The Great Courses: Language Lectures Series
Posted: Tue Jun 27, 2017 7:25 pm
The Great Courses: Language Lectures Series
Although individual language courses in the “The Great Courses” series have been mentioned briefly under separate discussion threads covering specific languages (Spanish, Latin, Ancient Greek), including announcements of their latest discounted sales prices, there does not seem to be a thread covering the complete set of offerings. As this publisher has recently added a French course to this series, I thought that it might be useful to open a separate discussion thread.
The Great Courses LINK
http://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses
Modern Languages
Learning French
Learning German
Learning Spanish
Learning Spanish II
English Grammar Boot Camp
Ancient Languages
Latin 101
Classical Greek 101
Decoding the Secrets of Egyptian Hieroglyphs
Biblical Hebrew: Learning a Sacred Language
Language-related
Understanding Linguistics
Language and Society (linguistics)
Language A to Z (linguistics)
Language Families
Pricing
The publisher seems to have a practice of offering their courses at rather steep “regular” prices and, several times a year, offering “discounts” of 50% to 70% which are, for all practical purposes, the true "regular" prices. With a view to encouraging the buyer to load up on materials, the language courses are often offered in two-course "sets" combining either two languages or a language plus a cultural course.
Materials
The Great Courses series are highly-regarded introductory video/audio lectures covering a wide variety of subjects. Generally speaking, the course materials include video recordings, a course book and, in some cases, separate audio recordings drawn from the video lectures. Most often, the courses can be purchased either as physical materials (DVDs, CDs, textbooks) or as downloadable files.
General Appreciation
I have copies of their Latin and Spanish courses. My overall impression is that these are well-conceived, well-structured, and well-delivered First Semester language courses that would lead the student towards the CEFR A1 level. There are no “tricks or gimmicks” in these courses, they are a series of lectures accompanied by a supporting course book. In my opinion the exercise materials included in these courses would not replace the dialogues and exercise sets that form the essential part of many self-study language courses. Nonetheless, for those who enjoy lectures, these courses represent an interesting and entertaining introduction to the very basics of a language.
EDITED:
Added: English Grammar Boot Camp, Language-related Courses.
Slight modification to the title, Formatting
Typos, of course!
Added: Decoding the Secrets of Egyptian Hieroglyphs
Added: Learning Spanish II
Added: Biblical Hebrew: Learning a Sacred Language
Added: Learning German
Although individual language courses in the “The Great Courses” series have been mentioned briefly under separate discussion threads covering specific languages (Spanish, Latin, Ancient Greek), including announcements of their latest discounted sales prices, there does not seem to be a thread covering the complete set of offerings. As this publisher has recently added a French course to this series, I thought that it might be useful to open a separate discussion thread.
The Great Courses LINK
http://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses
Modern Languages
Learning French
Learning German
Learning Spanish
Learning Spanish II
English Grammar Boot Camp
Ancient Languages
Latin 101
Classical Greek 101
Decoding the Secrets of Egyptian Hieroglyphs
Biblical Hebrew: Learning a Sacred Language
Language-related
Understanding Linguistics
Language and Society (linguistics)
Language A to Z (linguistics)
Language Families
Pricing
The publisher seems to have a practice of offering their courses at rather steep “regular” prices and, several times a year, offering “discounts” of 50% to 70% which are, for all practical purposes, the true "regular" prices. With a view to encouraging the buyer to load up on materials, the language courses are often offered in two-course "sets" combining either two languages or a language plus a cultural course.
Materials
The Great Courses series are highly-regarded introductory video/audio lectures covering a wide variety of subjects. Generally speaking, the course materials include video recordings, a course book and, in some cases, separate audio recordings drawn from the video lectures. Most often, the courses can be purchased either as physical materials (DVDs, CDs, textbooks) or as downloadable files.
General Appreciation
I have copies of their Latin and Spanish courses. My overall impression is that these are well-conceived, well-structured, and well-delivered First Semester language courses that would lead the student towards the CEFR A1 level. There are no “tricks or gimmicks” in these courses, they are a series of lectures accompanied by a supporting course book. In my opinion the exercise materials included in these courses would not replace the dialogues and exercise sets that form the essential part of many self-study language courses. Nonetheless, for those who enjoy lectures, these courses represent an interesting and entertaining introduction to the very basics of a language.
EDITED:
Added: English Grammar Boot Camp, Language-related Courses.
Slight modification to the title, Formatting
Typos, of course!
Added: Decoding the Secrets of Egyptian Hieroglyphs
Added: Learning Spanish II
Added: Biblical Hebrew: Learning a Sacred Language
Added: Learning German