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 FSI Language Courses Forum : Learning Languages : French
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MARAT
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Quote MARAT Replybullet Topic: Initial problems
    Posted: 04 April 2007 at 3:41am

  Hello,

 first of all thanks to everyone who established this website and make it possible to share all these language materials for everyone.

I started last week to learn the FSİ french revised course. But there are some questions  what I want to ask.  I have the impression that the dialogue part at the beginning of each unit are to fast so that I'am not able to follow and respond to them. How can I proceed to make it possible to follow all of them ?

And another question, do I have to always reply to all of this audio material, I mean to repeat or reply to all of these audio-textes.

Thanks...



 


Edited by MARAT - 04 April 2007 at 3:41am
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Esther
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Quote Esther Replybullet Posted: 04 April 2007 at 9:10am
This is the magic in this program, in my opinion.
 
First let me answer, yes, you have to do all the audio exercises, somethimes just repeat, sometimes think, just as the examples state. By doing this, your mind and mouth figure out how to make french sounds, and figure out how to make them at a proper spoken speed.
 
For example...the word "vacances". In english it is natural to pronounce the hard "c" with the first sylable, but in french, it is pronounced with the second sylable. ... "va cance"  not "vac ance"
 
And the french don't pronounce a lot of the printed letters eg: Je n'ai pas is spoken and heard as  "j'a pas".
 
All this will come by simply doing the exercises.
 
It can get boring, and I am now on a break after unit 9.
 
 
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Brian
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Quote Brian Replybullet Posted: 06 April 2007 at 12:49pm
http://www.loquella.com/learn-french/

The same lessons, but you can go at your own pace and go back as much as you need.
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mouse
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Quote mouse Replybullet Posted: 06 April 2007 at 1:33pm
I also thought the dialogues went too fast at first, especially when never introduced to the notion of silent letters, liaisons, etc. I repeated the dialogue of unit 1 so many times I can now recite it whenever in about 25 seconds.
 
Do not be discouraged; later on the dialogues will be your favorite thing in the course, and you will have excellent pronunciation. The pain is worth it. 
 
As for the drills, do every one carefully and preferably, out loud. You might find it helpful to repeat the drills more than once. The drills are constructed in a way so that what you want to say will eventually come out automatically, as is with a fluent speaker.   
 
Good luck!


Edited by mouse - 06 April 2007 at 1:34pm
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blade80
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Quote blade80 Replybullet Posted: 21 May 2007 at 1:35pm
I agree , dialogues are the most fun since that's where you learn new things like grammar and vocabulary. Plus, they are quite practical.
 
It's essential to repeat ALL audio and do the practice drills without the text. You can pause for reply if it is too fast.
 
Also download or buy a good grammar textbook like "Towell Hawkins - French Grammar and Usage" (very thorough ,albeit, complex) and look up anything that is not familiar to you in the course, as soon as you discover it in the FSI. I find this practice very helpful.
 
People who never studied French before would greatly benefit from Pimsleur, as  I did, before FSI. I've used a different approach in Pimsleur because just listening to audio didn't work for me. I wrote down all the new stuff I've heard and looked up grammar and vocabulary and then had a separate page for each unit with my notes. This defeated the purpose of listening to old units over and over again as I had all that I needed on paper to review. This took about an hour per 30 min lesson so some sacrifices were made)
 
Bonne chance!)
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MARAT
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Quote MARAT Replybullet Posted: 21 May 2007 at 2:13pm
Originally posted by blade80

 
It's essential to repeat ALL audio and do the practice drills without the text. You can pause for reply if it is too fast.
 


@blade80

are you sure with repeating all the audio and practice drills without looking at the text. That is quite difficult I think, where did you get this infomation?

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daristani
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Quote daristani Replybullet Posted: 21 May 2007 at 4:17pm
Ability to do the drills and respond correctly and fluently is the object of the effort, but you're not expected to be able to do this the first time through.  Ideally, unless you're just using the course as a quick review, you should repeat all the drills in each unit until you can respond fairly automatically; that's why some refer to this method as "drill and kill"...

The first time or two, though, you'll probably have to do the drills by looking at the book; that's fine, and is in fact helpful in learning to match what you hear on the tapes to the way the words are written.   Later, after you've assimilated the material to a degree, you can run through the drills without the book to see how you do without the visuals.

But there's no one "right" way to use the materials; different people will prefer different approaches, and will find different aspects of the courses more useful than others.   The value of the materials, I think, is that they give you LOTS of exercises where you're forced to speak, and then you hear what you "should have said", and then you get time to repeat it.  Work at this diligently enough, and you'll assimilate a lot of those French patterns in a way that you won't easily forget them.  But repetition is key, as is not rushing through the course too quickly.  Most of us have to work through each tape several times before we've fully assimilated what's there.

Personally, I see no sense in actually memorizing the dialogues, although some people seem to find this helpful; for me, it's enough to simply work through the tapes to the point that your responses to the prompts provided become automatic.  When that happens, you're ready to move on to the next unit.  

Edited by daristani - 22 May 2007 at 5:36am
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blade80
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Quote blade80 Replybullet Posted: 21 May 2007 at 7:39pm
Originally posted by MARAT

Originally posted by blade80

 
It's essential to repeat ALL audio and do the practice drills without the text. You can pause for reply if it is too fast.
 


@blade80

are you sure with repeating all the audio and practice drills without looking at the text. That is quite difficult I think, where did you get this infomation?


I just mean the practice drills which require an answer or any drill for that matter which asks you to respond to the phrase) I agree with daristani that if FSI is your first French encounter you'll be forced to use the textbook for some time before you get comfortable.
 
I also agree the memorizing dialogues is redundant, at least for me. If you memorize the dialogue, and then something slightly different comes along, you will have difficulty in responding. I just take the vocabulary and the grammar structures, that are new to me ,from the dialogues. Learn them, and move on when I'm ready.
 
 
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