Jake Day Newbie United States Joined 5041 days ago 30 posts - 35 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish
| Message 1 of 5 22 December 2013 at 8:10pm | IP Logged |
I've recently started FSI Spanish. I've noticed that starting around lesson 5, the dialogue repetition immediately after
the end of the dialogue build-up at the start of the lesson sometimes repeats large amounts of dialogue at once--
sometimes too much for me to memorize and repeat promptly. Does anyone else have this problem, and if so, how
do you work around it? The FSI program does seem very useful for me and I don't want to give it up.
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Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4921 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German
| Message 2 of 5 22 December 2013 at 10:00pm | IP Logged |
The learning curve on FSI is steep. But I think that struggle to hear, remember and repeat a section of dialogue is very useful for developing listening comprehension, as well as your ability to speak under pressure. Sure it's hard, but so is the real thing. This is probably one of the things which makes some people hate FSI, but it is also one of the things which makes FSI so valuable.
One way to deal with it is to go back and review the previous lessons to get yourself up to speed. Another way would be to read along while working through the dialogue sections. I like to try a dialogue a few times without the text. After a few tries I then look up anything which is giving me difficulty.
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luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7217 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French
| Message 3 of 5 22 December 2013 at 11:02pm | IP Logged |
Some sections of FSI take more effort, but once you get them down, you'll have a real sense of accomplishment.
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Indíritheach Senior Member United States Joined 4057 days ago 108 posts - 146 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Irish, French
| Message 4 of 5 23 December 2013 at 12:01am | IP Logged |
When I worked through FSI Spanish, I would memorize the basic sentences during the build-up (the "basic sentences for memorization")first. I'd memorize the first line, then the second, then repeat them, then do the third, etc., until I could repeat the whole dialogue verbatim. That way, once it came time for the "basic sentences for fluency" section, it was a lot easier to speak close to the speed on the recordings. This is more time consuming, and it usually took me about 3 or 4 days to get through a unit, but I felt like it was worth it. Also, since a lot of the drills involve variations on the basic sentences in the dialogue, it made it easier for me to work through them.
Edited by Indíritheach on 23 December 2013 at 12:03am
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James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5387 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French
| Message 5 of 5 23 December 2013 at 1:40am | IP Logged |
Wait until you get to lessons 46-55! With enough work, the dialigues in the first 45 lessons should be able to be done and are quite valuable. I think amount of text someone is expected to remember in dialogues 46-55 is overkill. I'd often simply read the dialogues out loud a couple times before doing the build up. That helped me be comfortable with the words and having them come out of my mouth. FSI can be tough, but as others have mentioned it is this toughness that really makes a difference in the end.
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