Cortina Method Audio

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Speakeasy
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Re: Cortina Method Audio

Postby Speakeasy » Thu Jun 01, 2017 10:59 pm

Polyglotpondernings, fellow member Daristani is aware of the current discussion and, as yet, does not seem to have felt the need to interject his own comments. I also have it on good authority that he is very busy with other matters! Jpazzz -- quite uncharacteristically -- has not yet responded to my Email, which I interpret as a sign that he might be travelling and not following his Email traffic or that he is otherwise occupied.

In any event, we seem to have "proof positive" that Cortina released recordings to accompany their Russian course. As to the origin of said recordings (that is, who actually prepared them), my level of curiosity has been sated and I wish you "good fortune" in your quest.

You "shrunk" an image!?!?! How in the world did you manage to do that? ... queried the techno-peasant.
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Daristani
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Re: Cortina Method Audio

Postby Daristani » Fri Jun 02, 2017 12:20 am

Sorry for not having chimed in earlier, but I honestly couldn't remember where I'd found the digital versions of the Cortina Russian materials I'd found quite some time ago and so figured I had nothing useful to add.

But I checked back through my old e-mail records and see that I'd discussed this a bit in a note to jpjazz a while ago. It turns out that I'd found the Cortina Russian audio on the site that used to be referred to as "Uzbekistan", now known as language.ws; it had been posted there circa April 2015, and apparently had originally come from a torrent feed. But the ultimate origin of the audio still seems to be unknown. I'm sorry I can't be any more helpful.
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lctx
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Joined: Tue Jun 06, 2017 1:22 pm
Languages: English (N), French (I)

Re: Cortina Method Audio

Postby lctx » Tue Jun 06, 2017 1:25 pm

I checked the FSI site and cannot locate the French audio files. Would someone please provide a link?

Thanks
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Daristani
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Re: Cortina Method Audio

Postby Daristani » Tue Jun 06, 2017 1:41 pm

All the Cortina materials (books and audio) are here: https://fsi-languages.yojik.eu/languages/cortina.html

Just scroll down to find the appropriate language, and then either download the entire set for that language as the archive, or use the individual books and audio files in blue.
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Speakeasy
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Re: Cortina Method Audio

Postby Speakeasy » Tue Jun 06, 2017 4:48 pm

Origins of the Cortina Russian Audio Recordings
Returning to the matter of the Cortina Russian 78 rpm vinyl record sound files, I received an Email from Jpazzz this morning, who kindly offered the following additional information:

As to polyglotpondrings’ observations “Second, the structure of the recordings hosted on the FSI site is very different from the demo. The demo has pauses for repetition, but the recordings are just a straight read through of the Russian text in the book”, Jpazzz reports “I, too, have the sample disc … it’s not at all like the real recordings … the 78 rpm recordings don’t have the time to put in pauses … The pauses were added later when 33 1/3 recordings came into existence.

As to the origins of the Cortina Russian recordings and their posited link to Linguaphone, Jpazzz reports “… the original Cortina Russian textbook … the author expresses thanks to some University of Pennylvania administrator for his wonderful suggestions as to how to make the Conversaphone recordings. Doesn’t that sound like they were made at the University of Pennsylvania? Why and how the idea of Linguaphone making the original recordings came about I cannot fathom. The Cortina recordings bear little similarity to the LInguaphone output of whatever generation.”

As it happens, at Jpazzz’s suggestion, I purchased an earlier edition of “Cortina Russian in 20 Lessons” about two years and, for posterity, have appended the acknowledgement below. Many thanks to Jpazzz! To complete the record, I will copy selected posts from this discussion thread and add them to the discussion thread “Cortina Russian and Japanese (FSI database)” where this saga began.
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.
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polyglotponderings
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Languages: English (N), Russian, Spanish
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Re: Cortina Method Audio

Postby polyglotponderings » Sat Jun 17, 2017 10:34 pm

Tell Jpazzz thank you for the response.

After some more research, I would agree that those 78" records must be the original recordings. The acknowledgement is not the only place in the book that mentions the audio. The dust cover on the fifth edition book I have says, "...the Cortina Academy has recorded the vocabularies and conversations of this book using voices of native Russians...". The vocabularies and conversations is exactly what is on the records. Nothing more. It is still strange that that differs significantly from what is on the demo records and cassettes sent out. Now I wonder where that audio came from? Another audio course? Or was it recorded specifically for a demo? Also, the book says that they are native speakers, and although I am not a native Russian speaker, I would challenge that statement. At least some of the speakers do not sound very native. Oh well.

There are also references to the recordings in the pronunciation section of the grammar portion in the back of the book. Specifically, the last paragraph of Section 22 talks about four different speakers. That is what seems to be on the original 1951 recordings.

So, my original skepticism has been refuted. Thank you to everyone who helped clear this up for me!

Now I'm tempted to buy that set on ebay, since there may not be many original records around. :D
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crontbeck
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Languages: english
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Re: Cortina Method Audio

Postby crontbeck » Mon Jun 11, 2018 5:29 am

Ericounet wrote:hi

FLAC: : Lossless compression so it's exactly like the original. and compressed!

mp3, ogg, wma: lossy compression ; you'll never get a quality like the original back ...

see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lossless_compression


Always prefer FLAC ;)


Eric


Lossless and lossy compression are terms that describe whether or not, in the compression of a file, all original data can be recovered when the file is uncompressed. Lossless compression reduces a file's size with no loss of quality. This seemingly magical method of reducing file sizes can be applied to both image and audio files. While JPEGs and MP3s use lossy compression, newer compression algorithms, such as JPEG 2000 and Apple Lossless compression, can be used to create lossless compressed files. The PNG format is supposed to be a lossless format, but when you save an image as a PNG file, you are asked to choose a compression level.
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DanielLongo
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French, German, and Italian (beginner)
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Re: Cortina Method Audio

Postby DanielLongo » Fri Sep 07, 2018 7:47 pm

Daristani wrote:All the Cortina materials (books and audio) are here: https://fsi-languages.yojik.eu/languages/cortina.html

Just scroll down to find the appropriate language, and then either download the entire set for that language as the archive, or use the individual books and audio files in blue.


I cannot begin to tell you how much I appreciate this effort in getting the Cortina material online and available to us all. I understand there are many people to thank and some really special efforts that were put into this. I hope my message here makes it to you all eventually. I know everyone has their own proclivities when it comes to learning/studying a language, but the organization and presentation of the Cortina method has been my absolute favorite, followed second only by the Instant Immersion series. I have looked a long time for the audio for the Cortina series. Thank you. THANK YOU!!!
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