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Back in the ‘50s or ‘60s, the U.S. government Foreign Service Institute put together a series of language learning courses that covered most of the popular lang
by commandlinefan 7y ago
Back in the ‘50s or ‘60s, the U.S. government Foreign Service Institute put together a series of language learning courses that covered most of the popular languages at the time. They’re public domain and if you look hard enough, you can find them on the internet - they’re dated, but they’re still accurate (there are some here http://www.fsi-language-courses.net/ http://www.fsi-language-courses.net/ but the hosting sucks). I’ve learned Spanish and French well enough to carry on conversations in both from them. One thing about their approach is that they focus on memorizing spoken dialogues. It’s the standard goofy “what time will Mr. Gonzales arrive at the restaurant” type of dialogue, but the idea is that you’re supposed to remember what they say, even if you don’t understand the parts of speech, well enough to recite it from memory. I’ve found that, more than anything else, these memorized dialogues help the most with language recollection - if I want to say something, I scan through my memorized dialogues for something close, substitute a few words, and say it like they said it in the course.
- meigwilym 7y agoThis reminds me of The Knowledge. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxicabs_of_the_United_Kingdom#The_Knowledge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxicabs_of_the_United_Kingdom...
- pessimizer 7y agoI'm really a fan of rote learning and hate that it gets bad-rapped. It's not intended to teach creativity, it's intended to train reflexes. If you repeat "What time will Mr. Gonzales arrive at the restaurant" 1000 times, you'll immediately know how to ask when Bill will arrive at the restaurant. And later when you learn how to say "restaurant," "arrive," or "at what time", you suddenly know a bunch of stuff. Eventually you will forget about some of the things Mr. Gonzales did, but the reflexes will still exist. I love the endless FSI substitution drills. They feel like video games. Also the Spanish ones are done so quickly that the instructor almost trips over his own tongue. edit: also, https://fsi-languages.yojik.eu/ https://fsi-languages.yojik.eu/, well-hosted labor of love.
- mcguire 7y agoInteresting. The text to go along with the audio includes a phonetic version. Good morning. bwenozdiás [Some marks removed.] Buenos días. http://www.fsi-language-courses.net/languages/Spanish/Basic/Volume%201/Fsi-SpanishBasicCourse-Volume1-StudentText.pdf http://www.fsi-language-courses.net/languages/Spanish/Basic/..., Unit 1 - Useful phrases.
- commandlinefan 7y agoYes, you find that through the whole Spanish course. I never found it to be very useful, but it's there if somebody wants it.
- tzs 7y agoYou can find much of the FSI material at the Live Lingua Project here [1]. The FSI is not the only US government created language program. There's also the Defense Languages Institute (DLI). Much of their material is also on Live Lingua [2]. [1] https://www.livelingua.com/fsi/ https://www.livelingua.com/fsi/ [2] https://www.livelingua.com/dli/ https://www.livelingua.com/dli/