FSI Basic Courses “Updated”: Dr. Brians Languages

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Lysander
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Re: FSI Basic Courses “Updated”: Dr. Brians Languages

Postby Lysander » Mon Jun 11, 2018 11:14 pm

iguanamon wrote:Once again, Speakeasy, thanks for your service on behalf of the community bringing this to light. Soon, these courses will have over 50 years on them. An update is far overdue and will be very useful. Having used two DLI Basic courses, I found them to be superb and the most thorough courses I've ever done... despite their age and issues. The FSI courses are similar and could be useful for years to come with some updates. I wish these folks every success.
Lysander wrote:...maybe they can clean up the DLI Portuguese audio

The DLI Portuguese Basic Course audio is practically perfect in comparison to the DLI Haitian Creole Basic Course audio :lol:

I had no idea Charlie Brown's teacher was Haitian :lol:

https://hooktube.com/watch?v=ss2hULhXf04

iguanamon, when I finish with Assimil and move to DLI Portuguese, I promise to never ever complain about the audio!
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Binat
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Re: FSI Basic Courses “Updated”: Dr. Brians Languages

Postby Binat » Tue Jun 12, 2018 10:29 am

Thanks for the information! Can I also advise several online courses? I'm studying French
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Re: FSI Basic Courses “Updated”: Dr. Brians Languages

Postby Speakeasy » Tue Jun 12, 2018 10:56 am

Binat wrote:Thanks for the information! Can I also advise several online courses? I'm studying French
Hello, Binat. Welcome to forum! I look forward to reading your comments on the multitude of subjects that make this forum so interesting and stimulating for language-learners. As to your question, while it is not uncommon for a discussion thread to evolve in a direction which differs from the initial post, in this case, as this thread was opened to follow the development one specific product, I wonder if you could please add your suggestions for online French courses under the "French Resources" discussion thread. Merci à l'avance! or Merci d'avance!, whichever you prefer. Thank you.

French Resources
https://forum.language-learners.org/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=2914
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Re: FSI Basic Courses “Updated”: Dr. Brians Languages

Postby Speakeasy » Tue Jun 12, 2018 11:16 am

Status: June, 2018
Lysander wrote: … Depending on the actual cost and how true the bolded is, I wonder if this is something where a kickstarter campaign could be of use? As Stefan points out, they are averaging one module per year. If 20 is the goal, we have quite a wait ahead of us at the current pace…
Speakeasy wrote:Thank you for your comments. During my recent exchange of Emails with Scott Brians, we shared a few thoughts concerning possible means of increasing the financial support of Dr. Brians Languages’ (DBL) project to deliver completely updated versions of the FSI French Basic and FSI German Basic courses. Now that “the door has been opened” for a more public discussion, I will ask Scott if he would like to provide a statement of his views on the matter for publication under this thread...
Scott Brians kindly sent me the following Email this morning wherein he identified some of the issues influencing the production of additional modules:

Scott Brians, 2018-06-12
"The barrier to speeding up the development of modules has been lack of time. In the month after our tutoring season ended, we have finished two modules (German Perfect Tense 3 that is now available & ‘French: La Pétition by Frédéric Bastiat’ that was uploaded 3 days ago, whereas the manuscript and demo audio files are now on our website).

Outside of someone showering us with money so that we don’t have to work for a living, straightforward help could come in the form of the following:
(1) Go to our facebook page and write a positive review. This is quick, easy and free.
(2) Funding an internet marketing campaign that sends customers to our site. This costs money for the donor.
(3) Help with development (more so for French than German). This costs time for the donor.
(3a) layout vocabulary lists
(3b) write drills
(3c) proofreading the program
(4) Record audio. This costs time.

Anyone interested in (2), (3) or (4) can contact me through the website to coordinate.

At this point, the biggest help in accelerating module production would be (3). Being highly proficient in the target language is not a requirement noting that developing the material is a means of studying the language. However, for proofreading, a native speaker is obviously best.

Last but not least, native speakers with solid recording equipment and who can record sans background noise can lend their voices for small parts.

Anyone who donated time/money will be mentioned in our manuscript, as we have done in the past."


So, then ...
Volunteers.PNG


EDITED:
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Binat
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Re: FSI Basic Courses “Updated”: Dr. Brians Languages

Postby Binat » Thu Jun 14, 2018 9:38 am

Speakeasy wrote:
Binat wrote:Thanks for the information! Can I also advise several online courses? I'm studying French
Hello, Binat. Welcome to forum! I look forward to reading your comments on the multitude of subjects that make this forum so interesting and stimulating for language-learners. As to your question, while it is not uncommon for a discussion thread to evolve in a direction which differs from the initial post, in this case, as this thread was opened to follow the development one specific product, I wonder if you could please add your suggestions for online French courses under the "French Resources" discussion thread. Merci à l'avance! or Merci d'avance!, whichever you prefer. Thank you.

French Resources
https://forum.language-learners.org/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=2914


First of all, thank you for your kind response! Very nice when you pay attention! :P
Well, about online courses. I would like to warn you at once that my French level is slightly higher than the beginner, but even before the intermediate I am still not very good (

However, I am involved in language, it is useful for my further training and work.

So ... I asked a lot of people on the other forums who are studying French.
First of all, I wanted to say that I found several free online courses that are really useful than that. For example Duolingo
 - takes the leading place in the applications in the category "Training". And all thanks to the clever synthesis of learning and entertainment. The program does not require much time - only 20 minutes a day, and during this time you will have time to complete 3-4 lessons, and for three months in your dictionary will be 1500

Another interesting application Memrise
 The application actively struggles with cramming, so all tasks are very fun and creative. In addition, they are not invented by professionals, but members of the Memrise community. This means that the pictures and situations were checked by other people who comprehend the French language. This method is very effective and not boring at all.
Now for users, there are several levels of complexity: from the initial to the advanced. All of them are conditionally divided into 15 groups: verbs, colors, words for describing emotions and the like.

It's about applications. As for the analysis of online courses, I found through Google an interesting site that compared the 5 most popular courses, leave a link here. https://www.bestadvisor.com/best-french-courses-online

But there is Rosetta Stone ... Her courses are now popular, but I've seen a lot of criticism on the forums addressed to her. Specifically, why people do not perceive it to me and it was not possible to find out but many answers included the phrase "haha".
I used Babbel. Many other forums can advertise you in a parallel way. The application is also there.

I think it's just for each of us to try different ways for myself, I tried to describe each in detail) Maybe someone else has more questions, I'll be glad to answer you.
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Re: FSI Basic Courses “Updated”: Dr. Brians Languages

Postby Speakeasy » Sun Sep 16, 2018 12:12 am

Update September, 2018: New module for each of French and German

Earlier today, I received an Email from Scott Brians advising me that a new module for each of the French and German courses is now available:

http://www.drbrianslanguages.com/purchase.html

EDITED:
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Last edited by Speakeasy on Sun Sep 16, 2018 2:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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zenmonkey
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Re: FSI Basic Courses “Updated”: Dr. Brians Languages

Postby zenmonkey » Sun Sep 16, 2018 8:24 am

Thanks for sharing this info, it's great to see that these courses are being updated.
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Andy E
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Re: FSI Basic Courses “Updated”: Dr. Brians Languages

Postby Andy E » Thu Jan 23, 2020 12:58 pm

I was recently reminded of the existance of these courses, so I've just bought Unit 1 of the French course...
....because I obviously don't have enough languages courses already.

Weirdly the most recent German one is a Nook AudioBook rather than Audible... not sure why that might be.
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Re: FSI Basic Courses “Updated”: Dr. Brians Languages

Postby miket12 » Mon Mar 09, 2020 2:31 am

I ran across this thread, started more than 2.5 years ago as of this writing (March 2020). In the first post it was mentioned that they would eventually get up to about 20 modules, but looking on their website they only have the first 6 available for French. Do you think they've abandoned the project?
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Re: FSI Basic Courses “Updated”: Dr. Brians Languages

Postby Speakeasy » Mon Mar 09, 2020 3:40 am

miket12 wrote:...Do you think they've abandoned the project?
Thank you for your interest! Given the competition from the ever-increasing number of fancy, flashy, technologically-advanced applications for language learners, coupled with the wide-spread lack of interest in the audio-lingual method of instruction, reviving/updating the FSI German and FSI French courses was, in my opinion, a bit of a long shot.

When I was communicating more-or-less regularly with the spokesperson for Dr. Brians Languages a couple of years ago, he expressed great enthusiasm for this project. So then, in the absence of concrete information, I would be inclined to assume that the current status is still "Work in Progress". However, it would appear that further progress on this project (i.e,. the publication of additional units) was to be dependent upon the financial success of the existing units and I do not know whether or not the necessary rendez-vous with success ever came about. The only sure means of confirming the continued existence and viability of this project would be to communicate with the owners via their website: Dr. Brians Languages.

EDITED:
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