Cortina: Foreign Language Learning Series Reviews

[Bregowald]

i love your reviews. 

[mikesherwood74]

The Russian version has 21 lessons! 

[MrLuisc7]

I wonder... was the Russian book published before or after the majority of the Russian hard signs were removed?

[Only4Russian]

Very nice and helpful review! Thank you for sharing this!

[NV417]

the japanese one doesn't have the kana and kanji, it has only romaji

[zocurtis]

Hello Sir,

I am very happy you have posted these videos because I have wanted to become fluent in spanish for some time know. Tengo estudiar espanol por un vez ahora pero soy no muy bueno. Quiero hablar fluidez en el linguaje y yo quiero ser como hacerlo mejor. Fui en Costa Rica y en Cuba para practicar en el linguaje pero soy asi no muy bueno. Que es mi problema. Anyway, that's how my spanish is nowadays. Is there a method to studying the language that I should know about?

[scootermclean]

I am curious to know what would be the most optimal method to study with these Cortina books.

Would you recommend memorizing each line and its corresponding translation?

[ProfASAr]

The pattern drill ones I believe are best used after one has gotten a solid foundation in the language by other methods and wants to really polish fine points by reading through them rapidly and aloud.

The dialog ones have the same bilingual text column layout as Assimil courses, so I would recommend purchasing the audio for them as well and using them by the shadowing technique I describe and demonstrate on my website and discuss in the Lessons in Polyglottery forum.

[ProfASAr]

While I concur with your methodological hesitation about using transcription, if there was ever a language for which a didactic argument could be made for using it so as to allow the learner to get to the structure of the language before coming to grips with a complicated script system, then it is Japanese. I believe courses that employ Romaji should be judged not merely on that fact, but rather on their pedagogical merit. Content wise, do you know this to be a bad book?

[mitchhsansom]

I think that I was kicking myself in the teeth at the time I posted this comment for not learning the kanji from the beginning. I don't know if the content in the book is bad or not. It looks to me like phrase book, which I am not a fan of. The book is only $10 on Amazon, but I'm still not going to buy it. For me kanji is an a posteriori knowledge, so immersion in the script is critical. I really like Steve Kaufmann's theory on language learning. Although I don't agree with everything he says.

[Glossika]

That's a very good observation. I'm also of the belief that writing systems can be a deterrence to ample progress in learning to speak if you struggle to recognize and read the characters aloud at a normal speaking speed. Learning to read later is much easier when you can already speak to some degree, or transcribing what you've already learned to say into native script.

[mitchhsansom]

The Japanese version of this series is horrible. Romaji is terrible method for learning a Japanese. Romaji isn't even used in Japan!