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Assimil Experiment Group Log | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4877 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes  Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 281 of 344 07 March 2013 at 1:19am | IP Logged | ||
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I might jump back in in a couple weeks. For now, I'm working my way through a Greek
grammar book. The Assimil method worked up to a point for me, and then it fell apart. It's interesting that Chinese (another challenging language) only gave you five new words in Lesson 87. Greek, by contrast, was introducing ten to twenty new words each lesson, along with a half dozen new grammatical terms and concepts in the footnotes. The footnotes are actually longer than the text. And to make it worse, the dialogues were dull. Chapter 8 of the old Teach Yourself has you translating from the ten commandments (which are far more harsh in Greek than in English), and Chapter 9 from Plato. It's a struggle, but the results are very rewarding. Chapter 67 of Assimil still feels like a homework assignment, rather than something I'm doing for fun. The recordings, on the other hand, were excellent. When I come back it will be for the audio. I also did appreciate that Assimil presents a holistic view of the language. I don't think I would be doing so well in the grammar book if I hadn't done this much Assimil. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5369 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 282 of 344 10 March 2013 at 6:23pm | IP Logged | ||
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If a very low percentage of language aficionados can actually finish Assimil, the conclusion is clear: there is
no miracle method. Learning a language takes time and devotion, something no method can infuse. If anything, working with a single, formulaic method may actually hinder motivation. It also means that if Assimil has enjoyed such a good reputation, it's probably for reasons of marketing. If few of us can even finish the book, what percentage of people at large can claim to have studied through an entire book and actually give an opinion over its efficiency? Moreover, many of us have adapted our method of study to our needs or learning style as we progressed, which also implies that the whole active-passive wave idea is no fool-proof method either, but just a rough guideline to offer inexperienced learners some direction. I'm now at lesson 96 (Assimil Roumain) and I'm thinking I will finish all remaining passive lessons before I go back to finishing the active wave. Doing both an active and a passive wave is sometimes too much of a daily commitment and I tend to be more effective studying in shorter bouts; doing both was becoming stressful and burdensome. The content of the last lessons seem to indicate that there was a requirement to make 101 lessons imposed by the publisher, as it's rather uneventful. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 5154 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 283 of 344 10 March 2013 at 6:45pm | IP Logged | ||
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I don't think Assimil is only marketing. If only, it's one of the most comprehensive
methods, and its idea of 100 short lessons fits the needs of learners like you and me who like to study in shorter bouts. What I find necessary is that we try other methods just for making the transition of levels softer. Usually the first half of an Assimil book is ok, then it gets too difficult with too much vocabulary and double work, while you still haven't learned the grammar properly because you haven't done the second wave yet. So, I think it's not a bad idea to pause Assimil while at its half or to start checking a more analytical method at this stage. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5369 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 284 of 344 10 March 2013 at 7:25pm | IP Logged | ||
Assimil suggests that students do a lesson a day which, when the active wave kicks in, can easily become an hour of work -- I don't call that a short bout. As you explain that Assimil can sometimes become too difficult, that it presents too much vocabulary, that it moves on while it hasn't allowed the student to fully grasp the grammar, that we should interrupt our studies with Assimil and turn to other methods, you are essentially confirming that it is anything but a perfect method. Why couldn't a method do all those things right? I think its rigid format prevents it from doing so. If we say that Assimil is an excellent method provided you forget its shortcomings and revert to working with other methods simultaneously, then we might as well say that it has shortcomings and that it is an insufficient method on its own. What I'd like to ask is this: how can we improve Assimil? 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 5154 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 285 of 344 10 March 2013 at 8:33pm | IP Logged | ||
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I find the experiment useful for us to contradict Assimil's statement that it can bring
you alone to a B2 level, but that doesn't change the fact that Assimil is much more comprehensive, entertaining and didactic than most of the colloquials and TYs that are around. Only Living Language is as much comprehensive, but then it relies on bigger lessons which one could split into several days, but for some people it is still better to get small chunks as you and I agree, Arekkusu. The problem with Assimil is exactly that around its half it ceases to comply to its own claims: lessons get longer, you are introduced to new vocabulary before you've mastered the previous one, grammar notes are presented out of a context and some vocabulary notes are redundant, at least for experienced language learners, and they slow down excessively the learning speed. That was what was happening to me with Il nuovo russo senza sforzo: by lesson 35, I was getting 3-page long lessons instead of 1 1/2-page long lessons. I don't think that the fact I (supposedly) have successfully learned 10 words a day the past days would allow me to start learning 15, 20 words a day from then on. Besides, I missed seeing important words again and again, for retention. That kept being done for the first lessons and also more consistently at Russian Without Toil, but stopped all of a sudden with Il nuovo russo senza sforzo. One thing that I noticed in a few editions of Assimil and which is lacking at Il nuovo russo senza sforzo are the 'vocabulary review' lessons. Yes, those lessons that come with a disclaimer that says: "At this lesson you'll not be introduced to new structures, you'll only have to pay attention to what you have learned and so on". This way, you get the grammar review/consolidation at the 7th lesson but you also get a vocabulary review AND an opportunity to consolidate the grammar you've learned at a lessons at which you won't have to worry about vocabulary that much. All I got for Russian grammar at Il nuovo russo senza sforzo were inconsistent notes that varied incredibly in length: sometimes they wanted to cover a subject in depth, sometimes they did it partially in a way that hindered global understanding. Even the review lessons weren't good enough. They weren't pedagogically wrong, they were simply badly written. I don't know if you have actually tried Méthode 90, but it keeps its promise of small chunks up to nearly all the book. Langues de poche has some criticism but, since it is shorter, it corresponds to half an Assimil book and covers that A1-A2 level satisfactorily, way better than Colloquials and TYs as well. So, it's much more of a problem that Assimil doesn't stick to its own method up to the end. And again, the wrong assumption that the more we advance with learning a language, the more information in terms of grammar and, specially, vocabulary we can retain in a single day. This is the case for most of the language textbooks, and again, it doesn't hinder the fact that Assimil is still one of the best among the ones available. That being said, again the experiment was useful to bring Assimil's claims down to earth. It won't bring you to B2 and words won't stick to your mind effortlessly. But then, at the year 2013, with so many people to ask around, dictionaries online, other books for buying and downloading, why stick to one method? You can always use Assimil as your main source and complement it with other resources. It's undeniable how it puts you on the right track and how it has much more content to offer, absolutely speaking, than many other commercial courses. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Marishka Newbie United States Joined 5236 days ago 25 posts - 56 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, French, Dutch | Message 286 of 344 10 March 2013 at 9:13pm | IP Logged | ||
I'm still here! *waves* It's just taking me a long time to get through these lessons. You are right about this being a tough segment of the process! Dutch With Ease Passive Wave: Lessons 78-84 Active Wave: Lessons 57-63 It took me two weeks to get through these sets of lessons because I had to split the passive and active lessons into separate days. I finally worked my way through all the active wave lessons that featured the endless, inane bickering of Mia and Dora. It was hard to concentrate on the lessons because I just wanted to put my hands over my ears during their conversations. Actually, I wanted to put tape over their mouths, but I digress. I had a lot of trouble coming up with full Dutch translations for this set of dialogues. When I couldn't translate a whole sentence, I would try to at least translate a phrase or two within the sentence. Sometimes I had to settle for picking out individual words that I could remember how to say in Dutch! What I'm happiest about this week is that I reached another milestone. I FINALLY completed the passive wave of Dutch With Ease! I'm a little embarrassed that it's taken me so long just to get through the passive wave, especially since Dutch With Ease only has 84 lessons. I'd like to say something like "Slow and steady wins the race," but the truth is that I'm not going to win anything. I'm more like one of those runners who comes crawling across the finish line many hours behind everyone else. I feel mentally exhausted from the process of struggling through these lessons ('struggling' is the key word here). Two waves at the same time is one too many waves for me! 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Flarioca Heptaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 5870 days ago 635 posts - 816 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Esperanto, French, EnglishC2, Spanish, German, Italian Studies: Catalan, Mandarin | Message 287 of 344 11 March 2013 at 3:15am | IP Logged | ||
I also believe that this experiment has been successful in many ways. However, it would be nice if other group tried to repeat it, maybe with different rules. One reason that makes people stop earlier is that most of us have chosen languages that aren't among our top priorities. The main point that our group indicates is: Assimil alone is not the best thing to do. During this experiment, we've seen the very succesful journey of tastyonions, who used Assimil as a base course, but supplemented with lots of other activities. I'd like to add that I've used the "Perfectionnement Allemand" and although this was very important to help me improve my German knowledge, I'd never do it without other side materials, lots of them actually, and I didn't. In my opinion, and I guess that we all agree here, the best course depends on who is studying, and which language is being studied. For me, it's already clear that something like Michel Thomas is a great introduction, Pimsleur might be useful if you have time being wasted like during commute, and Assimil or something like that will help you to go from A1+ to B1- (B2-, if there is a "Perfectionnement" series), but further grammar studies are necessary as well as lots of SRS. Later on, hopefully not too long after the beginning, graded readers would be a great extra activity, and nowadays podcasts abound. This is what seems to work for me. And for the first time in my life I'll try this exact schedule to learn Mandarin. I've never followed this sequence before, mostly because I'm a pre-internet person. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| JSBR_C Newbie United States Joined 4303 days ago 19 posts - 38 votes Studies: Spanish, Mandarin | Message 288 of 344 11 March 2013 at 5:34pm | IP Logged | ||
Welcome back Marishka. This is a good idea and as I finish out the last two weeks of passive I'm prepared to do the same thing if necessary. I'm at 91P/42A with Chinese. My active has gone suddenly from like an afterthought in terms of the time required to a major undertaking, and I'm getting hammered, making way more mistakes, which of course slows the whole thing down. It's the equivalent of two of the early lessons every day. If the daily amount of time required is the problem maybe the only change required with Assimil is to modify the amount of material you complete in a day. Forget doing 1P and 1A daily. Do only one or the other. My mentality regarding failure to retain is to just not worry about it and continue to plod on through. Yeah, I'm getting lots wrong and so what? I'm just going to trust that if I continue to spend time with the language on a daily basis I'll get to fluency eventually. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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