Language Transfer

[iguanamon]

I think one of the reasons why Language Transfer gained traction in this community and elsewhere online, besides the free and open source model, is the lack of newly developed courses that update tried and true techniques or innovate new techniques. MT has been recommended for donkey's years on the forum. As a standalone course, it's not a great option, but in combination with other resources it can be a "missing link" that helps tie things together for some people (not for me, though). Michel Thomas quit teaching languages active in the 1990's. His courses were developed years before. Nobody, other than Paul Noble, had come along to truly update or innovate the MT method (some dispute whether Noble's method, or LT is truly "original") in the meantime until Language Transfer, with an open source model of distribution and crowd funding as the option to pay for its development. Could the LT model work if there were a charge of $25 per course, if it were an app with difficulty in downloading and sharing the audio? I don't know, but if it could, that would probably give more of an incentive and ability to create and develop more courses.

I think this situation highlights the need for a company to make a business decision to come up with updates or innovations to tried and true courses and techniques without "dumbing them down". The PBS series, Destinos, was developed in the 1980's. French in Action came from that time period too. Pimsleur started in 1963. The FSI and DLI courses date from the 1960's to 1970's for the most part. Teach Yourself comes from around the same era. Assimil gets updates. Pimsleur is starting to update some of its courses. This is one of the reasons why HTLAL is still relevant today for learners to research. There haven't been any major updates to these "tried and true" types of courses/techniques in decades.

Sure, a lot of it comes from a "why re-invent the wheel, when we can still sell what we have?" strategy from publishers. I do believe that one thing that LT shows us is that there is an audience out there for good materials, at least in a free download. I've often said that the two DLI Basic courses I did were the best and most thorough of any courses I've ever done, despite the poor (in the case of Haitian Creole- barely listenable to un-listenable) audio and despite the fact that they were typewritten courses with hand drawn graphics for illustration.

I'd love to see someone develop a course incorporating the best of the old along with the best of the new. Imagine a new Destinos along with a new FIA, app friendly and with supplemental materials, (perhaps even incorporating built-in subs2srs) but not "dumbed-down". Imagine Pimsleur with more relevant to modernity dialog and vocabulary.

So, yes, as has been shown, developing language courses on a shoestring and open source can be done but it has also been shown that it probably isn't a good and viable business model to do so. If it were, somebody would open source re-write and re-record those DLI courses I praise. Somebody would open source a new kind of course along the lines of FIA/Destinos. It just doesn't seem to be practical or feasible, economically or logistically. Still, somehow, I do believe that if someone builds a better mousetrap, there will be a market for it. There does seem to be a desire for deep, serious and well done new material for language-learning. Whether or not there is still money to be made out there today in language-learning, given the new market reality of an ever increasing world understanding of and speaking in English; google translate; internet piracy and the "expectation of free", is something I do not know.

Maybe there will never be that ever illusive "one-stop shop" course or technique for language-learning. Perhaps we will always have to cobble together materials from various sources to come up with something that works... but it would sure be nice not to keep having to do it with fifty year old courses.

[zenmonkey]

I remember trying a few of the audios in one of his course and liking it.
But the voting system and the production rates leave me somewhat uninterested.

I'm just not understanding those graphs and frankly this 'majority' rule for deciding which languages to work on isn't going to deliver a lot that is of direct interest to me.

Although the Arabic and Greek content might make me take that back now.
Swahili too.

At this point in time he's demonstrated he can actually put out some great content.
I hope he figures out something that is sustainable and allows him to meet his goals.

[Cavesa]

I think there is time for a little update, just in case someone might find it interesting:

Mihailis seems to have done a great job with the Swahili course, which now includes 99 audio tracks (over 14 hours of audio) and seems to be Complete!

All 50 planned Complete German tracks are online but the rest of the course will be done as video workshops, due to lack of money (which is understandable). The French and Italian Introductions have also been finished, but they are likely to go into a neverending cycle as they are leading the voting again and we can see Spanish Remake high on the list too. The Arabic learners will get vocab cards, which look well thought out (if I may say so as non-Arabic learner).

I am personally looking forward to the LT course creation guide that should be published by the end of the year, as I have a little project on my mind (if time allows). Other than that, he is starting the Introduction to Mandarin.

The ratio my budget/my faith in the project right now doesn't allow regular donations. I really wish I was richer and could afford to commission a course as that seems to be an option again, now that Swahili has been finished. And the only way to push a harder language forward and through the romance wall (harder as harder to get high quality affordable resources for).

[zjones]

This has been said before, but I want to share how much I enjoy the Complete Greek course. I started Greek a few days ago and have already tried out Pimsleur (which I have some familiarity with since I used it a few times for French) and a couple other free online courses. Pimsleur was okay but I found it stressful and boring (as always). However, I did several lessons of LT today and was totally captured by the style of teaching. Everything is taught in blocks... within 20 minutes I learned how to negate things, how Greek uses subject pronouns, how to put words together and create new ones, and where to place a direct object pronoun. This is the kind of stuff that I wish I could have started with in French. Too often the actual structure of the language is taught after tourist phrases and vocabulary like "Thank you" "Mister" and "Please".

Apparently there might be some issues with the donation option, but if I do finish this course I plan on donating a small chunk of money.

[garyb]

This has been said before, but I want to share how much I enjoy the Complete Greek course. I started Greek a few days ago and have already tried out Pimsleur (which I have some familiarity with since I used it a few times for French) and a couple other free online courses. Pimsleur was okay but I found it stressful and boring (as always). However, I did several lessons of LT today and was totally captured by the style of teaching. Everything is taught in blocks... within 20 minutes I learned how to negate things, how Greek uses subject pronouns, how to put words together and create new ones, and where to place a direct object pronoun. This is the kind of stuff that I wish I could have started with in French. Too often the actual structure of the language is taught after tourist phrases and vocabulary like "Thank you" "Mister" and "Please".

Apparently there might be some issues with the donation option, but if I do finish this course I plan on donating a small chunk of money.

I finished Complete Greek a couple of weeks ago. I wrote about my experience in my log, which you might be interested in for Greek beginner advice and experience: a few other members chipped in with their thoughts on resources. To summarise what I wrote there, I liked LT a lot at first but as it went on I found it increasingly difficult to keep up and to remember everything that had been taught in the previous lessons, and even a week after finishing it I had forgotten a lot of the material from second half.

It's a very well-made course and I have a lot of respect for the project, but I felt it was perhaps just too ambitious and tried to cover all the grammar in order to justify the "complete" label. Or maybe I'm just too slow a learner and it got too fast for me; the students on the recording, in contrast with the typical Michel Thomas ones, really put me to shame! I have no doubt that some of the "forgotten" material will come back to me as I encounter it in other settings, and I'd probably benefit from working through the course or at least the second half again at a later point, but it's just a warning that it does get a bit intense.

I actually feel that MT Greek is a more useful course for someone wanting to learn a lot of useful language in a short amount of time, or someone new to learning languages who would lose motivation from feeling overwhelmed (although Greek will always feel overwhelming to a beginner!). LT, on the other hand, is far more in-depth and "serious", and you can't argue with the price.

[zjones]

This has been said before, but I want to share how much I enjoy the Complete Greek course. I started Greek a few days ago and have already tried out Pimsleur (which I have some familiarity with since I used it a few times for French) and a couple other free online courses. Pimsleur was okay but I found it stressful and boring (as always). However, I did several lessons of LT today and was totally captured by the style of teaching. Everything is taught in blocks... within 20 minutes I learned how to negate things, how Greek uses subject pronouns, how to put words together and create new ones, and where to place a direct object pronoun. This is the kind of stuff that I wish I could have started with in French. Too often the actual structure of the language is taught after tourist phrases and vocabulary like "Thank you" "Mister" and "Please".

Apparently there might be some issues with the donation option, but if I do finish this course I plan on donating a small chunk of money.

I finished Complete Greek a couple of weeks ago. I wrote about my experience in my log, which you might be interested in for Greek beginner advice and experience: a few other members chipped in with their thoughts on resources. To summarise what I wrote there, I liked LT a lot at first but as it went on I found it increasingly difficult to keep up and to remember everything that had been taught in the previous lessons, and even a week after finishing it I had forgotten a lot of the material from second half.

It's a very well-made course and I have a lot of respect for the project, but I felt it was perhaps just too ambitious and tried to cover all the grammar in order to justify the "complete" label. Or maybe I'm just too slow a learner and it got too fast for me; the students on the recording, in contrast with the typical Michel Thomas ones, really put me to shame! I have no doubt that some of the "forgotten" material will come back to me as I encounter it in other settings, and I'd probably benefit from working through the course or at least the second half again at a later point, but it's just a warning that it does get a bit intense.

I actually feel that MT Greek is a more useful course for someone wanting to learn a lot of useful language in a short amount of time, or someone new to learning languages who would lose motivation from feeling overwhelmed (although Greek will always feel overwhelming to a beginner!). LT, on the other hand, is far more in-depth and "serious", and you can't argue with the price.

Garyb, thank you for your response! I appreciate hearing from someone who has actually completed the course in its entirety.

I'll certainly heed your warning, because I intend to be careful with how much time I devote to Greek anyway (French still remains my primary language). I often need to repeat tracks on audio-only resources. How often did you do a lesson of Complete Greek? And -- this is unrelated to the course -- will you be continuing with Modern Greek?

[garyb]

I often need to repeat tracks on audio-only resources. How often did you do a lesson of Complete Greek? And -- this is unrelated to the course -- will you be continuing with Modern Greek?

I didn't repeat any tracks. I tried to just to the course "as prescribed" and I don't remember the instructor saying anything about repeating lessons. I did two or three lessons per day over a few weeks. My memory's hazy but I'm sure Pimsleur and/or MT recommend repeating a lesson if you feel like you were unable to answer at least around 80% of the prompts (and conversely, not repeating if you are able to, even if you're not getting 100% - it's not about perfection). On reflection, I think I would have benefited from following advice like that and repeating the more difficult lessons as needed, and I maybe rushed through the course too much when I should've taken my time more.

Yes, I'm continuing. I'm going to Greece very soon, and I hope to keep slowly working on it after the trip too. Now I'm following the dialogue-based lessons on Greekpod101, which I chose not because it seems like the "best" resource but just because a Web-based programme is the most convenient for me.

[zjones]

I didn't repeat any tracks. I tried to just to the course "as prescribed" and I don't remember the instructor saying anything about repeating lessons. I did two or three lessons per day over a few weeks. My memory's hazy but I'm sure Pimsleur and/or MT recommend repeating a lesson if you feel like you were unable to answer at least around 80% of the prompts (and conversely, not repeating if you are able to, even if you're not getting 100% - it's not about perfection). On reflection, I think I would have benefited from following advice like that and repeating the more difficult lessons as needed, and I maybe rushed through the course too much when I should've taken my time more.

Yes, I'm continuing. I'm going to Greece very soon, and I hope to keep slowly working on it after the trip too. Now I'm following the dialogue-based lessons on Greekpod101, which I chose not because it seems like the "best" resource but just because a Web-based programme is the most convenient for me.

Thanks, looking back over the audio transcript I can see that he didn't say anything about repeating the lessons. I always assume that I'll need to repeat lessons from an auditory course -- regardless of whether or not it's recommended -- because I prefer to learn with visual resources. However, the creator of the Greek Complete Course recommended only doing as much as you can handle in a given day, and to stop if you start getting stressed:

As you can understand by now, this course is not something you should have in the background. It should be something that you engage with actively when you have energy to think, to concentrate and to follow the explanations that are being given. Try to find a time in your day when you have both the calmness and the energy to relax and engage in this time that is for you. Do as much of the course as feels exciting and then take a break. When you start to get tired, when you make careless mistakes, it’s time to take a break. There’s no reason to push yourself or to force yourself, learning is not about pain. Learning is about satiating curiosity, about having fun.

(Source: Complete Greek Course Transcript, page 3: https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/b8e879_3 ... 54f079.pdf)

[Cainntear]

My memory's hazy but I'm sure Pimsleur and/or MT recommend repeating a lesson if you feel like you were unable to answer at least around 80% of the prompts (and conversely, not repeating if you are able to, even if you're not getting 100% - it's not about perfection). On reflection, I think I would have benefited from following advice like that and repeating the more difficult lessons as needed, and I maybe rushed through the course too much when I should've taken my time more.

That's Pimsleur -- MT doesn't say anything about it. One thing I notice about Pimsleur in that respect is that it's a meaningless figure. Getting 20% wrong can mean you have completely failed to learn a particular part of it, and following that rule I've continued on to the next lesson and found that over the course of the whole set of lessons, I consistently continue to get those one or two things wrong (I had a habit of getting the 10 or 12 lesson packs out of the library and doing them while walking to and from work. In the course of a year I dabbled in more languages than I could possibly remember. )

When it comes to repeating in audio courses, I came to the conclusion that (for me at least) repeated listening of a particular lesson was counter-productive, as I'd just end up memorising everything. With MT I did two things:
1) I would "overlap" my sessions, listening to the end of what I'd listened to last to remind me of where I was and what I'd done before starting new stuff. I think I rewound the audio by about a minute or two per day between sessions.
2) I'd do a bulk rewind and go back and run through a whole CD or 2 quickly, possibly without even using the pause button (note: I never ever recommend this on the first listen, but I often let it run on a relisten while making dinner or washing the dishes).

[Random Review]

The latest updates seem interesting. The good news is that Mihalis is finally doing something he should have done years ago: stop moaning about the fact it's only him and actually start training other people in course creation. The bad news is that it all seems a bit rushed and not well planned. I'm not at all convinced a short course with him or (much worse!) merely reading the guidebook when it is published will enable new creators to keep the quality up. I fear this project may be petering out now.

However, it is difficult not to have a great deal of sympathy for Mihali, who has given so much and neglected himself in the process. In his videos it comes across very clearly that he is not in a good place right now. He definitely can't be reproached for rushing the process now, given that the stress and isolation are causing him health issues. I hope he can find time to guide new contributors in creating their first courses.

Potentially, if he can find the health and energy to do that, this could still be a really positive development. The hints he has been giving lead you to think that a couple of the people attending his training workshop have plans to create courses for non-FIGS languages.