liddytime Pentaglot Senior Member United States mainlymagyar.wordpre Joined 5989 days ago 693 posts - 1328 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Galician Studies: Hungarian, Vietnamese, Modern Hebrew, Norwegian, Persian, Arabic (Written)
| Message 1 of 13 09 April 2010 at 2:08am | IP Logged |
Has anyone tried to learn Korean from the FSI course?
I have heard mixed reviews. I actually enjoy the "drill to kill" method of the FSI courses and am not put off by
that aspect of the course. I'm also not afraid of the odd romanization system that is used.
What worries me a bit is the reported "outdated formality" of the material. I have heard that the course is much
too stiff and formal for anyone wanting to actually communicate with people in Korea today.
The DLI course from 1965 looks great but I can't find the audio anywhere...
Any thoughts??
THANKS!!
1 person has voted this message useful
|
Johntm Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5182 days ago 616 posts - 725 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish
| Message 2 of 13 09 April 2010 at 3:35am | IP Logged |
Try a torrent site, like thepiratebay, this stuff is public domain anyway so it's not piracy. That's how I got my FSI Korean (haven't used it though).
1
2
They are the same thing, both have the same stuff.
1 person has voted this message useful
|
newyorkeric Diglot Moderator Singapore Joined 6139 days ago 1598 posts - 2174 votes Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: Mandarin, Malay Personal Language Map
| Message 3 of 13 09 April 2010 at 4:42am | IP Logged |
I think Liddytime is asking about the DLI audio, not the FSI audio.
Also, there is no need to go to a torrent site for the FSI material since it is available here: FSI Korean.
Edited by newyorkeric on 09 April 2010 at 4:44am
1 person has voted this message useful
|
liddytime Pentaglot Senior Member United States mainlymagyar.wordpre Joined 5989 days ago 693 posts - 1328 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Galician Studies: Hungarian, Vietnamese, Modern Hebrew, Norwegian, Persian, Arabic (Written)
| Message 4 of 13 09 April 2010 at 12:58pm | IP Logged |
Whoops,
Sorry for the confusion. I do have the complete FSI course ( and the DLI text, no audio for that one).
I was just curious if anyone has actually gotten through the course and if it is still a reasonable method to learn
Korean. I'm sure it was fine in 1968 but the criticism I have heard is that is is so stiff and formal that people would
consider it odd there. eg: if someone said in English...
" Dost thou be wanting to pursue thine hamburger deluxe at yonder golden arches? " for
" You wanna get a Big Mac at McDonald's?"
1 person has voted this message useful
|
Warp3 Senior Member United States forum_posts.asp?TID= Joined 5295 days ago 1419 posts - 1766 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Korean, Japanese
| Message 5 of 13 09 April 2010 at 5:32pm | IP Logged |
I haven't actually gone through the FSI course but I have looked through several lessons and the speech levels are higher than in most modern courses. Much of the FSI course is in the "formal polite" ~ㅂ니다/~ㅂ니까 speech level, whereas most modern courses heavily bias the "informal polite" ~요 speech level instead and reserve the formal speech level for select phrases like "I'm sorry." and "Thank you." which still commonly use the high form.
However, learning to change a sentence to a different speech level isn't really *that* difficult (and it is better to learn too high than too low). At the very least, I would make sure you check out the revision notes on THIS PAGE which includes helpful info like: word X is out of use; word Y is now used instead
4 persons have voted this message useful
|
Johntm Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5182 days ago 616 posts - 725 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish
| Message 6 of 13 10 April 2010 at 7:17am | IP Logged |
newyorkeric wrote:
I think Liddytime is asking about the DLI audio, not the FSI audio.
Also, there is no need to go to a torrent site for the FSI material since it is available here: FSI Korean. |
|
|
Sorry! My mind was focused on FSI for some reason. As for DLI, I don't know :(
1 person has voted this message useful
|
liddytime Pentaglot Senior Member United States mainlymagyar.wordpre Joined 5989 days ago 693 posts - 1328 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Galician Studies: Hungarian, Vietnamese, Modern Hebrew, Norwegian, Persian, Arabic (Written)
| Message 7 of 13 10 April 2010 at 2:00pm | IP Logged |
Warp3 wrote:
Much of the FSI course is in the "formal polite" ~ㅂ니다/~ㅂ니까 speech level, whereas most
modern courses heavily bias the "informal polite" ~요 speech level instead and reserve the formal speech level
for select phrases like "I'm sorry." and "Thank you." which still commonly use the high form.
However, learning to change a sentence to a different speech level isn't really *that* difficult (and it is better to
learn too high than too low). At the very least, I would make sure you check out the revision notes on
THIS PAGE which
includes helpful info like: word X is out of use; word Y is now used instead |
|
|
Thanks!
That is kind of what I was thinking; that it is easier to learn the formal speech first and tone it down than learn
the less formal and unknowingly insult people.
The revision notes are very helpful as well! :-)
I think I am going to try and get through Pimsleur I and II first and then attack the FSI course.
1 person has voted this message useful
|
Ichiro Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5969 days ago 111 posts - 152 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese, French Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, Korean, Malay
| Message 8 of 13 15 April 2010 at 12:23pm | IP Logged |
Additionally, my Korean wife tells me that the man's accent is rather strange and old-fashioned - harsh and monotonous. She said he sounded North Korean rather than South; or possibly South Korean from a very rural area. The lack of inflection is more like modern Japanese delivery than modern Korean.
She also tells me that some of the vocabulary identified as being old-fashioned is still in use among the Korean community in Japan, eg Japan-resident Koreans still say uphyənkuk where mainland Koreans now say uchaəkuk.
***********************
In my opinion, the less formal speech is much harder to learn than the formal speech. In informal speech there are many more verb endings and they have much greater semantic colour. They're also much harder to catch when listening. Even after you master the formal speech in the FSI course you still have a considerable barrier to cross before you can start to have semi-formal and informal conversations with Koreans.
I don't think Koreans expect superformality from foreigners; I believe it would be better to learn too low than too high. But I don't think you have a choice, I don't know of any course which focuses on the informal speech in a concentrated way, you have to pick it up from context or from grammar books.
3 persons have voted this message useful
|