Language Transfer

[kanewai]

I thought I did a post - maybe I hit delete instead of submit?

I like this course a lot. I just finished the Spanish Complete. This is a return to Spanish for me, and it worked great as a refresher.

I did the Intro to Arabic just to check it out. Again, this was a refresher for me, just for fun, but it was enjoyable enough that I didn't mind starting at the beginning. I'd contrast this with Pimsleur, which I really like in general - but would find it tedious to repeat the beginning levels. The Arabic course only focuses on verbs used as adjectives (I don't know the technical term for this) and not on actual verbs. This is fine for speaking, and a nice intro to the language, but it is only the very first steps. In contrast, Spanish really does give a general but complete overview.

The old Greek course was very much like Michel Thomas's course, right down to the choice of vocabulary and the order in which they introduced grammar. It's being replaced by a new Complete Greek course that appears to be more original. Again, I really liked this, but 1/3 of the way through it I hit a wall, and I would have needed a proper course book to move forward.

I'm looking forward to Complete German.

In general, I'd use this course as a solid introduction and overview of a new language, or as a refresher for a dormant language. I don't think I'd bother if it were for a language that I was already active in.

[diplomaticus]

I think it is sort of neat how they are going about choosing languages to do. Rather than churn out stuff that has no market, let the market come to you!

Interesting to me the order in which these appear. I mean, German before French, Turkish and Arabic before things that I'd expect to be more common, etc...

[kanewai]

I think it is sort of neat how they are going about choosing languages to do. Rather than churn out stuff that has no market, let the market come to you!

Interesting to me the order in which these appear. I mean, German before French, Turkish and Arabic before things that I'd expect to be more common, etc...

There's actually a cool story behind that. It's based in Cyprus, and their original aim was to bridge the divide between Greek and Turkish speakers, so those were their first target languages. Arabic was a natural fit from an Eastern Mediterranean perspective. The rush to complete German is in response to the refugee crisis.

I'm not sure how Spanish fit into all this.

[BOLIO]

I did the Spanish and loved it. It was MT without the horrible accent.

[Cavesa]

I've just noticed (procrastination is hell) the news about the Language Transfer. By the end of February, there should not 20 or so new videos, as I had read before, but 30 Greek and 35 German ones! I need to start the German course right after the 6wc. And there will be the big voting result announcement about the next course but, looking at the graph, it looks like there will be no surprise: Arabic is way ahead of all the other languages.

[Yuurei]

I've just noticed (procrastination is hell) the news about the Language Transfer. By the end of February, there should not 20 or so new videos, as I had read before, but 30 Greek and 35 German ones! I need to start the German course right after the 6wc. And there will be the big voting result announcement about the next course but, looking at the graph, it looks like there will be no surprise: Arabic is way ahead of all the other languages.

Noo, Cavesa, you can't do that to me. D: *glances at Greek course*

[Cavesa]

https://www.reddit.com/r/languagelearni ... nsfer_ama/

The course creator is now answering questions on reddit!

[Cavesa]

Yesterday, I was going to give that damn one euro as a microscopic contribution (and enjoy voting for something totally not going to win this round). I filled up the paypal form and something went wrong. It kept telling me I hadn't filled all the required fields. What?! Of course I had. Several times. Perhaps there were some invisible secret fields that I missed, no other reason comes to my mind.

So, I will keep my one euro.

But the real news: new audios are being added (for now some Greek, what a temptation!). And I am looking forward to trying the German course soon! Yay!

And the new course is gonna be "Introduction to Italian". I should be 150% excited, right? It is Italian after all. Well, I will be past that level by the time it is out, but that is not the reason why I hope the next language is going to be something rarer again. It looked like LT was gonna cover the languages people struggle to find high quality (and free!) resources for. I know I wouldn't use vast majority of courses for the less popular languages but I wouldn't mind. I would be happy for the fellow learners who'd finally find something awesome to help them with Lithuanian, Farsi, Thai, Hungarian, ... and that is too far in the future, as the rules are clear, the numbers decide, and we are back to the old order Spanish,German,Italian,French. It's like feeding a really fat dog while leaving a starving one out. At least Complete Arabic has got a really good chance to break this line and be the next one, right after Italian.

My paypal attempt failed. Any ideas why? If not, I will probably sign up to patreon. I should be able to send 1 dollar per month and support a project I admire a tiny bit (now I am missing the Spanish and Italian absolute superlatives, I wanted to write "tinissime"). And I will choose an "unpopular" language to constantly vote for every month. Out of the top 10, I am considering Farsi, Japanese, Finnish.

[reineke]

A young Michel Thomas. I really hate it The explanations may be of help to English speakers. Thanks for sharing.

[kujichagulia]

...I am a bit hesitant to start Complete German as it is not complete yet...

Shouldn't the course be called Incomplete German, then? Or Not-Yet-Complete German?

Now that I think about it, it was my joke that was incomplete.