Free FSI Language Courses

The United States Foreign Service Institute is an institution within the United States government that is responsible for training the Department of State in preparation for going abroad. They develop a multitude of courses in almost any language available.

The website, FSI Language Courses, lists all of the courses that have fallen into the public domain. The website is unaffiliated with the government:

This site is dedicated to making these language courses freely available in an electronic format. This site is not affiliated in any way with any government entity; it is an independent, non-profit effort to foster the learning of worldwide languages. Courses here are made available through the private efforts of individuals who are donating their time and resources to provide quality materials for language learning.

 I remember in high school Latin our teacher got the FSI tapes for Italian from the library when a group of students in the class were going on a field trip to Italy. It is possible that the library editions of these materials could be newer, but most likely not considering all of there materials are in the public domain.

I would suggest you keep in mind some of this information is old, cultural terms may be out of date. For example the word "fraulein" ("little Mrs.") is used in the German materials. While it did use to be acceptable to call an unmarried young woman this in Germany, doing it today without the intention to cheesily flirt, will only get you dirty looks (if you're lucky). Results may vary by language, consult your local native speaker for more information.

Nevertheless for the very low price of free, how can you go wrong?

Once again the site's URL: http://fsi-language-courses.org

The Cases Against Learning German

 The most studied foreign language in the United States is Spanish. What is interesting about that, is a majority of Americans identify with a German ancestry. German is the fifth most studied language in the United States though. On the surface one may think that is a little odd, however there are obvious explanations to that; these people are only ethnically German. Generation after generation less and less of them probably learn the language. Meanwhile there is an ever increasing number of Spanish speakers in the United States. Some of which may not even speak English.

When I decided I wanted to learn a second language before I entered college, I originally picked Arabic. "Great!" Everyone said. "You will get a job with the state department no problem!" They were obviously missing the point, but I will get to that later in the post. Here is a hint: it has nothing to do with the fact that I believe governments of the world solely exist to keep people separated, and therefore ensuring government has a job.

For native English speakers the hardest concept for them to grasp when learning German is that of cases. Cases used to exist in Old English, they don't anymore except for the word whom and the last time someone amongst your friends said "whom" they most likely were ostracized. I have often had arguments with other German major friends because I believe that it is easier for a native German speaker to learn English than a native English speaker learning German because one does not have to grasp new concepts that do not exist in their mother tongue.

Deciphering this chart should be the first priority of a German language student

In German there are four cases, on top of that they modify the article (think a or the in English, in German they are der, die, and das) of the word. You need to know the gender of the word right off the bat or you are going to have to make an inference about what is being said. I do not want to tell you something wrong, so I am not going to give a comprehensive review of the  cases. Instead I am going to pull up some specific example that I borrowed from the book Brief German Reference Grammer by Nora Wittman.

Take for example the dative case which is actually Latin for "to give". Had I known this earlier and not simply because I read it in a book on psycholinguistics a week ago I probably would have stopped thinking it was a case that denoted when something happened. The dative case is used in three different contexts:
1. As the indirect object of a verb:

Er gibt dem Chemiker das Salz

2. As an object of certain prepositions, verbs and adjectives:

Wir helfen unseren Nachbarn.

3. To denote possession when referring to parts of the body or to articles of clothing:

Sie wäscht dem Kinde die Hand.

Number three is an exception to the genitive case, which is used to denote possession. Confusing, no?

German is not any more tougher than Latin, and I remember my Latin high school teacher telling the class that one of the finals he had in college was translating copies of Latin notes taken in shorthand.

Just fucking kill me now

Besides the fact that German may be perceived as less useful than Spanish. I wonder if less high school students study German simply because they know / think that it is tough. But then why learn Latin? We saw that an understanding of Latin can help you understand technical words, such as the names of cases. Is studying German too much work? Doesn't every language have it's own quirks? Unfortunately I do not have an answer to these questions. 

Of course if you make the decision not to learn a language based on how tough you perceive it to be, you are in the wrong mindset and you will never learn the language. Everyone I have met, from my high school Latin teacher to foreign university students in the US have loved the language they study; and to a certain extent obsess over it. If there's on thing I have noticed it is that the foreign student who tell me that they want to learn language because it will be useful when they have a career never speak as well as the students that have a general interest in the language. Take that as you will.Take a language that you're interested in, and if you don't care about learning one then just take whatever is going to get you an A.