FSI Greek

[William Camden]

I got to the end of the first 25 lessons of FSI Greek (I think there are others) but I wouldn't recommend it. It has a rather poor audio and the old-fashioned Greek spellings in the written material (it was issued in 1967) were also a problem.

[Speakeasy]

FSI Basic Greek
I have never attempted to learn Greek and I have no intention of ever trying to doing so. Nevertheless, given my wholly irrational attachment to the FSI Basic Courses of the 1960's, I thought that it might be useful to add a few comments/links in response to William Camden's heartfelt expression of disappointment with the FSI Basic Greek course.

FSI Greek is outdated -- HTLAL, August, 2007
Γρηγόρη wrote: "I am a fluent speaker of Greek and have used the FSI course over the years for review and practice. Despite the age of the course, it is basically sound. The authors explain at the beginning of the course that they will teach kathomiloumeni (standard spoken Greek), which is neither extreme Demotiki nor extreme Katharevousa, but the language used by most educated speakers in everyday situations. Since Katharevousa lost its official status, this form of Greek has become the language of Greece.

There are some times in FSI where the lesson will teach some katharevousa elements, but it is always clear that they are such, and the demotic elements are presented simultaneously. And these are worth learning, anyways, since one still encounters them from time to time in Greece, especially in writing, e.g. the older genitive ending - εως for nouns like πόλη. Sometimes the authors even have a little fun with it, such as one lesson where the American asks for directions to the butcher, fishmonger, greengrocer, etc., using all the katharevousa terms, and the Greek replies, "You mean the …" and gives the demotic terms. This, again, is helpful because, in Greece to this day, nearly every one of these types of shops will have the katharevousa term on its sign, but everyone refers to it by its demotic name in speech.

Somewhere in the second volume, FSI begins introducing more and more katharevousa for the purposes of reading newspapers, etc. At that point, you can decide whether or not you want to keep on going with it or switch to other materials. But again, that can all be very useful if you want to attain a high level of fluency in the language, since educated Greeks still pepper their speech with katharevousa elements.

The short of it is, at least the first volume of FSI and the first half of the second volume are perfectly viable programs and, to be honest, some of the only rigorous materials out there for self-study."

Here is the LINK to the full discussion: http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=6783&PN=14

DLI Basic Greek
As both FSI and DLI courses that are presently in the public domain were published during the same time period, it is quite possible that criticisms of one apply equally as well to the other. Nevertheless, as it always possible that the DLI Basic Greek course continues to present something of value to the independent learner, I thought that it might be worthwhile providing one positive comment on these courses:

DLI vs FSI - HTLAL, March, 2011, page 4
anakapuana wrote: "...I approached different methods to start with Modern Greek. By far and by large, the FSI and DLI are the best. FSI does throws you into the language a bit brutally, I would say: the rate of speech in their audio - right from the outset - is mind boggling.I settled for the more gentle but absolutly perfect DLI course. It is undoubtedly one of the very best courses I ever came across in any language. Granted, we are not all interested in military talk but the little specialized vocabulary thrown in that we have no use for is a small price to pay for an otherwise so impeccable course..."

DLI Basic Greek files
Here is the LINK to the course files: https://jlu.wbtrain.com/sumtotal/language/DLI%20basic%20courses/Greek/.

Recent Discussion Threads - A Language Learners' Forum
For the benefit of William Camden and others reading this particular discussion thread, I have attached the LINKS to the most recent discussion threads of Modern Greek wherein the FSI and DLI courses have also been discussed.

A path for Modern Greek?
https://forum.language-learners.org/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=2115

Anyone learning modern Greek?
https://forum.language-learners.org/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=5235

[crush]

Thank you both for your comments, i've actually read the old post from HTLAL that Speakeasy shared, at least regarding FSI. I hadn't thought of using the DLI course before. I've done many FSI courses (Spanish, French, German, Mandarin) and while they were of varying quality, i really like that drill-based method.

William Camden, the first 25 lessons are from Volume I, right? I believe there are three volumes altogether. If one is mostly focused on speaking/listening (in my opinion the main forté of FSI courses), would you think it's still worth going through? I'm currently going through the Language Transfer course, and only a couple hours in, but my planned study path was to move on to either Assimil or FSI afterwards, and then Glossika. Do you feel the actual content of the course is not worth it, even for someone who enjoys that drill-based method?

[Speakeasy]

For the sake of continuity, I have included a LINK to THIS discussion thread in each of the discussion threads below, both of which contain extensive discussions of Modern Greek. As this post is merely a filing activity, in my view, it does not merit any particular recognition. So then, please hold your applause.

A path for Modern Greek?
https://forum.language-learners.org/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=2115

Anyone learning modern Greek?
https://forum.language-learners.org/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=5235

[William Camden]

Thank you both for your comments, i've actually read the old post from HTLAL that Speakeasy shared, at least regarding FSI. I hadn't thought of using the DLI course before. I've done many FSI courses (Spanish, French, German, Mandarin) and while they were of varying quality, i really like that drill-based method.

William Camden, the first 25 lessons are from Volume I, right? I believe there are three volumes altogether. If one is mostly focused on speaking/listening (in my opinion the main forté of FSI courses), would you think it's still worth going through? I'm currently going through the Language Transfer course, and only a couple hours in, but my planned study path was to move on to either Assimil or FSI afterwards, and then Glossika. Do you feel the actual content of the course is not worth it, even for someone who enjoys that drill-based method?

I might check out the DLI one, though it may be no better, but basically I found the audio for the FSI in this course poor and it was a real struggle getting through the first 25. Later volumes might be better, but they might be as bad or worse.
I would look for something of more recent vintage.

[William Camden]

In terms of the joys of Katharevousa, I have worked through Memrise on Modern Greek sufficiently to have left me with enough vocabulary to read Greek newspapers without constantly having to rush to the dictionary, though I still have a measure of trouble with the spoken language.

[crush]

I might check out the DLI one, though it may be no better, but basically I found the audio for the FSI in this course poor and it was a real struggle getting through the first 25. Later volumes might be better, but they might be as bad or worse.
I would look for something of more recent vintage.

Thanks for the update, i'll probably try it out and see how it is. I'm not as interested in the later volumes as they supposedly get less and less useful to learners of spoken Modern Greek. I'm fairly used to the poor recording quality of FSI courses, so i guess i'll find out if that's an issue for me or not.