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Should I switch from Assimil to Books? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| YnEoS Senior Member United States Joined 4245 days ago 472 posts - 893 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: German, Russian, Cantonese, Japanese, French, Hungarian, Czech, Swedish, Mandarin, Italian, Spanish | Message 1 of 12 11 December 2013 at 5:07am | IP Logged | ||
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So I'm 2 months away from completing Assimil French Without Toil and I decided to buy the French translation of John Green's The Fault In Our Stars to be the first book I'd try to read in French upon hitting intermediate because A)It's at around a high school reading level and B) I've read it recently in English and enjoyed it quite a bit.
I decided to look through it to see how much I could understand and found that I only run into 1, maybe 2 words that I don't know in each sentence and about half the time I can guess the meaning from context and the Kindle's French language definitions. Its a bit of a struggle, but also lots of fun as well, and I feel like I'm encountering much more interesting vocabulary. So should I drop my Assimil course and just focus on trying to read this book? I don't think I've learned all the grammar points quite yet, so would it be better to finish my courses to make sure I learn everything, or maybe do a bit of both each day? I'd probably keep doing French In Action videos & audio to practice listening and speaking, and using Duolingo to practice writing regardless. Background: I've already completed all of Pimsleur, Michel Thomas and done L-R 1 time through on The Three Musketeers. I've gone through the first half of the FSI French Course, and I'm on lesson 80/140 of Assimil French Without Toil using scriptorium, though I've shadowed up to lesson 120 just looking at the English while saying the French audio. Edited by YnEoS on 11 December 2013 at 5:14am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| renaissancemedi Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Greece Joined 4349 days ago 941 posts - 1309 votes Speaks: Greek*, Ancient Greek*, EnglishC2 Studies: French, Russian, Turkish, Modern Hebrew | Message 2 of 12 11 December 2013 at 7:45am | IP Logged | ||
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Why not finish it? Surely if it has helped you so far it will help more, plus there will be a sense of accomplishment.
5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7196 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 3 of 12 11 December 2013 at 8:03am | IP Logged | ||
That's a personal decision. It sounds like you haven't decided for sure whether to continue French in Action and you've dropped FSI. The later lessons of French Without Toil are a good bit more challenging than the earlier ones. It really ramps up in the last 20 days. Maybe that has frightened you. It's normal to consider dropping the course at the point you're at, partly because it gets tough as well as the normal tendency not to finish a big goal like FWT (or FIA, or FSI). You have plenty of company. One has to come back to your goals and possibly why you are considering dropping the course. If it's just hard to finish something you start, it would be a good experience to carry on for 2 more months and achieve what you set out to do. There's no question you'll learn more and that it will have been done in a systematic way with a good course. I don't think you'll regret carrying on with your original plan. Your book may be more enjoyable when you've finished the course. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| AlexTG Diglot Senior Member Australia Joined 4629 days ago 178 posts - 354 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Latin, German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 4 of 12 11 December 2013 at 10:08am | IP Logged | ||
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I would just move to the book. You'll pick up the left over grammar points reading native materials(passivley
at least, might need to go back later and get a good grip on them for active use). No need to feel bad for not finishing the course, lots of courses go shorter than this one and the users cope fine. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4880 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 5 of 12 11 December 2013 at 10:11am | IP Logged | ||
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I would do both, finish Assimil while you move to native materials. I remember getting
impatient a bit with Assimil French at the end of the active section, and rushed a bit ... I didn't feel the need to internalize the dialogues with a lot of slang. Even still, it's useful to complete. I'd even keep FSI on your shelf. I've been consuming a lot of native lit this past year and a half, but it still helps to do a "study month" every once in awhile. French grammar seems never ending; there's always more nuances to learn. Also, I've never heard of The Fault in Our Stars, but the reviews are stellar. I'll be adding it to my list, so thanks for the notice! 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6588 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 6 of 12 11 December 2013 at 11:47am | IP Logged | ||
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You may find this thread useful. It's about combining several languages, but you can apply the same ideas to different activities in one language. see the wiki article about "flow": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology)
Sometimes it helps to get some input and come back to your textbook later. Things will make much more sense when you've seen them in real life. Perhaps you've learned a lot in the recent months and are still overwhelmed, then let it sink in by relatively easy reading. If, however, it's the newer concepts that are hard to grasp, you may want to read something more challenging, perhaps a book available as a parallel text?* Don't worry about all the details and the grammar and whatnot, just read and get comfortable with it. (you may want to mark the complicated passages to study them in more detail later) *By all means, if you're excited about your current book, read it! But you may be tempted to start reading lots of YA literature, and I'm not sure how beneficial it will be really. Also, if it's been some time since you LR'ed The Three Musketeers, you'll notice much more advanced grammar if you go through it again. But for reading rather than LR something shorter will be better (though not too short either - books get easier after 50-100 pages. 200-300 is perhaps the best length for you now). Also, try GLOSS. It's basically a collection of free lessons. I love the site so much that I've done some French lessons myself although I hate French :P I found gloss very useful for all my languages that are available (sadly, nothing for the ones limited to prosperous countries like Italy or Denmark). And see this thread, it's about Spanish but the same principles apply to any language, and especially the big ones like French. Check out emk's excellent log for things to read/watch/listen. can't help you there :P Edited by Serpent on 11 December 2013 at 12:22pm 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6588 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 7 of 12 11 December 2013 at 11:51am | IP Logged | ||
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6588 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 8 of 12 11 December 2013 at 12:08pm | IP Logged | ||
Edited by Serpent on 11 December 2013 at 12:08pm 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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