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Serbo-Croatian

Printed From: FSI Language Courses
Category: Language Courses
Forum Name: Member Contributions
Forum Discription: If you have course materials and are planning to contribute them to the website, this is the place to let everyone know.
URL: http://fsi-language-courses.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=284
Printed Date: 16 January 2009 at 3:03am


Topic: Serbo-Croatian
Posted By: r438
Subject: Serbo-Croatian
Date Posted: 15 January 2007 at 8:04pm
Hi All - I have both the text and tapes for Serbo-Croatian Volume I (yes, they were purchased direct from NTIS).  Any objections if I start digitizing, or will this duplicate someone else's efforts?  I see the status is "Stalled" on the front page.  Please let me know. 

(oh, and thanks to Westwicket for digitizing the Urban Hijazi tapes, I know I promised to do this and never got around to it)

- Ray



Replies:
Posted By: Chung
Date Posted: 15 January 2007 at 9:31pm

According to the status page, gdfellows already has both textbooks for Serbo-Croatian, but has been placing priority on working on courses for which he has tapes and text. Where do you see on the page that the progress on SC is stalled? I thought that he's just waiting for the tapes.

Now that you're offering to digitalize the SC material for Vol. 1, I'd imagine that gdfellows may think about starting to scan his copies of the SC textbooks.
 
Then again, I'm sure that he welcomes and encourages external efforts to do digitalization since he could otherwise go postal if he would need to digitalize yet another course in addition to the five courses that he's currently working on.


Posted By: r438
Date Posted: 15 January 2007 at 10:40pm
Oh, I see the status is "Waiting" not "Stalled".  Given that multiple courses are queued as "Waiting" I assume this means there are more courses to digitize than people actively digitizing them, and hence and I am offering to digitize one of the ones I have.  


Posted By: Chung
Date Posted: 15 January 2007 at 11:06pm
You are right. Some people have contributed by donating material for gdfellows to work on, while others have been contributing by doing the digitalizing themselves and then sending the completed .pdf and .mp3 files to gdfellows for hosting. As you can tell, he's accumulated quite a collection of stuff and needs to set priorities for the task to be manageable on his end. From what I gather, gdfellows is digitalizing courses for which he (or together with another contributor) have access to all audio AND text thus yielding a complete offering here.
 
As I posted earlier, I'm sure that gdfellows welcomes digitalization from other members since it means that it'd be one fewer language on his crowded plate. If he were the only one doing all of the digitalizing work, it would take a looonnng time for all of the courses on the waiting list to be ready for hosting.
 
In the case of SC, it makes sense that he hasn't scanned the texts that he has since that course is incomplete without the tapes. However, if you start digitalizing Vol. 1 of SC, I'm sure that he'll be happy to get those files hosted as you make them available.


Posted By: Poetry
Date Posted: 29 March 2007 at 11:21am
I, for one, would be happy to see that course.

--Poetry


Posted By: gaucho
Date Posted: 15 April 2007 at 3:53pm
Yes, I'd love to see the SC course available soon!

-Gaucho


Posted By: Dartacao
Date Posted: 18 May 2007 at 10:00am
Is there any news on this course? Is it going ahead?
I'd be enormously grateful if this course were made available!

Thanks, Dartacao


Posted By: savannahm
Date Posted: 07 July 2007 at 10:44pm
Right now the status says that audio is needed--and if Ray so generously has them....

Like Dartacao, I would be incredibly enormously grateful to anyone who made this available. I might even find a way to make them brownies!


Posted By: NPazarka
Date Posted: 25 December 2007 at 12:35pm
Is there any possibility to make this course available even if the audio still isn't? If somebody has problems with the pronounciation of some words, they could turn to people who speak this language in the mean time. I'll be glad to help people with pronounciation-problems. Speaking Serbian is not that difficult either, once you know how the each letter sounds.
 
"Piši kao što govoriš i čitaj kao što je napisano". : Write (it) how you pronounce (it) and read (it) how it is written.


Posted By: liddytime
Date Posted: 26 December 2007 at 7:01am
Is there any new news on this course Text or recordings???

I too would be enormously grateful if this course were made available!
Thanks
 
BL


Posted By: yellowbillycat
Date Posted: 22 January 2008 at 10:57am
So there seems to be some interest, but little activity on the Serbo-Croatian front. 

I have a question for those who may have more experience with the NTIS tapes.  I purchased the FSI SC course from a 3rd party in book/CD form.  Both the audio and textbook quality are somewhat lacking.  Will the audio tapes from NTIS have better sound quality?  I'm curious if anyone has actually heard the SC NTIS tapes, and if not, if anyone has experience with audio quality of NTIS vs 3rd party in general.

If the NTIS tapes are fairly good, I would go ahead and order/digitize/post the SC course.

Thanks,

e.


Posted By: liddytime
Date Posted: 22 January 2008 at 12:07pm
I have a "copy" from the original NTIS tapes and the sound quality is not great on them either. (I don't have the text) I believe they were recorded in the early 1960's. Maybe the later editions of the NTIS tapes were digitally remastered?? Ha ha


Posted By: Chung
Date Posted: 22 January 2008 at 11:01pm
When I compare the audio of the Hungarian Basic Course here (I assume that these MP3s here came from original tapes of NTIS or FSI) with that of the FSI Hungarian CDs that I bought from a reseller, I hear no difference in quality.

If I were a reseller, copying from the original tapes (with hisses, muffling and all) and perhaps cleaning it up slightly with something like Audacity would be the most profitable way to make a quick buck on the audio but not break any laws as I'd be merely editing a work that's in the public-domain. As an aside, I remember my amusement when reading the disclaimer of foreignserviceinstitute.com. The disclaimer stated that the website had nothing to do with the Foreign Service Institute (but was part of PluralityLanguage.COM in Texas) and that it sold and remanufactured FSI courses. I sent an email to these people asking for clarification of what they meant by remanufacturing FSI courses but never heard a response. I wonder why... Tongue

My hunch is that the audio quality of the Serbo-Croatian CDs that you have would be the same as that of the Serbo-Croatian tapes of NTIS.



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