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Assimil Strategy

  Tags: Assimil
 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes Post Reply
29 messages over 4 pages: 1 2 3
Linas
Octoglot
Senior Member
Lithuania
Joined 6913 days ago

253 posts - 279 votes 
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Speaks: Lithuanian*, Russian, Latvian, French, English, German, Spanish, Polish
Studies: Slovenian, Greek, Hungarian, Arabic (Written), Portuguese

 
 Message 25 of 29
13 April 2006 at 2:13am | IP Logged 
cheemaster wrote:
I hope I have answered your question to some extent.

Is the method of dual-translation common to most Assimil courses?


Yes you have answered my question in full. I suppose that all Assimil courses should follow the same format.
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InsanePenguin
Senior Member
Wales
Joined 6872 days ago

248 posts - 248 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish

 
 Message 26 of 29
13 April 2006 at 6:18am | IP Logged 
Linas, what would you recommend personally for a language like Spanish?
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Linas
Octoglot
Senior Member
Lithuania
Joined 6913 days ago

253 posts - 279 votes 
5 sounds
Speaks: Lithuanian*, Russian, Latvian, French, English, German, Spanish, Polish
Studies: Slovenian, Greek, Hungarian, Arabic (Written), Portuguese

 
 Message 27 of 29
13 April 2006 at 7:27am | IP Logged 
InsanePenguin wrote:
Linas, what would you recommend personally for a language like Spanish?


Unfortunately I cannot recommend nothing from personnal experience since I have not used any language program with audio to learn Spanish. But perhaps try Assimil Spanish or Platiquemos.
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fanatic
Octoglot
Senior Member
Australia
speedmathematics.com
Joined 7147 days ago

1152 posts - 1818 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, French, Afrikaans, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Dutch
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 Message 28 of 29
16 April 2006 at 5:12am | IP Logged 
Farley wrote:
Fanatic’s book Fast Easy Way to Learn a Language recommends a method he calls “quickly but poorly” to learn foreign languages, similar to what you described above. Perhaps he can comment more. If you don’t like drills, he describes a systematic way to learn a language through repetition and organization. Perhaps he will comment more on “quickly but poorly”.


This method can be easily misunderstood, but it is basically working your way through a language and not worrying too much about what you don't understand. It is quite different to "mastery learning".

I remember when I was first learning Russian, my book didn't give detailed explanations and I couldn't understand a new concept which had been introduced in the lesson. I didn't want to go any further with the course until I had mastered the current lesson. I almost gave up learning Russian right there. Finally, in desperation, I continued and made a note further on in the book for me to check out the problem when I had completed another couple of lessons.

By the time I reached my note the problem had sorted itself out. I decided I wouldn't let that happen again.

By quickly but poorly I mean, don't worry about retaining all of the vocabulary and all of the grammar rules or declensions. Read the declensions and rules and observe what each new word means. With repetition and reviews of old lessons you will be reminded often enough. You will learn the vocabulary and the grammar much better and much faster than if you kept at each point until you felt you had learnt it entirely.

I teach learning strategies where you can memorise a textbook or foreign vocabulary. By quickly but poorly you can learn 100 words in the time that slowly but surely can learn 20. The problem is, because you have learnt them poorly, there may be 30 words you can't recall when you need them.

Is that bad?

No, because you have learnt 70 words perfectly in the time that the slowly but surely people have learnt 20. (Those figures are fairly accurate, by the way.) Some people get hung up by the fact that they can't recall the other 30 words. No big deal. If the goal is to learn 100 words, you only have 30 more to learn whereas the slowly but surely people have yet another 80 words to learn. They will probably get discouraged and give up.

This is how Assimil's two wave method works and why you learn more in less time with less effort and less stress. You race through the first wave and learn as much as you can without worrying about what falls through the cracks. You know you will pick it up later, firstly with revision and repetition, and then with the active or second wave later.

This is my method with most of my language courses.
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patuco
Diglot
Moderator
Gibraltar
Joined 7016 days ago

3795 posts - 4268 votes 
Speaks: Spanish, English*
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 Message 29 of 29
16 April 2006 at 11:26am | IP Logged 
I also prefer the method mentioned by fanatic and by CaitO'Ceallaigh a couple of pages back. The best thing is that it doesn't feel as if you're studying even though you're still learning. I haven't used this with Assimil but I do have some Linguaphone courses and they follow a similar style.


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