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The overall usefulness of FSI

  Tags: Usefulness | FSI
 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes Post Reply
35 messages over 5 pages: 13 4 5  Next >>
Spanky
Senior Member
Canada
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Studies: French

 
 Message 9 of 35
04 September 2015 at 2:23am | IP Logged 
ExRN wrote:
Prime example being the German course as it is technically
useless in a modern day setting.


Nope.
3 persons have voted this message useful



ExRN
Groupie
United Kingdom
Joined 3155 days ago

61 posts - 75 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Italian, Spanish
Studies: Dutch

 
 Message 10 of 35
04 September 2015 at 2:42am | IP Logged 
Alte Rechtschreibung. Spelling has been reformed since this material was written, which makes it
unnecessarily confusing.

Quote above is just to prove I am not going mad. So say you learn your German using fsi, surely you will be
spelling a lot of things wrong?

Spanky wrote:
ExRN wrote:
Prime example being the German course as it is technically
useless in a modern day setting.


Nope.


Very constructive reply. Thank you.



Edited by ExRN on 04 September 2015 at 2:47am

3 persons have voted this message useful



flydream777
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 Message 11 of 35
04 September 2015 at 3:19am | IP Logged 
Don't be so confused. Think about how much English has changed since 1960... Not that much right?
Neither has German. The spelling reform just established some rules like they write a double "s" instead of a
letter similar to a "B" and some other minor things.
4 persons have voted this message useful



ExRN
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 Message 12 of 35
04 September 2015 at 3:22am | IP Logged 
flydream777 wrote:
Don't be so confused. Think about how much English has changed since 1960...
Not that much right?
Neither has German. The spelling reform just established some rules like they write a double "s" instead of
a
letter similar to a "B" and some other minor things.


A honest thank you from myself this time. As I stated earlier, I haven't studied German so your response
has really helped. Thank you :-)
1 person has voted this message useful



vonPeterhof
Tetraglot
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Russian FederationRegistered users can see my Skype Name
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 Message 13 of 35
04 September 2015 at 4:12am | IP Logged 
Elexi wrote:
As to FSI - the spelling reforms have not changed the way German is spoken - time has to a degree (e.g. the dative case is less used as it was and 'gnädige Frau' may lead to odd looks).
Yeah, spelling reforms don't really have much of an effect on the spoken language, unless they're accompanied with a massive and deliberate overhaul of the language's vocabulary (Atatürk's reform of Turkish is probably the most successful example of this). More often than not spelling reforms are actually carried out to bring the written language closer to the spoken variety, or, as was the case with the German reform, to make the orthographic rules more internally consistent.

FSI Greek is another course that was created before a reform. The Greek reform was much more significant in terms of the number of words affected and in some cases even the grammar. However, a style of writing that is more similar to the spoken language (and to the modern standard) also existed at the time, and the course starts out in this style, explicitly noting where there are departures between it and the more formal variant. IIRC the latter only starts to predominate in the middle of the second volume, so the first volume is still useful for the grammar drills and example sentences. Besides, the spelling changes were mostly about replacing the polytonic accent notation with a simple stress accent mark, so for most words it's no problem whatsoever to figure out the modern spelling. Since there are exceptions though, like κ becoming χ in some words, it's still a good idea to check any words you think of adding to an SRS with a modern dictionary or with Google Translate to see if the spelling has changed.

Edited by vonPeterhof on 04 September 2015 at 4:13am

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Serpent
Octoglot
Senior Member
Russian Federation
serpent-849.livejour
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 Message 14 of 35
04 September 2015 at 4:13am | IP Logged 
One thing here is that most people still understand the old spelling, and you may come across it. I think most learners still get acquainted with it, but maybe not from the beginning.
1 person has voted this message useful



ExRN
Groupie
United Kingdom
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61 posts - 75 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Italian, Spanish
Studies: Dutch

 
 Message 15 of 35
04 September 2015 at 4:21am | IP Logged 
vonPeterhof wrote:
Elexi wrote:
As to FSI - the spelling reforms have not changed the way German is
spoken - time has to a degree (e.g. the dative case is less used as it was and 'gnädige Frau' may lead to
odd looks).
Yeah, spelling reforms don't really have much of an effect on the spoken language,
unless they're accompanied with a massive and deliberate overhaul of the language's vocabulary
(Atatürk's reform of Turkish is probably the most successful example of this). More often than not spelling
reforms are actually carried out to bring the written language closer to the spoken variety, or, as was the
case with the German reform, to make the orthographic rules more internally consistent.

FSI Greek is another course that was created before a reform. The Greek reform was much more
significant in terms of the number of words affected and in some cases even the grammar. However, a
style of writing that is more similar to the spoken language (and to the modern standard) also existed at
the time, and the course starts out in this style, explicitly noting where there are departures between it and
the more formal variant. IIRC the latter only starts to predominate in the middle of the second volume, so
the first volume is still useful for the grammar drills and example sentences. Besides, the spelling changes
were mostly about replacing the polytonic accent notation with a simple stress accent mark, so for most
words it's no problem whatsoever to figure out the modern spelling. Since there are exceptions though, like
κ becoming χ in some words, it's still a good idea to check any words you think of adding to an SRS with a
modern dictionary or with Google Translate to see if the spelling has changed.


You are my idol!
1 person has voted this message useful



ExRN
Groupie
United Kingdom
Joined 3155 days ago

61 posts - 75 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Italian, Spanish
Studies: Dutch

 
 Message 16 of 35
04 September 2015 at 4:21am | IP Logged 
Serpent wrote:
One thing here is that most people still understand the old spelling, and you may come
across it. I think most learners still get acquainted with it, but maybe not from the beginning.


And you too :-D


1 person has voted this message useful



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