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 FSI Language Courses Forum : Learning Languages : General Discussion
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COF1
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Quote COF1 Replybullet Topic: Turkish basic...
    Posted: 14 September 2006 at 1:58pm

I've seen some courses have basic in their name and some are just the language name alone. Are the basic courses anymore basic than the others or is that just what they were named at that point? For example, is Turkish basic a full course in Turkish?

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daristani
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Quote daristani Replybullet Posted: 14 September 2006 at 3:11pm
Each FSI course was produced by different people, at different times, and with somewhat different approaches.  Some are longer than others, some contain more extensive drills, etc.  You can't assume that any one course is all that similar to another, and I don't think you can read overmuch into the title, i.e., "basic" may mean a lot more than just the basics.  (For French and Spanish, I think the "basic" courses could just as easily have been named "complete".)

Specifically in terms of Turkish:  I'm a fairly fluent Turkish speaker, having lived and worked in the country for a number of years, and having studied the language with a good many different textbooks and grammars over the years, as well as an awful lot of live practice.  I think the FSI Turkish course is actually quite good.

The FSI Turkish course does NOT contain as much drill material as the French or Spanish basic courses (to my mind, the FSI programmatic courses aren't very useful).   That said, the Turkish course does expose you to almost all of the grammar, and the explanations, including on a lot of very difficult and subtle grammatical points, are excellent.  Accordingly, even if the FSI Turkish course doesn't give you as much in terms of drills as the French or Spanish courses, the textbooks are truly excellent, and are well worth studying in depth.  (A bit of the Turkish vocabulary used is somewhat old-fashioned, though.) With the Turkish course, in particular, it would be a big mistake to see the course as consisting primarily of the audio drills.  The books  themselves are a goldmine of insights into the structure of the language.  (When I first studied Turkish many years ago, I had only the books, and no tapes, and still found it very helpful.)  Many of the Turkish drills are of the "repeat after me" type, and thus less creative/challenging than the ones in some of the other courses.  Yet Turkish is quite different in structure than English or most other languages that most people study, and close reading of the FSI Turkish textbooks, and working through the drills to the point that you assimilate the grammatical forms therein and understanding the meaning as well, will give you a very good understanding of the way Turkish works, as well as a fair amount of practice if you do the drills several times each.  (Another note:  for some reason, only some of the drill materials in the book are included on the tapes, which is another difference from the other FSI courses.  As noted above, each course is different.)

In any event, good luck with your studies in Turkish. 
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