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Feedback mechanism for self-evaluation of pronunciationn? Thatīs why we always recommend to beginners who will be using Platiquemos for self study to try to enlist the help of a native speaker for pronunciation and accent. While all of the regional variations of pronunciation of Spanish are mutually intelligible, there is enough difference between how, for example, a Cuban and an Ecuadorian from Quito speak that a computer program wouldnīt be able to deal with. By the way, thatīs also the reason we advise people to seek help from an educated native speaker: what is taught in schools throughout the Spanish-speaking world is pretty standardized and educated people know the "right" way to pronounce, even though they may not practice it in their everyday life. More Testimonials? Hi, Kevin, and
thanks for writing. It wouldnīt be difficult to supply dozens more
"testimonials". The trouble is, I donīt think they mean very much in most
cases. Thatīs because the "testimonials" are under the control of the
person using them, and thereīs nothing to stop him (or her) from either making them up,
or prompting people to write glowing testimonials. All of the language programs Iīm
familiar with (and language schools) have a bunch of great testimonials--even the ones I
know arenīt very good. We suggest that people who want unbiased opinions about
Platiquemos check the reviews on the Platiquemos Level I page on Amazon.com
. These reviews were written by people totally independent of Platiqemos (I donīt
even have an idea who most of them are), and some of them are somewhat less than
"glowing". The Spanish language "guide" on About.com also
reviewed the Platiquemos program (the only program he has ever reviewed). The review
is here.
Iīm much more comfortable with people reading this kind of unbiased, objective
report than with a hundred glowing testimonials I could prompt people to write. AS OF OCTOBER 10, 2004 IT IS!!!! I certainly agree with you in principle about the download idea. There are two factors, though, which militate against it at this time. First, the sheer size of the files. Even compressed and "zipped" the whole Program is about two gigabytes; Level I alone is over 200 megabytes! Second, we did try a couple of years ago using FTP software, and it just didnīt work very well. Most people are still using telephone-line modems, and it is somewhere between difficult and impossible to download files this big. Also, to have files of this size hosted on a server would just cost more than we can afford right now As a sort of compromise, enabling students to take advantage of the possibilities of computer technology (and price savings), we supply the "digital version" of the program on compact disks, one per level. These compact disks contain everything thatīs in the hard copy, but in digital (audio mp3, text adobe acrobat) format.. Why no phonetic alphabet? Almost everybody who has used the original FSI Basic Course heartily disliked the intrusive phonetic alphabet. To make things worse, some parts of the program were only in this alphabet, rather than the normal Roman alphabet used in Spanish (and English). Spanish is very phonetic (much more than English), and I just didnīt see any reason to include the useless phonetic alphabet. If anything, its omission helps, rather than hinders, learning. What about Studyspanish.com ? I just purchased
your level one program and realized that it is the same program as I purchased on
studyspanish.com. Do you also have additional levels or units on any websites that go
beyond the units presented in syudyspanish.com? Hi, and thanks for writing. I īve been aware of studyspanish.com for some time. Although they don īt tell you, it appears that what they īre selling is copies of the original 1957 FSI Basic Course in Spanish, and at that only the first 15 of 55 units--they donīt tell you that either.. While this is quite legal (the government doesn īt copyright anything), I have two problems with what they īre doing. One is the price (you can buy Level I of the original FSI course with cd īs as sold by Barron's on Amazon.com for about $55. The other is that they don īt tell you what you īre buying, and you thus can īt do any comparison shopping. Platiquemos is based on the FSI course, but has been heavily revised and updated. Platiquemos is registered with the US copyright office as a "derivative work", which means that if what speakspanish.com is selling is exactly the same as Platiquemos, they īre violating a copyright. Full information about Platiquemos is at our website (www.speakspanish.org) We exclusively offer the ī"digital version", which is not only very versatile, but saves you a lot of money. The first level of the original (which we assume they are selling) is units 1 to 15. We īve realigned the units (there are 55 all told) to make them fit as a semester college course, as well as to make them of manageably size. Our Level I is units 1 to 9, Level II is units 10 to 17. If you were to purchase Platiquemos to continue with in the "digital format" we could give you units 16 and 17, either burned onto the cd with Level II, or by email. Whether or not you wish to complain to studyspanish.com about their deceptive advertising is up to you, of course. Whatever your decision, we wish you great success in learning Spanish. Why not more grammar explanations? ----- Original Message ----- From: "xxxxxx, Joel R" <xxxxxx@Central.UH.EDU> To: <don@platiquemos-letstalk.com> Sent: Tuesday, July 20, 2004 9:26 AM Subject: Ser vs Estar I recently purchased a copy of the first level. I see that the verbs estar and ser are covered in units 4 and 5, respectively. However, there doesn't seem to be an explanation on the differences between these "to be" verbs. Instead there are examples of each one's use, but no explanation as to when each should be used. Why is that? And more importantly, is the rest of the course the same way, i.e., example without much of an explanation? Hi, Joel- Thanks for taking the time to write. I couldn't help but notice that you share the same family name with xxxxx, probably the most popular "crooner" in Spanish of the 1970's and 80's. His son, xxxxx, who was raised in Miami almost totally estranged from his father, has also established himself as a very popular romantic singer in Spanish.. But that's another story. While there are a lot of different theories about language learning, I think they can all be boiled down into two approaches to learning a foreign language: academic and practical. The academic approach has students memorize
grammar "rules"--in English, of course, (I'm talking about language teaching in
the U.S.--and do a lot of reading. It does NOT emphasize communication, and there
are people who are a walking compendium of Spanish grammar rules who couldn't order a cup
of coffee in a restaurant in Communication, particularly oral communication, requires immediate, automatic access to structures (another word for grammar). The only way to acquire this is to have assimilated a large number of examples of a particular structure so that you can quickly come up with how to express what you want to. Of course, you'll make mistakes--but so will you if you're coming from the academic (think of the "rule"--in English, yet--and then try to apply it to the conversation you're in). Worse, the conversation will probably have moved on to another subject before you can come up with something to say. An example (using ser and estar) is that many texts explain the difference as being between a permanent characteristic of something (ser), and a temporary condition (estar). This makes it problematic to explain why estar is used with muerto (dead). Most people think of death as being a pretty permanent condition--living is more temporary. To use an example from Platiquemos, you can either say la casa es bonita (the house is pretty), or la casa está bonita, depending on precisely what you're trying to express. One of the biggest problems with ser and estar is that both can be used in almost any expression, and will be both grammatically "correct", and meaningful. But, unless you have a good feeling for those two verbs, you may have said something slightly different from what you meant to say. Notice I say "feeling", not "knowledge". The way you learn to communicate orally (which is the basis of all language) is the same way, according to the old joke, you get to Carnegie Hall. Practice, practice, practice. That is why Platiquemos is based on drills and exercises emphasizing particular structural elements, and why Platiquemos is so extensively supported by audio. When you have worked with those emphasizing ser and estar until they are thoroughly assimilated, you'll have a pretty good chance of coming up with the right choice in a real-world conversational situation. Platiquemos does, though, try to satisfy the natural human urge to know "why" something is said, by providing relatively brief explanations of structural elements--after they have been practiced quite a bit. Detailed grammatical analysis is, however, irrelevant to learning to communicate, even at a pretty high level (US Government 3 or ACTFL superior). For those who want more grammatical analysis and explanation, I recommend "Repaso". Repaso is a complete overview of Spanish from the analytical point of view. Memorizing the complete contents of Repaso wouldn't help you much in getting that cup of coffee I mentioned earlier, though. (The principle author of Repaso is David Stillman, a friend of mine. You can find it by doing a search on Amazon.com for "Repaso") Thanks again for writing, and I wish you great success in learning Spanish! Don Casteel
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