elegantlion Posted December 9, 2011 Share Posted December 9, 2011 Are there good sources for home learning of German and/or Russian? I'll probably buy a tourist-type CD to gauge his interest before investing into a complete program. Suggestions for both would be great. I greatly dislike Rosetta Stone, btw. I used Live Mocha, but prefer a grammar text with CD/DVD support. Also what online others exist? OSU does German, right? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cleopatra Posted December 9, 2011 Share Posted December 9, 2011 My dd is enrolled with OSU for German. Presently she is doing German II. OSU is excellent for getting the speaking/comprehension practice which is so lacking when you try to study a foreign language on your own. Sometimes you have to bug them until they give you a student who speaks German well, but with regular sessions with a competent tutor, my dd's ability to speak and understand is increasing rapidly. She has also started to Skype once per week with a daughter of one of the moms on these boards to reinforce concepts and vocabulary (not to mention it's fun for her :001_smile:). The con with OSU is that, because they approach teaching German in a inductive way, their in depth explanations of grammar are extremely poor. The explanations are sort of thrown in, such as, "when you see this, add this, when you see this, add that", etc. Because my dd is studying Latin and is used to clear, concise rules as to why you are doing things, it is driving her crazy. However, during our frustration, Sebastien a Lady was kind enough to recommend German in Review to supplement and it's on its way (I almost choked at the price of a new copy - about $120, but I managed to find a used one for $10) As for other resources, I haven't found German resources easy to find. I've taken a look at some modern textbooks (Modern German, Treffpunkt Deutsch) and haven't been impressed with any of them. The only one I have liked is Deutsch Aktuell (I think Potter's School uses this). I just purchased level 1 used and I think my dd is too advanced for it. I may be willing to part with it at the end of the year, if you're interested ....??? As for CD/DVD programs, I've heard Primsleur is good and Michel Thomas is popular as well, yet I find him irritating. :tongue_smilie: We also own Tell Me More German. It is far superior to RS, has grammar instruction but, even so, I wouldn't use it as a stand-alone program. Youtube is also a good resource for finding easy German cartoons, etc. Oooo, I just searched and Deutsch Aktuell has online support so that might be interesting to you (and cheap, if you get the books from me). In certain areas of the site it asks for registration but I could get into other areas without it. You can take a look here: http://irc.emcp.com/ircfiles/DeutschAktuell6e/ In any case I hope that helps a little. :001_smile: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elegantlion Posted December 9, 2011 Author Share Posted December 9, 2011 My dd is enrolled with OSU for German. Presently she is doing German II. OSU is excellent for getting the speaking/comprehension practice which is so lacking when you try to study a foreign language on your own. Sometimes you have to bug them until they give you a student who speaks German well, but with regular sessions with a competent tutor, my dd's ability to speak and understand is increasing rapidly. She has also started to Skype once per week with a daughter of one of the moms on these boards to reinforce concepts and vocabulary (not to mention it's fun for her :001_smile:). The con with OSU is that, because they approach teaching German in a inductive way, their in depth explanations of grammar are extremely poor. The explanations are sort of thrown in, such as, "when you see this, add this, when you see this, add that", etc. Because my dd is studying Latin and is used to clear, concise rules as to why you are doing things, it is driving her crazy. However, during our frustration, Sebastien a Lady was kind enough to recommend German in Review to supplement and it's on its way (I almost choked at the price of a new copy - about $120, but I managed to find a used one for $10) As for other resources, I haven't found German resources easy to find. I've taken a look at some modern textbooks (Modern German, Treffpunkt Deutsch) and haven't been impressed with any of them. The only one I have liked is Deutsch Aktuell (I think Potter's School uses this). I just purchased level 1 used and I think my dd is too advanced for it. I may be willing to part with it at the end of the year, if you're interested ....??? As for CD/DVD programs, I've heard Primsleur is good and Michel Thomas is popular as well, yet I find him irritating. :tongue_smilie: We also own Tell Me More German. It is far superior to RS, has grammar instruction but, even so, I wouldn't use it as a stand-alone program. Youtube is also a good resource for finding easy German cartoons, etc. Oooo, I just searched and Deutsch Aktuell has online support so that might be interesting to you (and cheap, if you get the books from me). In certain areas of the site it asks for registration but I could get into other areas without it. You can take a look here: http://irc.emcp.com/ircfiles/DeutschAktuell6e/ In any case I hope that helps a little. :001_smile: Thank you, that is helpful. We probably won't move to textbooks for a few years. We're started using Cambridge Latin this year, it's inductive, it makes me twitchy. I hate teaching it. We're going back to finish Latin Alive after the holidays. Off to check out your recommendations. :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dana Posted December 9, 2011 Share Posted December 9, 2011 Our public library has Mango software for free. I don't know how good it'd be for actually learning, but you might see what resources your public library has. It could be a good starting point for exploring languages before picking one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elegantlion Posted December 9, 2011 Author Share Posted December 9, 2011 Our public library has Mango software for free. I don't know how good it'd be for actually learning, but you might see what resources your public library has. It could be a good starting point for exploring languages before picking one. No mango here. We're small town, the library has nothing. I take that back, they might still have 8tracks. It's an old library, they have a wonderful classics section. You can still check out antique books. However, their DVD/CD section is quite lacking, and no online supports except the card catalog. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dana Posted December 9, 2011 Share Posted December 9, 2011 No mango here. We're small town, the library has nothing. I take that back, they might still have 8tracks. It's an old library, they have a wonderful classics section. You can still check out antique books. However, their DVD/CD section is quite lacking, and no online supports except the card catalog. Oooh... ouch. I love our library. I don't know if you're close enough to another town to make it worth paying for their library access... For instance, the library we have access to lets people out of county pay for access (think it's $57 a year?) but we also have downloadable books for the kindle now too :) I pay to also have access to a neighboring county ($35/year). The more books the better. Both have Mango online (but again, I don't know how it does for languages). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elegantlion Posted December 9, 2011 Author Share Posted December 9, 2011 Oooh... ouch. I love our library. I don't know if you're close enough to another town to make it worth paying for their library access... For instance, the library we have access to lets people out of county pay for access (think it's $57 a year?) but we also have downloadable books for the kindle now too :) I pay to also have access to a neighboring county ($35/year). The more books the better. Both have Mango online (but again, I don't know how it does for languages). I have a card for the next town over. They have something called Rocket Languages, which I looked at once. I can't remember why, but I wasn't impressed. They do have German and Japanese, but not Russian. Anyone with Russian sources. Ds said today he'd prefer to start Russian first. Am I correct in thinking German would be offered at more colleges than Russian? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mama Lynx Posted December 10, 2011 Share Posted December 10, 2011 I see that on OSU's site they say there is special pricing available for homeschoolers. Do you happen to know what that is? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
asta Posted December 10, 2011 Share Posted December 10, 2011 From a "what will be most valuable in the future" standpoint... Russian. a Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cleopatra Posted December 10, 2011 Share Posted December 10, 2011 I see that on OSU's site they say there is special pricing available for homeschoolers. Do you happen to know what that is? Regular price is, I believe, $389; for homeschoolers its $250. And you can take as long as you want (within reason) to finish a course. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sebastian (a lady) Posted December 10, 2011 Share Posted December 10, 2011 FWIW, the German 1 course filled up pretty early. There might be some space opening up in January; I'm not sure if they stagger it that way or not. I want to say that they were full by late August. German AP was also full around the same time. The Goethe Institute has correspondence and other extension courses in German. This is the body that does the German equivalent of English as a second language exams. (I haven't taken a course personally. I did pass the B1 exam when we lived in Germany.) Your son might also want to try some of the courses from Deutsche Welle (sort of a BBC equivalent for Germany). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elegantlion Posted December 11, 2011 Author Share Posted December 11, 2011 Thank you. I earmarked the German sources. I wasn't able to find anything I really liked for Russian though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G5052 Posted December 11, 2011 Share Posted December 11, 2011 We ended up using Rosetta Stone with the My Father's World lesson plans. I'm happy with the progress and feel like it isn't a bad introduction. I was always anti-Rosetta Stone, but it it is working with the lesson plans. I'll probably get Russian II from them, and then if there is still the motivation, look into the community college classes. Landry Academy has Russian I, but the schedule doesn't work for us and they don't have Russian II. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lllll Posted December 12, 2011 Share Posted December 12, 2011 (edited) .... Edited December 17, 2012 by ksva Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elegantlion Posted December 12, 2011 Author Share Posted December 12, 2011 I asked our now-20yod what she used when she began Russian (on her own, at home) 3-5 years ago. Here's the list she gave me, with her comments beside each one: How to Pronounce Russian Correctly by Tania Bobrinskoy, Irina Gsovskaya - an older booklet and cassette she found in our library system - says it's excellent for pronounciation Basic Russian, Volumes 1 & 2 by Mischa Fayer - good, but not quite orderly and no answers - also good for learning to write Russian cursive - copyright 1959 Russian: A Self-Teaching Guide by Kathryn Szczepanska - "really good, but might be a little hard for a 14yo" - has answers Barron's 501 Russian Verbs - a MUST - "Russian conjugations are a mess, so you have to have something to look them up in. Dictionary won't be enough." Her comment: "Early on, memoize alphabet, declensions, conjugations, and other tables like that. Get a wide variety of listening and reading materials to go with these basics." We finally found a tutor 6 months ago, after a couple years of searching off and on. Awesome, thank you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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