Learn Greenlandic with Per Langgård - any good?

[juicypuffin]

Does anyone know if this DVD is at all worth the asking price of 50 Euroes?: http://learngreenlandic.com/

Seems pretty steep for something that doesn't even appear to teach Greenlandic.

[zeme]

Nice find. It's the first time I see this.

One thing I immediately dislike, though;

Your computer must be connected to the internet during first installation. Observe that the program can only be installed once on one computer.

Source: http://learngreenlandic.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/dvdcover_english.jpg

I don't know. It's either really good or really bad. Either way, € 50.00 is a lot by my standards.
But I have to say that I smiled when I read that it also runs on Ubuntu.

[juicypuffin]

Well, I went ahead and bought it 'cause I had some extra money - the download is taking literally over ten hours, although that's probably just my bad internet. I'll see how it is after it finishes but it's five in the morning already....

[zeme]

Alright, keep us posted!

[juicypuffin]

When you go to buy, it's 50 Euroes which turned out to be like $70 US through paypal. You can choose if you want a DVD mailed to you or to download it - they're the same cost except you have to pay a little extra for shipping. Immediately you get an Email giving you a license key for the product, and if you didn't make an account already on their site then it makes an account for you using your name. This account lists the activation key - the key only works one time, and for one computer.

Even if you ordered the DVD version, you get a link to a download in case you want to back up the software on your computer - I don't know if the DVD version still has you activate a product key somehow, if so I don't see any advantage to it.

First it starts out asking you if you want Danish or English. Then it gives a test to see if you have the right codex installed (and includes an installer in case you don't). The test is a video of a lady talking - the video seems to be pretty good quality.



After you watch that, it asks you if you understood everything in the video. If not then you get sent to the first lesson. If so you get this:



First lesson starts out like this: http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/4707 ... 5at253.png

This is the layout and a list of all the lessons: http://img804.imageshack.us/img804/4707 ... 5at253.png

It's definitely setting out for complete beginners. The first lesson is describing how the language works and which parts are easier/hardest. But in the first lesson, it teaches you how to pronounce a sound that's not in English (in a very good explanation, I'd say). It's also constantly relating to other languages, but showing examples in case you don't know what he's talking about (I mean, if he says "it's like the German xxx", then he makes the sound of the German xxx. The first lesson is a video around twenty minutes long.

The PDF version of the first lesson is just a text of what he said on the video almost exactly, and doesn't have any of the diagrams he might draw in the video lesson.

I'd put part of the first lesson on youtube, where it teaches you how to say the sounds, except I honestly don't know how to get it off the program.

[księżycowy]

Just stumbled upon this thread.
Interesting. At 50 euros it's a bit steep for me at the moment, but it is nice to see that something is out there in English.

[zeme]

You can use a screencasting tool. The following should work on your Mac.

http://krut.sourceforge.net/
http://www.techsmith.com/jing/
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefo ... pture-fox/

Thanks a lot for the review!

[juicypuffin]

Thanks, I'll try those tools tomorrow.

It's probably so expensive because the teacher is coming from the University (also the language board or something?). I did Email them when I bought the product asking if they were planning on making any more, or an online teaching thing like there is from a University for Icelandic, but they haven't answered me yet.

[deardron]

It's definitely setting out for complete beginners. The first lesson is describing how the language works and which parts are easier/hardest.

How many lessons is there in the course? Does it cover the grammar to the same extent as f.ex. "Grønlandsk for begyndere" or it's totally for beginners from start to end?

[juicypuffin]

All the lessons are in the screencap, to my knowledge. I can't really tell because I don't even know anything about Greenlandic myself - but I'm pretty sure it's all just for beginners, I don't even see many lessons on grammar at all. I'll check those lessons in a bit and report back though.

[juicypuffin]

Working on recording all the videos and exercises, currently just on lesson three and I've only recorded English ones (Danish I'll do after all the English is done). Can't say as to what the quality will be because I've never done screen-recording before. I will say that he taught us the word for penis in Greenlandic : P

I'll make what I can of an answer key for the exercises and add the powepoints(?) in the video to the lesson PDFs, it's pretty unfair that you can only see them when you watch the video. What if you're deaf or can't have the sound on?! Although it is mostly for pronunciation...

[deardron]

OK, thank you! It looks like it's only an introductory course. I would download it myself, but it's way too expensive. Of course, Greenlandic is an extremely difficult language and making a manual on it requires a bit of effort, especially when it involves doing video lectures, but still.. It would be good if they placed online a summary of the course and its chapters for us to know what we are supposed to buy.

[juicypuffin]

OK, thank you! It looks like it's only an introductory course. I would download it myself, but it's way too expensive. Of course, Greenlandic is an extremely difficult language and making a manual on it requires a bit of effort, especially when it involves doing video lectures, but still.. It would be good if they placed online a summary of the course and its chapters for us to know what we are supposed to buy.

If you felt like downloading it yourself I'd say to just pay me a fourth of the cost to ease my own wallet from buying it, and I'd get on recording the rest of the videos really fast hahahah.

They never responded to my Email, unfortunately.

[Langgard]

Just one question to juicypuffin: We check all mails like 10 times a day every day and have at the moment 0,0 unanswered mails so I just wondered what mail address you sent your mails to??

Per Langgård

[Langgard]

OK, thank you! It looks like it's only an introductory course. I would download it myself, but it's way too expensive. Of course, Greenlandic is an extremely difficult language and making a manual on it requires a bit of effort, especially when it involves doing video lectures, but still.. It would be good if they placed online a summary of the course and its chapters for us to know what we are supposed to buy.

If you felt like downloading it yourself I'd say to just pay me a fourth of the cost to ease my own wallet from buying it, and I'd get on recording the rest of the videos really fast hahahah.

They never responded to my Email, unfortunately.

Thanks to deardron for the suggestion to put the table of contents online. I shall look into that tomorrow.

Per Langgård

[Langgard]

Thanks, I'll try those tools tomorrow.

It's probably so expensive because the teacher is coming from the University (also the language board or something?). I did Email them when I bought the product asking if they were planning on making any more, or an online teaching thing like there is from a University for Icelandic, but they haven't answered me yet.

You really make me curious: What makes you believe that the price of the DVD has anything to do with the university and/ or the language board?????

As a matter of facts the DVD is produced outside office hours and is 100% financed out of my own pocket. The price reflects actual production costs. This far the budget (which includes my wages (= 0,00 euro)) is negative and I do not really expect it to rise over zero ever. I made the DVD because I cannot accept that nobody speaks the language as L2 - which is a fact! - not to make money on it. May I suggest you to check learngreenlandic.com for further information.

Good evening

[deardron]

Thank you Per, both for your effort to do this DVD at your own cost (not least for us, overseas fanatics of the language) and for updating your website with a very interesting info.

I still haven't bought the DVD, hopefully I will do it in the nearest future, so I can't comment on the course itself yet. I only can say that I'm really fond of "Grønlandsk for begyndere" and its methodology, to practise each grammatic feature through detailed exercises, even though they might seem boring at a glance. As I linguist myself, I believe this is the best working way to master so difficult a grammar as the Greenlandic one is (shame the promised volume III of the book has never been published). So I hope that your course will have a bit of that policy/exercises too.

[Langgard]

Thank you. May I ask which of the "Grønlandsk for begyndere" you are talking about? If you mean the old Keld Thor Pedersen one, I definitely agree with you. It is a magnificent piece of work to which I as a matter of facts pay a tribute of gratitude in the preface to my DVD.

Per

[juicypuffin]

I was most hoping that the DVD course will expand into a huge course on Greenlandic to the point where if you memorize all the grammar you could become near fluent, since we really don't have anything modern like that in English at all (not to mention even just finding material to practice on is difficult).

Anyway, if you do make a second part (or third, or fourth...!) to this series I'll buy that as well. I think your pronunciation lessons are fantastic, much better than what I've been able to find for other Nordic languages. The one thing I would really recommend you do that can be fixed easily is just to add any drawings/text on the side of the screen during the movie lectures, into the PDF versions of the same lectures. That way when you're reading the PDF (say, on the bus) you also have the diagrams of where you should put your tongue when you say certain sounds, things like that. I was pretty sure those weren't included but it's been a while since I looked at your program so I could be wrong.

[deardron]

Thank you. May I ask which of the "Grønlandsk for begyndere" you are talking about? If you mean the old Keld Thor Pedersen one, I definitely agree with you. It is a magnificent piece of work to which I as a matter of facts pay a tribute of gratitude in the preface to my DVD.

Yes, this is the one, I'm actually not aware of other books with this particular title.