't, for one, straight audio-lingal, since they include quite a bit of grammar instruction in English. The fact remains that a lot of people learned languages from these courses in the past, including a relatively strong command of some complex grammar and syntax manipulation. The FSI doesn't seem to have ever significantly revised their "time to Level III" estimates for particular languages, despite the fact that pedagogy constantly improves. The things that are probably improving the most are things like student's ability to stay motivated, not feel stressed, feel good about the progress they're making, etc., and not the actual results at the end of a course for someone who goes through the entire thing. Not that those don't improve as well, but I don't think the differences are as big as some other factors that really motivate changes in the language teaching environment. Edit: On the other hand, I strongly agree, of course, with the general message of the post, which seems to be "Libraries are great resources for a language learner on a tight budget." Edited by reltuk on 21 February 2010 at 5:54pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Master Moron Newbie United States Joined 5379 days ago 19 posts - 20 votes | Message 5 of 12 02 March 2010 at 11:41pm | IP Logged | ||
|
Hmmm...did I post this topic in the books and tapes forum or did it get moved there? I meant to post it in the internet resources program, as I'm looking for some type of computer program as opposed to a book or a tape where they just give you the grammar rule without being able to practice what you learned.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 5806 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 6 of 12 03 March 2010 at 12:24am | IP Logged | ||
|
Believe me, you get more practice out of the exercises in books than out of most computer programs.
Computers should be infinitely flexible and offer more material than books, but by fixating on multimedia and recorded voices, they have actually ended up making variety more expensive. Reltuk's point about Rosetta Stone is sound -- it's expensive, but it's not very good. All the money has gone into recording lots of words and sentences, but there is no flexibility in the recordings so the course doesn't have the same potential as a book. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ruskivyetr Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5276 days ago 769 posts - 962 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Spanish, Russian, Polish, Modern Hebrew | Message 7 of 12 03 March 2010 at 1:56am | IP Logged | ||
|
If you want to learn grammar to what suits you, why not write some grammar drills
yourself? Use the vocabulary that you know and if you must reference a dictionary. All it takes is some paper, a pencil, and your grammar book for reference when you write down the drills. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Chris Heptaglot Senior Member Japan Joined 6916 days ago 287 posts - 452 votes Speaks: English*, Russian, Indonesian, French, Malay, Japanese, Spanish Studies: Dutch, Korean, Mongolian | Message 8 of 12 03 March 2010 at 3:09am | IP Logged | ||
|
For Spanish there are many good grammar books out there, but as you're looking for something free, maybe a trip to your local public library is in order.
Have you also checked out about.com? 1 person has voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
