FSI Bengali Course
What is the FSI Bengali Short Course?
This FSI Bengali short course was published in 1985 and provides a basic introduction to the language, including simple conversations like greetings or exchanging telephone numbers.
It consists of 30 units in total, with each one presenting new language and vocabulary in the form of a dialog.
How was the FSI Bengali Short Course originally used?
This course was originally designed to give US diplomatic staff a grounding in Bengali before being sent to postings in areas where the language is spoken.
They would have spent time studying the dialogs alone outside of class, and they would have also spent time in a classroom going through the material and practicing with a teacher.
This way, after completing the course, they would have gained the basic language skills that would have allowed them to get by in Bengali-speaking areas, managing simple situations with the words and expressions they had learned.
How can you use the FSI Bengali Short Course Basic?
Unfortunately, this course is not well suited for autonomous study, especially if you don’t have any other materials for studying the language. If you try to learn Bengali using this course alone, you are likely to find it all but impossible to make any progress.
However, if you have another Bengali coursebook, especially one that also teaches you how to read and write the script, this course could work well as a source of supplementary input that can help you practice your speaking and listening as well as enlarging your vocabulary in Bengali.
Taking it further
However good your study materials, you will never master Bengali if you don’t practice. For this reason, if you want to make progress in the language, I urge you to take your Bengali skills out into the real world to try them out.
Look for native speakers who can help you practice, perhaps giving you tips on pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar or usage to complement your study. Above all, try to make using Bengali a part of your daily life, and when you do, you will see that you begin to make real progress in the language.