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zoshchenko
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Quote zoshchenko Replybullet Topic: FSI Turkish
    Posted: 06 April 2007 at 12:26pm
I downloaded (parts of) the Turkish Vol I course.

In the "Introduction for the Student," it seems to say that the tapes can be used without the written text.

Are the other FSI materials like this? Am I misunderstanding this?
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daristani
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Quote daristani Replybullet Posted: 06 April 2007 at 1:09pm
Each of the FSI courses is very different, and you can't conclude that what is valid for one is necessarily the case with any other one.  I haven't examined all of them, but I have used the Turkish course a bit, and I think that it handles the drills differently than some of the others such as French and German.  The drills in the Turkish course, as I recall, involve more repetition and substitution, which you can do without the book, than some of the other courses. 

That said, the books for the Turkish course have a great deal of grammar in them, which is explained much more fully than the grammar in some of the other courses, and so reading the books is essential.  Also, for some reason, only some of each drill is included on the tape (which is again different from the case in the other languages) and so in order to do all of the drills in the book, even without the tapes, you need the book.  (Since Turkish pronunciation is quite easy, while the grammar patterns are very "foreign", repeating the drills several times, both with the tapes and with the book, is essential, in my opinion. )

In summary, I think you need to use both the books and the tapes, but you don't always have to use them together.  In any event, good luck with your study of Turkish!

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After posting the above, it occurred to me that I had written something very similar a few months ago; I looked up the earlier message and think that I may have expressed things better the first time around.  In any event, here's the comment I had posted earlier:

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.


Edited by daristani - 06 April 2007 at 1:29pm
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Umbria
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Quote Umbria Replybullet Posted: 07 April 2007 at 11:11pm
Hi,
 
I checked current Turkish language files and I am surprised.
it sounds like 60's Turkish and I feel like in old Turkish films. :)
I mean it is too old now and phonetic is not same as current modern Turkish.
 
I think these courses need a revalidation with modern language standards. This is just a suggestion.
 
If you have any problem or question about Turkish, please just let me know.
 
Best Regards,Smile
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Chung
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Quote Chung Replybullet Posted: 08 April 2007 at 12:19am
These courses are free and I know of no other language courses dating from the 1980s onward which are set up to do overkill on exercises. All of the new courses in any foreign language that I have encountered so far shy away from drilling and prefer to distract students with cute illustrations and oversized diagrams at the expense of more exercises or grammatical notes.

A putative updated FSI course for any of these languages would likely cost several hundred dollars. So far, the government seems happy to keep selling 50-year old courses at a few hundred dollars apiece. If anything, your suggestion should be sent to the National Foreign Affairs Training Center (successor to FSI), but I doubt that revising language courses for the electorate will become the priority for the NFATC.
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zoshchenko
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Quote zoshchenko Replybullet Posted: 08 April 2007 at 10:11am
I have a friend who is on the staff at FSI. She says that over the years various versions of their instructional materials (which are never or rarely copyrighted) have been resold commercially. The materials on this web site are clearly marked as FSI materials and no one is making any money off it.

If you were to go to FSI today I'm sure you would be getting much more up-to-date materials. The instructors are all native speakers; the ones I've met are recent immigrants but others may have been there for a time.

By the way, National Foreign Affairs Training Center is (I believe) the name of the training facility; Foreign Service Institute is still the name of the school.
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zoshchenko
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Quote zoshchenko Replybullet Posted: 26 April 2007 at 6:45pm
So I have had some time to work with these courses.

Yes, some of the words are outdated, according to a guy at work, and comparing them with more contemporary materials.

But they are very good in that they break down the words into their components/roots which is very important for Turkish.

The audio files are a little rough in spots but you get the point. Unfortunately they really are not suitable for standalone use. You need to go through them with the text at least once to see what they're getting at.

all in all, a very useful resource!
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