Would you recommend FSI/DLI for French?

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Re: Would you recommend FSI/DLI for French?

Postby SalzSäule » Sat Jul 30, 2022 11:29 pm

Can only speak to limited experience of DLI with Romanian, but some cursory notes:

* You ought to be studying it either alongside or just after using a more modern resource. You need some basic understanding of what is/isn't outdated in the language anymore. The Romanian version has spellings which are no longer correct and it uses the form 'dumitale' which is now quite infrequent.

* You will be exposed to quite irrelevant vocabulary for a beginner. I do not need to know lieutenant, sergeant, officer, first class [private] in Romanian, but now I do.

* It can be tedious, especially if you follow it like it was designed to be (i.e. learning the entirety of the dialogues off by heart).

* Its main strength is in giving you a lot of fundamental vocabulary, alongside helping you to cement sentence structures in your brain. Each lesson of the Romanian one introduces a new sentence structure (usually with a new grammar point) and after the dialogue comes about 10 different repetition drills going through 1st person singular positive and negative statements, 2nd person singular etc. etc.

For French I believe there are probably better, more modern resources out there vs Romanian. For drilling sentences and acquiring a solid base of sentence structure, it could be of some benefit, however. Ultimately, if you find it fruitful, then go for it. You will just need to arm yourself with the extra knowledge of what is now considered outdated.
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Re: Would you recommend FSI/DLI for French?

Postby jeff_lindqvist » Sun Jul 31, 2022 3:38 pm

FRAnglais1919 wrote:But speaking and listening are by far the worst. I listened to News in Slow French and One Thing in French a Day podcasts and it's like I've never heard French before. FranceInfo and France Culture were no better—they spoke too fast for me. Same thing with movies (I couldn't understand a word of what was said in La Chèvre, so I shamefully activated the English subtitles 5 minutes in). My goal is to be able to understand complex texts and fast spoken French.


Le Baron wrote:
FRAnglais1919 wrote:If I heard this spoken, I could just barely make out what he sayas. Maybe one or two words here and there, but then I'd have to guess when he was saying for the rest of the sentence.

The thing is, people write differently than they speak in normal daily life.


No textbook or audio course in the world will prepare you enough for "real language".

I once met a person from Germany who mentioned that they once "was in New York and couldn't understand anything". And that was English (which compared to your French is everywhere).

From HTLAL:
Three rules for improving listening (by Ari)
Listening from the beginning (by leosmith)

(French isn't one of my stronger languages. News in Slow French Intermediate level is fine. If there's something I don't understand, it's because of vocabulary gaps, not the speed itself.)
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Re: Would you recommend FSI/DLI for French?

Postby Cavesa » Sun Jul 31, 2022 3:56 pm

1.Your search for more structured ressources is definitely a good thing. Yes, structured coursebooks can help you get unstuck and much closer to your goals. Nevertheless,

2.FSi has a very good method, but the content is old. It shows. It is outdated. Some vocab, but surely the situations, etc.

3.There are other awesome resources, most notably the Progressives. They give enough content to get you even further than FSi. You can use them almost as rigorously, if you try.

In case of French, it is not chaos vs. FSi/DLI, there are many other options. I recommend using them.
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Re: Would you recommend FSI/DLI for French?

Postby Lawyer&Mom » Sun Jul 31, 2022 3:59 pm

The best way to understand real native speech is to listen to real native speech. Before you are “ready” or “prepared” for it. Yes, FSI will help your listening, because everything you do to improve your French will help your listening, but spending the hours it would take to do FSI just watching French cartoons would help your listening so much more.
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Re: Would you recommend FSI/DLI for French?

Postby FRAnglais1919 » Sun Jul 31, 2022 4:21 pm

RyanSmallwood wrote:I do like the FSI and DLI courses, but I think for French you have a lot more engaging options and they're probably overkill. For improving your listening comprehension I'd suggest the French in Action video series which is very extensive and well designed.


I just saw an episode of FiA. It's incredibly well-made and it's exactly what I needed. Thank you!
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