I'm always amused by the occasional posts lamenting the 'dated-ness' of the FSI material. Sure, there are utterances that might sound a little stilted now, but I'd guess that 90% / 95% of the strangeness is lexical, not grammatical.
Here are a few movies that most people have seen:
Star Wars (1977)
Rocky (1976)
Jaws (1975)
If I were a foreigner learning English today , I'd LOVE to be able to express myself as well as the actors and actresses in those films. People watch them and find almost nothing unusual; no one turns to their partner and says, "Wow...they sure talked funny back then! I don't understand her."
The basic structures of English have not changed dramatically in several hundred years. We still use a Subject - Verb - Object word order, for example. And adjectives still generally precede nouns. Fill the slots of these basic patterns with the nouns and verbs and pronouns of your choice, and you'll end up with a grammatical utterance, whether it's:
"Lord Elgin's coachman insulted the cheeky chimneysweep.", or
"Britney Spears slapped the poor cameraman."
Different words, same structure.
So I wouldn't get hung up with the stray anachronism. Learn (and overlearn!) the basic patterns of the language, and you'll be able to 'plug in' whatever you want to talk about.
Two last points:
1. Not everyone you speak to is going to be a 20-something. Your boss, or your boss' colleague, or someone you'll want to impress probably grew up in the 60s and 70s, and they'll find nothing wrong with your speech.
2. Yes, you may sound a little more formal or a little more polite than many other speakers. But that's not a bad thing; some people may actually appreciate it.
------------- Former DLI student
|