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rlnv Senior Member United States Joined 3944 days ago 126 posts - 233 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French
| Message 241 of 439 10 June 2014 at 7:06pm | IP Logged |
Hi luke. I spent the past 3 or 4 days reading over your log. Enjoyable read, thanks.
I like your your approach and the consistency of your study. It sounds like you must have devoted hours a day on a consistent basis. And if I'm not mistaken, your approach of doing all 4 of the Assimils is somewhat unique. I don't recall coming across anyone else mentioning doing that in my reading of HTLAL archives. I have a couple of questions regarding the Assimil courses.
If one could rank them on a scale of complexity, would it be true they would go from NFWE > Without Toil > Using French > Business French?
Having worked through all 4 of them and if you reflect back, are you satisfied with the decision to have done them all, versus perhaps spending some of that time elsewhere?
Also, thank you for pointing out Philosophie du vivant 1. I'm not ready for it yet, but have saved it for the future. I was impressed with the comment you made at the time you posted the link, indicating your comprehension level of it.
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| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7198 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French
| Message 242 of 439 11 June 2014 at 12:15am | IP Logged |
rlnv wrote:
Hi luke. I spent the past 3 or 4 days reading over your log. Enjoyable read, thanks. |
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And I still don't have four loving cups?
rlnv wrote:
I like your your approach and the consistency of your study. It sounds like you must have devoted hours a day on a consistent basis. And if I'm not mistaken, your approach of doing all 4 of the Assimils is somewhat unique. I don't recall coming across anyone else mentioning doing that in my reading of HTLAL archives. I have a couple of questions regarding the Assimil courses. |
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I like it too. It basically uses an idea that Professor Arguelles talks about, which is digesting and understanding the courses at progressively deeper levels. My real sit down and study time is from 1/2 hour to occasionally 2+ hours per day if I can't sleep. My in the car or on the go study time is probably another 10-12 hours per week. Since it's in the car or wandering around, it may not count as much. That would be listening and occasionally shadowing. Note, this study time is not all Assimil. I'm sure you picked that up from reading the log.
rlnv wrote:
If one could rank them on a scale of complexity, would it be true they would go from NFWE > Without Toil > Using French > Business French? |
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I was just thinking about this on the way home. That's sort of right, but French Without Toil is the wildcard. It starts with slow audio, as you would expect, but ends with blazingly fast audio. It also has a lot of non-recorded content. The exercises are more substantive. I haven't done most of them yet. It's on my list though.
Also, French Without Toil gradually switches to French as the teaching language. I like that feature of the course. It's a more advanced method than keeping the teaching language English throughout as in Using French.
Business French has a lot of related readings in French. In that way, it transitions to French as a teaching language, although there are also readings in English throughout the course. It also has almost twice the audio of the other courses (with silence truncated). For those reasons, as well as it's sophisticated exercises, I would rate it as the most advanced Assimil French course of the four.
rlnv wrote:
Having worked through all 4 of them and if you reflect back, are you satisfied with the decision to have done them all, versus perhaps spending some of that time elsewhere? |
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Definitely worthwhile. If I were to change something, I might focus a bit more on Assimil, rather than spreading myself thin most of the time. However, with retrospect, since I've stuck with my study, I think my base is fairly solid. I really am planning to integrate and understand the 4 courses at a still deeper level. The amount of Assimil versus other study varies, but Assimil has taken a fairly big portion of the "sit down" study time (25-50%). On the go, It's perhaps 20%. Probably less that 20% these days, since FSI is taking a fairly big chunk of "on the go" study time.
rlnv wrote:
Also, thank you for pointing out Philosophie du vivant 1. I'm not ready for it yet, but have saved it for the future. I was impressed with the comment you made at the time you posted the link, indicating your comprehension level of it. |
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Thank you for pointing out that link again. I'll have to delve back into his lectures. For me, he is pretty understandable because:
It's philosophy, so it's well thought out and structured.
I'm interested in philosophy.
The speaker speaks clearly and not very fast.
I also think my study method has been good for listening comprehension, since that is the skill I've focused on the most.
Thank you for your thoughtful comments and questions.
Edited by luke on 11 June 2014 at 11:08am
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| rlnv Senior Member United States Joined 3944 days ago 126 posts - 233 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French
| Message 243 of 439 12 June 2014 at 6:01am | IP Logged |
Thank you for answering my questions. I've found myself gaining so much from Assimil NFWE. And since creating single MP3's of each of the CD's and playing them frequently, my comprehension has really taken off. I constantly appreciate Assimil more and more. So much so that I might go down the same path as you and do several of the courses. As I mentioned in my log, I already have Using French on the way. I may or may not start it right away, as I may take some time to read some graded books with audio first.
Regarding French Without Toil. I looked around and I've found plenty of sources for the book, but it looks like the audio is harder to come by. I recall seeing the records once on eBay, but not currently. Did you obtain digital copy's somewhere, or did you find the records and digitize them yourself?
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| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7198 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French
| Message 244 of 439 12 June 2014 at 8:16am | IP Logged |
rlnv wrote:
Thank you for answering my questions. I've found myself gaining so much from Assimil NFWE. And since creating single MP3's of each of the CD's and playing them frequently, my comprehension has really taken off. I constantly appreciate Assimil more and more. So much so that I might go down the same path as you and do several of the courses. As I mentioned in my log, I already have Using French on the way. I may or may not start it right away, as I may take some time to read some graded books with audio first. |
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Books with audio are another important part of my method. Le Petit Prince is very good and the links from the Frank Ilya method have a great recording. I also have enjoyed the first Petit Nicholas book a lot.
Bonne chance et Bon Voyage!
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| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7198 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French
| Message 245 of 439 13 June 2014 at 2:12am | IP Logged |
Et alors j'ai fait les fichiers mp3 de philosophie du vivant.
Mes amis sont:
http://www.listentoyoutube.com/index.php
http://www.video2mp3.net/
Aujourd'hui j'ai découvert il ya une série de vidéos Psychologie du même auteur.
Autre chose est l'orateur qui parle avec enthousiasme.
Edited by luke on 13 June 2014 at 2:28am
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| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7198 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French
| Message 246 of 439 13 June 2014 at 2:52am | IP Logged |
luke wrote:
Here is the order of "primary materials" I came up with:
Assimil Business French (now complete and winding down).
Du Contrat Social - Jean Jacques Rousseau's classic. There is a good recording at
http://audiocite.net/.
FSI Dialogue writing and Tape 2 Magic
Candide by Voltaire
FSI 7-12
Madame Bovary
I may even split those Primary goals up into weekly segments just to keep things changing and exciting. That would be more back and forth between FSI and Literature.
For the Literature/Great Books, I'm thinking an extensive attack like:
Read/Listen (French/English)
Listen/Read (French/English)
Listen (French)
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It hasn't been long since that post, Du Contrat Social is getting a good bit of attention. I have recordings in French, Spanish (the first 1/2), and English. There is a site called http://earlymoderntexts.com/
that has lots of great philosophical book translations. I'm using the one for Rousseau, as well as an older more standard translation, and of course the french original. I'm deep into the first book and touching cotton on the second.
luke wrote:
Second string - note, these are sequential, not simultaneous.
Business French (trailing wave - 5 minutes/day)
French Without Toil - back to front (start with lesson 140, and work towards beginning)
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Actually, I am doing them simultaneously, but it's a lot. It's the kind of workload that has me thinking about ditching coures and just doing literature and fun stuff. I'm holding off though.
I also started John Stuart Mill's l'Utilitarism today in the gym. It has right sized chapters and doesn't seem as had as it's supposed to be.
Edited by luke on 13 June 2014 at 10:53am
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| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7198 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French
| Message 247 of 439 19 June 2014 at 6:27pm | IP Logged |
A quick update...
I started listening to the Power of the Subconscious Mind in French again. I'd listened to it some months back. It seems much easier now. Something good must have happened. Maybe it's the power of my subconscious.
I created a parallel recording of John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism in French/English. It did not take too long. Perhaps 30 minutes or so. I was listening to it while driving to work this morning and think it was time well spent. When I got to my workout slot, I looked for it on my smartphone, but I didn't find it. That got me to the Power of the ... book above, which turned out to be a nice discovery.
Before I leave JSMill, I will note that I listened to L'Utilitarianism (from litteratureaudio.com) in the workout slot the lsat several days. That was straight French, and although it wasn't as easy as I'd like, it wasn't so incomprehensible as to seem a waste of time.
I read the intro to French Without Toil the other night. It mentioned knowing all the words to a song after repeated listening and suggested this as a worthy goal. I loaded all my Assimil French on my smartphone again.
Assimil has been taking up a good bit of my study time lately...
Business French is in a trailing review wave after completing the books a couple weeks ago. I am listening to the current lesson often more than once, re-reading the non-recorded documents, looking at the notes, etc. I'm even doing a "yesterday" wave, which is to listen/read the previous lesson. I'm glad this
course is coming together.
French Without Toil is in a back to front wave. I started with lesson 140 and today I'm around lesson 118. This of course hits the most challenging stuff. I've also been spending a good bit of time on the non-recorded sentences and explanations. Today I put lessons 90-140 on my "in the car" memory stick for another angle and perhaps some shadowing.
New French with Ease is also in a back to front wave. Don't know how this snuck back into the lineup.
I'm around lesson 103 (of 113). I also did a 7 lesson / day listen/read swipe at the course to refresh some vocab.
Using French sits patiently on the shelf, although it got loaded on my smartphone with everything else.
Reading French - I'm starting chapter 5 of 17. This book lacks an answer key. I have been putting some of the vocab in Anki.
Anki I broke down and added this about 10 days ago. Focus has been on Reading French vocab and early easy words in a French Frequency dictionary. My reviews are under 10 minutes, which is where I want to keep it. I'm tempted at times to add tricky Assimil vocabulary, but I'm saving that for later.
Hugo French in 3 Months - I ordered it based on experiences by Ron (rnlv) and Peter. I got the completepackage, which is supposed to have an advanced book/cd set. I'm hoping this track will add some structured sentence writing and grammar. I like that it has audio support. I'm a big believer in that. I may drop Reading French when this arrives, as it's meant to fill a similar gap.
French Bilble - I noticed this in my mp3 hoard and thought some of the gospels and other popular books would be good for background listening. I'm listening to Genesis today. Did you know God created the universe in about a week? I wonder why it takes so long for me to learn a language. I guess I'm not God.
I did a quick test from the RFI site for French level 4-6. I didn't do as well as I'd like, but I got 2 of 3 at the C1 level. I must have been getting used to the testing format or on a winning streak.
I almost forgot FSI. I've been on tape 7.9 for a couple days. This course gets a big percentage of study time in the car. I do hit the books once in a while. I should probably do that more. When I did the unit 6 review, I made some quick notes about things that were challenging. Big numbers, all of the vendeurs, such as the pastry chef, etc, and a bit of the a/de/du/de la I think, although I did quite well on a lot of that when I was fresh and rested.
Edited by luke on 20 June 2014 at 1:46am
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| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7198 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French
| Message 248 of 439 21 June 2014 at 11:34pm | IP Logged |
J'ai trouvé quelques recommandations pour les livres qui ne sont pas trop difficiles.
Oscar Wilde - Le Prince Heureux.
The Happy Prince.
C'est une belle histoire qui me rappelle de L'homme qui plantait des arbres.
It made me wonder if I'd made a rash purchase when I got Hugo's Complete French.
I have gone through the lesson 1 of 9 in the advanced book. I liked it. I didn't get all the exercises correct, which made me think I should start with Hugo French in 3 Months, which came in the same package. I listened to the preliminary material there on pronunciation.
I turned both sets of recordings into mp3s and started editing them down.
The "rash decision" remark is more about all the other courses and material I have in the air now. Did I need to add some more? Well, besides Ron and Peter's implicit endorsement of Hugo, there is also a Professor Arguelles video on Hugo in 3 Months as well as his general recommendation of using courses with different approaches. He says maybe 5 courses. I've got more than that. For someone who likes the intuitive approach, I have extrapolated the following courses based on the Professor's videos.
1) Intuitive Approach (Assimil or the old Linguaphone courses). I have four of these going.
2) Grammar/Translation or "Birds Eye Overview". Now I have two of these with Hugo.
3) Learn by Doing/Drilling. FSI Basic French is the behemoth.
Have you ever just wished your French was better?
Edited by luke on 21 June 2014 at 11:46pm
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