Disqus - Latest Comments for DarrenKenny

Re: FSI Language Courses - Contact

Darren Kenny — Fri, 30 Apr 2021 10:46:42 -0000

Hi Saoirse,

This is just a follow up comment to let people know that we've been in contact via email and are working on resolving the issue. All the best. Darren

Re: Death of a language website: fsi-language-courses.org [UPDATED: There are at least 3 other sites with the same files]

Darren Kenny — Wed, 09 Dec 2020 11:01:39 -0000

Thanks Thomas.

Jennie, I've now acquired the old .org domain now (from a horrid squatter) and migrated my .net site over to this fyi.

Re: FSI Language Courses - Contact

Darren Kenny — Thu, 03 Dec 2020 14:48:53 -0000

Hi Judy,

I'll send you an email now.

Re: FSI French Basic Course

Darren Kenny — Wed, 18 Nov 2020 13:28:39 -0000

Hi João, could you email me and I'll send it through to you directly. Abraços

Re: FSI Language Courses - Contact

Darren Kenny — Tue, 10 Nov 2020 14:16:44 -0000

Hi Yohann, i'll email you and look into this for you.

Re: FSI German Basic Course

Darren Kenny — Thu, 22 Oct 2020 13:10:48 -0000

Hey inoioio, I would say this covers up to B2. It's quite a comprehensive course.

Re: FSI Amharic Basic Course

Darren Kenny — Wed, 21 Oct 2020 17:03:42 -0000

Hi Sunshine, you can email me at darren@fsi-language-courses.net and I'll look into it for you. Fear not. :)

Re: Plans for the FSI courses

Darren Kenny — Sat, 25 Jul 2020 17:16:31 -0000

This kind of help would be very useful, but it's still way off at the moment, unfortunately.

Re: Plans for the FSI courses

Darren Kenny — Sat, 25 Jul 2020 17:15:47 -0000

Hey François,

Thank you for your message (and email).

I agree with you, it's more work than I alone can handle if I'm serious about covering all courses. It would be great to develop a team. First I need to have a framework in place to allow other tech savvy individuals to digitize the content into a system that I develop, without that in place the project would fail.

My focus at the moment is the content on the site to support those who are downloading the courses -
- course guides (How to use Headstart / FAST / Basic / Programmed)
- how to do the Basic course drills
- how best to study alone
- how to substitute a teacher
- etc etc

Once I am happy with that I'll press full steam ahead with the digitization work and put my software engineer hat back on.

Re: FSI German Basic Course

Darren Kenny — Sat, 27 Jun 2020 07:07:37 -0000

Swiss-German is a different dialect to the German contained in this course. There is also different pronunciation, words and grammar. You will gain a small advantage using this course rather than doing nothing, but you'll likely have to re-learn a lot of the greetings and common phrazes that could do more harm than good.

Re: FSI German Basic Course

Darren Kenny — Tue, 02 Jun 2020 03:54:17 -0000

Hi Arthur, I wouldn't pickup a German grammar book unless you've already learned some German. Assimil is a nice introduction to the language and I would recommend that out of the 3 books you're talking about. But I would say start with the FSI German course as it's free and see how far along you get with it before spending money.

Re: Plans for the FSI courses

Darren Kenny — Wed, 27 May 2020 08:48:32 -0000

Hi David, thanks for your feedback. There is just so much information it's very hard to organise. I'm continuing to put more time into it these days so hopefully I can produce something of value for FSI language course learners.

Re: FSI Japanese Headstart Course

Darren Kenny — Sat, 23 May 2020 06:00:44 -0000

Hey hey, good luck with the course!

Re: FSI French Basic Course

Darren Kenny — Sat, 16 May 2020 06:25:28 -0000

Hi Ron, maybe at the time there was an issue, yeah. The site was recently featured on CNN and The Economist and so the server because a bit overloaded. Let me know if you managed to sort it out in the end, if not ping me an email (see email on contacts page) and I will help you out.

Re: FSI Language Courses - Contact

Darren Kenny — Fri, 15 May 2020 14:05:03 -0000

Hi David, there are 4 (technically 3) Italian courses. Beware the audio quality is not the best.
https://www.fsi-language-co...

Re: Plans for the FSI courses

Darren Kenny — Mon, 11 May 2020 17:02:00 -0000

Potentially, yes. So there's a web app that can be developed, that will need an active internet connection. It can be used on tablets, mobile and of course via a desktop.

But then there's the potential to create an actual iOS / android app, whereby you would download each unit as and when you need it so that it's available offline. It's a common request from people. Most likely the web app would come before a native mobile app.

Re: FSI German Programmed Introduction Course

Darren Kenny — Fri, 08 May 2020 05:18:38 -0000

No need to thank me, Daniel. Others before me made these courses available, they did the hard work. I just host them and encourage others with using them as best I can. I would have recommended language meetups for free conversational practice - but with covid-19 that's a no go I guess. There are some sites where you can find a tandem partner as well, and use Zoom/Skype - never quite as fun as meeting up in person mind. Otherwise I often recommend italki to people, as you don't have to have formal lessons, you can just hire an ordinary native speaker for basic conversational practice. I've used this to great effect.

Re: Plans for the FSI courses

Darren Kenny — Tue, 05 May 2020 06:09:01 -0000

Hi Jon, this is something I have started looking back into this year in fact. Is this something you think you would like to use?

Re: The Pros and Cons of the FSI language courses

Darren Kenny — Sat, 25 Apr 2020 09:33:37 -0000

Hi Paris,

There's been no progress in the last few years unfortunately. Life got in the way. But I'm putting in more time to do this in the coming months, as and when I can.

Somebody did contact me a month back and said that they'd try and crowdfund the digitization but I don't know what's up with that.

Can I ask why you're interested?

Re: The Pros and Cons of the FSI language courses

Darren Kenny — Thu, 23 Apr 2020 02:59:20 -0000

I used Assimil when learning German and found it a great resource. Particularly the listening comprehension and the translation of English->German without looking at the translation. When your brain hurts doing these translations, you know you're doing something right and learning.

Re: FSI Language Courses - About me

Darren Kenny — Tue, 21 Apr 2020 18:23:19 -0000

My pleasure Ana

Re: FSI Language Courses - Contact

Darren Kenny — Mon, 20 Apr 2020 17:18:28 -0000

Hi Morpheus, thanks for letting me know. I've just updated those now.

Re: FSI Language Courses - Contact

Darren Kenny — Thu, 15 Sep 2016 09:11:26 -0000

Some of the download links in the email are broken. I am currently trying to fix them all as well as move over the hosting/download of these large files over to Amazon web services, for faster download speeds.

Re: FSI Language Courses - Contact

Darren Kenny — Thu, 15 Sep 2016 09:10:36 -0000

Hi Sidney, unfortunately no such audios exist at the time of writing. Not all the courses were salvaged and digitized. If they do appear sometime then i'll happily upload them.

Re: The Pros and Cons of the FSI language courses

Darren Kenny — Sun, 24 Apr 2016 16:58:46 -0000

Hi again Niall.

People will have to login to use the system (user dashboard image attached). This will allow them to track their progress. They can then re-take any lessons that they've already completed. The lessons are long, yes, I've broken up everything as follows Volume -> Unit -> Section -> Exercise Group -> Exercise Item. So each Exercise group will be a mini-lesson.

Don't worry about the next page for now. I am experimenting with different ways to manage the application navigation and i'll get it nailed pretty soon.

The main courses will go up with only unit 1...then unit 2, 3, 4 etc will become available as it is inputted into the system. It's a lot of work so I can't just wait then release all 24 units (as in the case of German). This will also help with getting momentum from people to help, as they can see the direct results of their work, whether it be teachers or students...but I agree, teachers would be a better resource.