Paid listening resources and the problem of 'amateur' teachers

[Herodotean]

There's that other thing on YT: the 'Easy' series. I follow the Easy Spanish videos (which I find anything but 'easy' at times!), but from there I've had a look at the Easy French and the Easy German, which appears to be the original one. The German one is genuinely interesting. The people who do it seem nice and don't ask for anything; I often wonder how they fund it. For listening to languages as they are spoken on the street in a casual way I think those are actually useful.

Right, "Easy" is something of a misnomer for videos that consist mostly of unadapted native speech. I suppose the baked-in TL and English subtitles make them "easy" to some extent, though I'd love it if one could turn one or both of them off. The Easy German people have only recently started advertising a paid app, but not too obnoxiously.

[Kraut]

I haven't read through this thread, but would like to drop this address. Whenever I take up French on Youtube again, this would be my first choice.


French Comprehensible Input

Learn French with Lucky Luke [part 13] (fr sub)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0Tu36S ... OA&index=4

[Carmody]

Everyone here sounds close to C1 levels but I am not there yet; I have a long ways to go.

I find Alice Ayel helpful at my level and although Alice Ayel does have a paywall, there are still many videos available for free at:
Alice Ayel!

[lusan]

I haven't read through this thread, but would like to drop this address. Whenever I take up French on Youtube again, this would be my first choice.


French Comprehensible Input

Learn French with Lucky Luke [part 13] (fr sub)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0Tu36S ... OA&index=4

I have not listen to much French since last December. I tried the tube and I liked it. Je comprends tout!
I never saw anyone explaining cartoon and using it to teach comprehension. Nice. Thanks for sharing.

[Amandine]

I did Inner French Hugo's paid course Build a Strong Core and thought it was great. I'm sure there would be choices to critique here and there but obviously a lot of time and effort went into its planning and execution. The material is, like his free videos, generally pretty interesting and goes into some depth on the topic. The grammar parts were really targeted I thought at what are the usual problem areas and the quizzes were very meaty. I would definitely like to do his other course Raconte Ton Histoire but he only opens it for enrolments twice a year and the last one wasn't good timing for me. Perhaps that is how to avoid the trap of declining standards when you introduce cash into the system - stay at a size where you can manage the quality.

[BeaP]

I did Inner French Hugo's paid course Build a Strong Core and thought it was great.

I haven't done any paid courses with him, but I've watched several of his free videos, and they are great. He gives free transcriptions as well if I remember well. How do these paid courses work? As I understand it they are like a group class with teaching through internet. Or why is the number of the participants limited?

[Amandine]

I did Inner French Hugo's paid course Build a Strong Core and thought it was great.

I haven't done any paid courses with him, but I've watched several of his free videos, and they are great. He gives free transcriptions as well if I remember well. How do these paid courses work? As I understand it they are like a group class with teaching through internet. Or why is the number of the participants limited?

They're not live classes. The videos are recorded and everything is laid out. I believe the enrolments are limited because he and his assistant are involved in the community answering questions and etc and so the numbers need to be manageable.

The idea is one per day for a month but I found them too much (in a good way) to really do it at that pace. I did one every two or three days. Basically they are longer versions of his normal videos with transcripts and grammar/vocab notes. Then a grammar lesson with another video on a particular issue and several quizzes on that topic. There are also "missions" which were usually writing about a certain topic in the community, I never really engaged in this but it looked very active. At some point I will go back and review the grammar stuff and relisten to the audio of the main lessons.

[Le Baron]

They're not live classes. The videos are recorded and everything is laid out. I believe the enrolments are limited because he and his assistant are involved in the community answering questions and etc and so the numbers need to be manageable.

The idea is one per day for a month but I found them too much (in a good way) to really do it at that pace. I did one every two or three days. Basically they are longer versions of his normal videos with transcripts and grammar/vocab notes. Then a grammar lesson with another video on a particular issue and several quizzes on that topic. There are also "missions" which were usually writing about a certain topic in the community, I never really engaged in this but it looked very active. At some point I will go back and review the grammar stuff and relisten to the audio of the main lessons.

If I may ask, where do you think this course took you from/to? And how much do you feel you were just doing yourself compared to being actually 'taught'. What I mean is: what's different between the grammar he gives and the same presented in e.g. a coursebook?

I have nothing against this Hugo fellow, he seems a decent sort to me, though I'm quite interested in the way they are all doing this online. I use YouTube quite a bit and because I'd never actively searched for French learning content (because I didn't need it) I didn't realise just how much of it is on there...it's all popping up in my sidebar now! I saw another one called Comme une française. Though she seems to only talk in English in the videos, she also runs online courses and these also seem to be pre-recorded material. At €199-€399 a pop and the numbers of students they claim it looks rather lucrative.

Pre-recording probably isn't that bad, after all the audio of most courses is pre-recorded and in the 80s/90s video material for languages courses was like luxury. However the impression given with these courses seems to be that you have a 'personal teacher', but this is surely not the case? If they end up with something like 1000+ students signing up (and this must be the case with French which is always popular), how could they possibly manage to properly assess each one?

Does anyone have any other experiences mirroring this for other languages? Spanish, German, Chinese, Japanese?

[Carmody]

Le Baron » Sun Dec 05, 2021 10:19 am


If I may ask, where do you think this course took you from/to? And how much do you feel you were just doing yourself compared to being actually 'taught'. What I mean is: what's different between the grammar he gives and the same presented in e.g. a coursebook?

I have nothing against this Hugo fellow, he seems a decent sort to me, though I'm quite interested in the way they are all doing this online. I use YouTube quite a bit and because I'd never actively searched for French learning content (because I didn't need it) I didn't realise just how much of it is on there...it's all popping up in my sidebar now! I saw another one called Comme une française. Though she seems to only talk in English in the videos, she also runs online courses and these also seem to be pre-recorded material. At €199-€399 a pop and the numbers of students they claim it looks rather lucrative.

Pre-recording probably isn't that bad, after all the audio of most courses is pre-recorded and in the 80s/90s video material for languages courses was like luxury. However the impression given with these courses seems to be that you have a 'personal teacher', but this is surely not the case? If they end up with something like 1000+ students signing up (and this must be the case with French which is always popular), how could they possibly manage to properly assess each one?

Does anyone have any other experiences mirroring this for other languages? Spanish, German, Chinese, Japanese?

You may wish to check out Comme une française listing of her past episodes under Videos on her website. What I found especially interesting was her reading of Sleeping Beauty:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPYRUMp0KP0&list=PL2u4oHkid_n2LDXEXJN0VNs8BdYz86Emr

Yes, I went through all the episodes with her and thought there was lots to learn.

From what I hear of others, the material she has behind the paywall is worthwhile. However, I don't pay to go beyond paywalls so maybe I am not a good judge.

What was especially interesting were her Nanofiction episodes. I found those very worth the time and effort.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24WSXP8fbEQ&list=PL2u4oHkid_n2g-mBYnGoLFXLLwxsjsTrR

It really all depends on what you are looking for.

[Fortheo]

I haven't read through this thread, but would like to drop this address. Whenever I take up French on Youtube again, this would be my first choice.


French Comprehensible Input

Learn French with Lucky Luke [part 13] (fr sub)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0Tu36S ... OA&index=4

Thanks for sharing. I've always wanted something like this for french, and honestly it would be amazing to have something similar in several languages. I hope he does more.