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Hebrew - only 1st half?

Printed From: FSI Language Courses
Category: Language Courses
Forum Name: What's New?
Forum Discription: This is the place to go to see what courses have been added to the web site.
URL: http://fsi-language-courses.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=205
Printed Date: 16 January 2009 at 2:57am


Topic: Hebrew - only 1st half?
Posted By: onebir
Subject: Hebrew - only 1st half?
Date Posted: 10 November 2006 at 10:47pm
It looks like the first half has been uploaded - which is great - but is that because only the H1 materials are in hand? 



Replies:
Posted By: gdfellows
Date Posted: 11 November 2006 at 6:23am
You are correct, onebir, and thanks for pointing this out.  I have corrected the home page.  DemiPuppet has completed the first nineteen lessons.  We will post the remainder when he completes the digitization work.


Posted By: onebir
Date Posted: 11 November 2006 at 8:38am
Great - thanks for clearing that up


Posted By: Manatee
Date Posted: 09 December 2006 at 4:27pm
Any progress on the 2nd half of the Hebrew course? I would love to print the entire 500+ pages of text when the 2nd half of the course is available, thank you.


Posted By: Chung
Date Posted: 09 December 2006 at 4:58pm
See Demipuppet's message in this thread:
 
http://fsi-language-courses.net/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=215 - http://fsi-language-courses.net/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=215
 
Have you already run through the first 19 lessons since it was posted last month? Things come in good time.


Posted By: DemiPuppet
Date Posted: 09 December 2006 at 5:35pm
I've Finished digitizing both the Hebrew text and audio.  But, I've just started digitizing the text for Swahili.  I usually batch up a bunch of things and smail it to GDFellows.

I'll see what else I can get done this weekend and send everything I have in  the mail on Tuesday.  It should get to GDFellows by next Saturday.


Posted By: onebir
Date Posted: 10 December 2006 at 4:05am
Demipuppet, you're the man!  (Assuming you are a man :s)

Seriously though, i sympathise with manatee - it's a bit hard to keep track of what's coming via the forum.  A status page like the one on the 'old new' site would be very helpful.  Perhaps it could be revived...


Posted By: Chung
Date Posted: 10 December 2006 at 11:56am

Maybe it's just me, but I got the impression that some people would look at the status page, and when seeing that a course was still "in progress" longer than to their liking, would then ask how it was going and subtly try to rush the contributor's or gdfellows' efforts. I think that using it that way was a little rude. I always felt that the status page should be just something where one can see how he/she can contribute by "filling in the blanks" rather than try to incite volunteers to work even faster just to suit his/her learning schedule.

Anyway, Demipuppet has been working like a machine in my view and I too am impressed by that effort even though I'm studying other languages. It was only last month that we got that big delivery of the Arabic and Cambodian texts, Hebrew Units 1-19, Swedish and Vietnamese Vol. 1. Better to let things come as they do. I wouldn't want to come off as ungrateful by hinting that things should be done even more quickly than they are. Everything will come in good time.


Posted By: onebir
Date Posted: 10 December 2006 at 12:25pm
Originally posted by Chung

I always felt that the status page should be just something where one can see how he/she can contribute by "filling in the blanks" rather than try to incite volunteers to work even faster just to suit his/her learning schedule.


I hope it's clear from my post that i agree with that sentiment. And i agree that things probably will come in good time, for major languages, and/or for languages where forum members have access to the materials. But at the moment sometimes there's no definitive, simple way to know whether someone here has access to the material or not.

Why does this matter?  Well, if someone bought a resold FSI course for a language they were starting to/planned to study, and it turned out that a forum member here already had it, i think they'd have some cause to be miffed.  Perhaps slight cause - after all, they wouldn't really have lost anything in the sense that they still have their FSI course.  But all the same, they might have decided to buy cheaper materials, or continue using existing materials.

Given your comment about rushing GDF and other volunteers, perhaps a status page could be like this:
1) just the languages in progress,
2) giving broad completion windows (eg Q1 2007) and
3) pointing out that the work is all being done by volunteers, and that completion dates are approximate (so don't bother asking until the end of the window...)

Anyway, this is just a suggestion & i realise the time someone put into developing/maintaining such a page might be better spent on something else.


Posted By: Chung
Date Posted: 10 December 2006 at 12:46pm

Don't worry, I can see what you're getting at and it seems quite reasonable. You could see either a list of only what's being digitalized or a list that shows only what is still not in the works (i.e. any volunteers?). One or the other, but not both.

I just got the impression in the past that some people started turning others' volunteerism into some kind of servitude and acted with a sense of entitlement to volunteers' efforts.


Posted By: onebir
Date Posted: 10 December 2006 at 4:36pm
I think the ideal thing would be a list that showed:
a) things being digitised (with a rough deadline)
b) things which aren't being digitised but which forum members own
c) things which aren't being digitised but to which forum members have less direct access (eg via a library)

I'm hoping inclusion of b) and c) would encourage bilateral deals.  ie my library (friend/maiden aunt etc) has yoruba, but i want to study japanese.  your library has japanese, but you want to study yoruba...

Digitizing an FSI course is a significant chunk of work, and it'll happen quicker if people have the right incentives...


Posted By: onebir
Date Posted: 12 December 2006 at 7:08am
This is all getting a bit personal, and i respectfully suggest GDFellows closes this thread before things degenerate further.


Posted By: gdfellows
Date Posted: 12 December 2006 at 5:59pm
Great advice, onebir.  I've not paid attention to the forum over the past few days, but I will be posting the forum guidelines from the old new site here. 

To reiterate, and with apologies to Francois Micheloud for taking the following guideline from How-To-Learn-Any-Language, I think he states it well:

FLAMES & PERSONAL ATTACKS
Do not post deliberately inflammatory, argumentative or aggressive messages. If you disagree with a person, you can argue with his ideas in an argumentative and respectful manner. Don't attack the person, his personality or what he is, even in an indirect way. This is not why people come on this forum and offending posts will be deleted and habitual offenders will be banned.

So, I am closing this thread and deleting several of the posts.  Discussion, disagreement, and debate are welcomed here, but let's not let it get personal.




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