|
 |
Best Courses | ||
Tags: Language Program | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| ericblair Senior Member United States Joined 4510 days ago 480 posts - 700 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 9 of 24 10 April 2015 at 12:57am | IP Logged | ||
What do you define as decent results? I've never used a Hugo course. I believe they are rather grammar heavy. Is that correct? And were you able to stick to the schedule alright? Edited by ericblair on 10 April 2015 at 12:57am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Kc2012 Diglot Groupie South Africa Joined 4272 days ago 44 posts - 65 votes Speaks: English*, Afrikaans Studies: Dutch, Mandarin, Russian | Message 10 of 24 10 April 2015 at 12:25pm | IP Logged | ||
|
It kinda annoys me how people don't answer the question and instead go on a tangent about
something else. Happens in like every thread =/ (I'm even doing it with this post, guess I'm a hypocrite) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| DrX Newbie Ireland Joined 3319 days ago 18 posts - 21 votes Speaks: English* | Message 11 of 24 10 April 2015 at 5:45pm | IP Logged | ||
HAHA! I was too scared to say in case it only made it worse!! And your suggestions are pretty good thanks. @James29 good suggestions too. Was planning on doing something similar. Also I used the word courses but I probably meant more "book" cos courses more employ a product range and books across multiple languages. Where I mean more individual books for indiviudal languages too. For instance in college I picked up a great book Dryer & Schmitt's German grammar "Die Neue Gelbe" and that was very good (Save the lack of translations) so it could be a non commerical book/book series too. Thanks 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6396 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 12 of 24 10 April 2015 at 6:35pm | IP Logged | ||
|
It would help if you provided a more specific definition of a course that works (or doesn't). For example, I think many disagree with you about Teach Yourself. For some languages, it's the best English-based resource simply because there isn't much else, particularly for independent learners like most of us here.
Also, it's not clear why you want to compile such a list. If it's for your own benefit, even if I'm heavily in favour of learning many languages, I recommend narrowing it down to one or two. If it's for other people, why limit it to these specific languages and (I assume) to English-based courses? But most of all I agree with iguanamon. The textbooks simply don't matter as much as the techniques you use. A good learner can learn a lot from a bad textbook, especially if they have at least occasional Internet access. A bad learner or newbie can fail even with the best books and methods. Fortunately HTLAL can cure that ;) An analogy: many IT forums have very clear requirements of the information you need to specify. HTLAL is not so strict, but your question is the equivalent of "I type very slowly, which keyboard do you guys recommend?" 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| DrX Newbie Ireland Joined 3319 days ago 18 posts - 21 votes Speaks: English* | Message 13 of 24 10 April 2015 at 9:49pm | IP Logged | ||
|
A lot of posters here seem to suffer from 2nd or 3rd gen Postmodernism where everything is subjective and there is no method that can objectively work. (this is probably fueled by a bed of pop-psych, such as auditory/visual/kinaesthetic learners and some such nonsense).
There is a difference between learning and feeling like you are learning. You can almost imagine a scale from the useless rosetta stone with its technofetishism to FSI courses with their actual results. Most courses from the modern era dazzle you with pretty pictures and word games but have little use. Courses from the early to mid-20th century had some substance with proper explanations and proper drills. Not baby-ish flashcards. This is also why I wanted to distinguish this thread from the "Favorite language programs" thread (of which I've read most) as favorite most likely implies most titillating and fun and enjoyable not necessarily the best. I had a hope I might dig out more obscure or academic materials too. I know this maybe be an upsetting opinion but I really tried to phrase my original post as delicately as possible as I assumed if i outright slammed too many courses and told people what not to mention others I would be accused of being hitler or some such… But seems to be in vain as the post elicited quite strong reactions nonetheless. I do find it quite worrying that the simple question of what are the best courses on a website whose subtitle is "The website about teaching yourself languages" can go so badly so quick. Secondly, I have spent the last couple of weeks reading through the lionshare of the posts from now till 2007 and notice a quite worrying trend that Kc2012 has pointed out above. Every conversation devolves into irrelevant bickering and the question is never answered. Exampled here where I'm being questioned on why I wanted to create a list?? and whether I'm learning all those languages at once? Most alarming, when someone asks a quite specific question they are either ignored or not even read properly. I read one post from some poor man who said in his post "I have done x and y does anyone know any others" and the post directly underneath said "have you tried x and y". I predict this might get carried away on discussions about the inferred tone of this post…. So well see what happens. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 6955 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 14 of 24 10 April 2015 at 10:48pm | IP Logged | ||
See here for related discussion. Looking at your list, I will say that Swan's First-Year Polish and Intermediate Polish (Swan) are my favorite courses for Polish. Contrary to your assertion, they're my favorite because I got a lot out of them, and after trial and error of having used other courses. They are hardly the last word in glossy, colorful layouts laden with games. You somehow concluded that a lot of us believe that no method can work. A more accurate conclusion would be that a lot of us believe that no method can work for everyone at all times, to which iguanamon has already alluded. Taking a jab at some of us being influenced by pop psychology or similar is a little rash, wouldn't you say? 10 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6396 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 15 of 24 11 April 2015 at 12:01am | IP Logged | ||
That's what I mean. What for? If it's for some kind of project, I think we have the right to know what we're contributing to. If it's for HTLAL, the language list is arbitrary and honestly it would be hard enough even for an experienced member to set the criteria and compile. If it's for yourself, most are probably just not interested in recommending materials for a language you'll maybe never study. I don't get where the assumption about Rosetta Stone comes from. One of the few things with near 100% consensus on HTLAL is that it's overrated, overpriced and at the very least not enough to get you anywhere. 95% also seem to agree that flashcards do work for some or most people, regardless of whether they use them themselves. Everything else is more subjective already. I personally think that there's nothing wrong with pictures, especially culturally relevant ones. Lots of people are very visual so it helps them* (although of course I also agree that in the classroom it can be distracting and lead to giggles etc). But honestly it's insulting to come to a language learning forum and assume that people's favourite textbooks are the most shiny ones. *I'm not very visual myself so it's more noticeable to me. I'm speaking mostly of visual memory and visual imagination here. And of the visual entertainment - think of how many people prefer movies and comic books instead of usual books with more text. Edited by Serpent on 11 April 2015 at 12:23am 7 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6396 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 16 of 24 11 April 2015 at 3:43am | IP Logged | ||
I'm pretty sure this basic stuff is not what iguanamon was referring to. After all, I can almost guarantee that everyone here agrees that no matter how visual you are, you still need to do listening if you're learning a living language and want to speak it. (how and when is another matter altogether) Your learning style is a combination of various factors, including but not limited to innate traits, past experience (positive and negative, your own and what you witness), the logic/philosophy behind a method, material availability, hobbies and preferences (for example, you won't be learning L2 through poetry if you hate poetry in your native language). It's kinda like the variation in what we eat or what we wear. Maybe this can explain why your question is too vague. 2 persons have 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. |
