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Is this site dead?

Printed From: FSI Language Courses
Category: Learning Languages
Forum Name: General Discussion
Forum Discription: Discussion about studying languages using the FSI courses. If you would like to see a specific language forum not listed below, just let us know.
URL: http://fsi-language-courses.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=551
Printed Date: 16 January 2009 at 3:12am


Topic: Is this site dead?
Posted By: unzum
Subject: Is this site dead?
Date Posted: 08 February 2008 at 7:32pm
The last update was in November. That's about 2 months ago.

Has gdfellows abandoned this site or is he just very busy?

 I don't mean to put pressure on anyone, I'm just interested to know what's happening with this place.



Replies:
Posted By: Chung
Date Posted: 08 February 2008 at 8:24pm
I'd like to think that it's the latter.


Posted By: liddytime
Date Posted: 08 February 2008 at 8:52pm
Let's keep the site going!!!!


Posted By: DemiPuppet
Date Posted: 09 February 2008 at 8:45am
There's been some activity. It takes time to scan and process the books. Scanning is fairly straight forward. Processing means I walk through each scanned page to remove any stray marks or any remotely possible copyrighted material (I'm very cautious) . As you all know, I usually wait until I have several done before submitting

Here's what I have going at the moment:

Finished Scanning and Processing (I guess I could send these in soon if it's really urgent)
Amharic Basic Vol 2
Kituba Basic
Luganda Basic
Sinhala Basic Modules 1 and 3

Finished Scanning
Serbo-Croatian Vol 1 and Vol 2
Modern Written Arabic Vol1, Vol2, Vol3
Reading Lao
Yoruba Intermediate
Shona Basic
Hindi Basic
Testing Kit - French and Spanish
Sinhala Basic Module 2
Contemporary Cambodian Introduction
Audio (The following is all I have available to me)
Reading Lao (half done)
Yoruba Intermediate (done and already submitted)
From Spanish to Portuguese (done and already submitted)




Posted By: daristani
Date Posted: 09 February 2008 at 9:46am
Demipuppet, I have to say once again that you're truly incredible...  It does seem that activity, in terms of contributed material, has slowed down on the site recently, but I suspect that at least part of the reason is that materials for most of the widely-studied languages have already been made available -- many by yourself, of course.  Of the other materials, I would venture to guess that there weren't that many sets of the original USG-produced materials ever distributed, and that many of those that were are likely gathering dust in the attics or basements of people who are unaware of this site.  Frankly, I'm very impressed that so many people have been able to contribute the wide variety of materials we already have access to here.  And your own contributions, naturally, easily surpass those of the rest of us combined.  So thanks once again for all your work. 


Posted By: liddytime
Date Posted: 10 February 2008 at 8:47am
In Addition,

I know whatl2004 Has done the audio for

Hausa

I will try to do the audio for

More and
Serbo Croatian 1

once I get my system pimped out!!

Liddytime


Posted By: karisofia
Date Posted: 11 February 2008 at 11:22am
That is a lot of work, DemiPuppet! I know someone who would probably like the Luganda materials but don't want to create hassle for you. Any idea when they'll be posted? Also, I'm interested in the Spanish to Portuguese that you say you've submitted. I don't see it on the site but assume it's just a matter of time.

Thank you for doing so much to make this information available.


Posted By: DemiPuppet
Date Posted: 11 February 2008 at 3:08pm
I'll try to get the first batch out later this week. The Spanish to Portuguese is in GDF's hands. It up to him if he wants to post it.

I should note that several of the above are now available as PDF files from the US government web site:

http://www.eric.ed.gov - http://www.eric.ed.gov

Examples:
  1. Modern Written Arabic Vol 2 and 3
  2. Hindi Basic
  3. Sinhala Basic Module 1, 2, and 3
  4. Yoruba Intermediate
  5. Testing Kit - French and Spanish (as well as a couple more, search for the title "Testing Kit"
  6. Several "Standard Chinese - A Modular Approach", including Module and Workbook 1 that caused the copyright controversy a while back.
  7. Swahili General Conversation, Swahili Geography
The rest will probably be available in the near future. Many of the Defense Language Institute books are also available.

The image quality of the Eric documents is sometimes not very good, so I'm still going to provide my cleaned-up copies here.





Posted By: DemiPuppet
Date Posted: 24 February 2008 at 8:33pm
The following has been sent in and should now be available to GDF:

Luganda Basic (text)
Kituba Basic (text)
Amharic Basic Vol 2 (text)
Reading Lao (text and audio)
Sinhala Basic Modules 1 and 3

My usual Public Domain status notice:
All of the courses except Sinhala were produced by US government employees in the course of their normal work,  All lack copyright notice. None are registered with the US Copyright Office. All were published before 1989. They are thus in the public domain for both reasons,

Though not produced by a government employee, the Sinhala courses were published before 1989 and lack copyright notice or registration. I removed the attributed photos in the book since they were quite large and not needed. The books are in thus in the public domain,

It's up to GDF whether they all get posted or not (The Lao audio is a huge 35 hours)



Posted By: liddytime
Date Posted: 07 April 2008 at 5:03pm
You may have seen demipuppet's thread where GDF told him

"Note:
The last PM I received from GDF indicated that he was probably not going to be updating the site with any more new files."

This really bums me out. So hopefully this is just a temporary halt on new files to the site.

I don't know if anyone is tech-savvy enough to produce a mirror-site with new and updated materials?

What I've done in the meantime is created a azureus site for mp3s and such that I have digitized (thanks also to WH and demipuppet!!!) you can access them through this link

http://
www.vuze.com/details/E5XOVJCZA5FU26L2KYU4X5X7SCR7MYWB.html

look under "lt"

hopefully this site will continue to grow!

BL


Posted By: karisofia
Date Posted: 08 April 2008 at 9:18am
Yes, that is sad. But I sometimes wonder how people manage to devote so much time to wonderful sites like this. There are still a couple courses I'd like to see posted so, hopefully, something can be worked out.

Thanks to all involved for the work to this point!


Posted By: thuu
Date Posted: 16 April 2008 at 6:27am
about the Lao audio  : a very smal mistake in address of tape 39
 
the one which appears is
 

http://fsi-language-courses.com/Courses/Lao/Reading%20Lao/FSI%20-%20Reading%20Lao%20-%20Tape%2039%20-%20F396A.mp3 - http://fsi-language-courses.com/Courses/Lao/Reading%20Lao/FSI%20-%20Reading%20Lao%20-%20Tape%2039%20-%20F396A.mp3

 

and the good one is

http://fsi-language-courses.com/Courses/Lao/Reading%20Lao/FSI%20-%20Reading%20Lao%20-%20Tape%2039%20-%20F096A.mp3 - http://fsi-language-courses.com/Courses/Lao/Reading%20Lao/FSI%20-%20Reading%20Lao%20-%20Tape%2039%20-%20F096A.mp3

 

the last digits are wrong : 20F396 instead of 20F096

to DemiPuppet
you made a wonderful website.
 
long life to your website.  thuu


Posted By: DemiPuppet
Date Posted: 16 April 2008 at 6:34pm
Sorry, not my website; I'm just a contributor.
All the praise should go to GDF.

So many tapes; I guess I made a typo.


Posted By: tobymoorhouse
Date Posted: 21 April 2008 at 6:19am
Demipuppet, you are a legend! I've been searching high and low for the FSI Luganda course. Many thanks for your efforts!

I'm a doctor travelling to Uganda to work in the styx for a year as of August.. I need all the help I can get to take accurate histories!!

Regards,

Toby


Posted By: 80th
Date Posted: 30 April 2008 at 8:26am
I hope to see the Sinhala Basic Module 2 sometime.
The version from ERIC is not scanned real well.

Thanks!

Originally posted by DemiPuppet

There's been some activity. It takes time to scan and process the books. Scanning is fairly straight forward. Processing means I walk through each scanned page to remove any stray marks or any remotely possible copyrighted material (I'm very cautious) . As you all know, I usually wait until I have several done before submitting

Here's what I have going at the moment:

Finished Scanning and Processing (I guess I could send these in soon if it's really urgent)
Amharic Basic Vol 2
Kituba Basic
Luganda Basic
Sinhala Basic Modules 1 and 3

Finished Scanning
Serbo-Croatian Vol 1 and Vol 2
Modern Written Arabic Vol1, Vol2, Vol3
Reading Lao
Yoruba Intermediate
Shona Basic
Hindi Basic
Testing Kit - French and Spanish
Sinhala Basic Module 2
Contemporary Cambodian Introduction
Audio (The following is all I have available to me)
Reading Lao (half done)
Yoruba Intermediate (done and already submitted)
From Spanish to Portuguese (done and already submitted)




Posted By: Happiness
Date Posted: 04 May 2008 at 3:58am
DemiPuppet thanks for all of your hard work. I was wondering as well about whether this site was up and I am happy to see that you are keeping things going. Question for you, I would really like to have access to the Yoruba audio. When will it become available?


Posted By: Quinn
Date Posted: 06 May 2008 at 7:42pm
I just want to express my deep gratitude to DemiPuppet and GDF!   This site is one of the Internet's true treasures!

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!!!!!!  Thumbs%20Up



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