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Assimil method

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omicron
Senior Member
United States
Joined 7120 days ago
125 posts - 132 votes 
Speaks: English*

 
 Message 9 of 57
14 June 2006 at 12:42am | IP Logged 
A few other tidbits I thought might be useful that most of the Assimil books seem to agree on, but not all say up front : Don't try to memorize, don't try to do too much at once, re-read previous lessons regularly, don't sweat the grammar at all in the beginning, and most important : do something every day.

Le Nouvel Italien Sans Peine has this to say :
Quote:
First read the italian text out loud, while listening to the tapes if you have them or with the aid of the pronunciation guide. Check the French translation as you read along, and then read the Notes, which give you a hand with a few questions you might have ...

Then re-read the Italian text (if you have the tapes, listen to the lesson one or two times without reading), and this time focus your attention on the rhythm and intonation of the Italian phrases; Now re-read each phrase, while listening to yourself, to the point where you are able to repeat it with its natural rhythm. And, remember, always out loud.


I agree with this as long as they're talking about rhythm, but not SPEED. I have in the past tried getting the speed the same as the speakers on the tape, but now I don't bother the first time around. It takes too long. I just go for good pronunciation with a decent cadence. Speed picks up naturally with revisions.


A few say to go ahead and do more than one lesson a day if you want.
Grec Sans Peine gets more specific :
Quote:
Above all, don't try to learn each lesson by heart - understand it while reading along, then repeat each phrase out loud. Afterwards you can go to the following lesson, the same day if you're in a hurry, but you must wait a few hours. We recommend that you go back as often as possible to past lessons. This repetition is the key to your progress.


I thought this insistance on a delay of a few hours was interesting, since it fits with my experience. When in the past I tried two or more new lessons in a row, it was harder for me to remember them than if I did one in the morning, one in the afternoon, and one in the evening, quickly revising earlier ones at each session. But after a while, the pace of three a day became too much like work and I cut back to one, spaced out throughout the day as Fanatic has described elsewhere.



Edited by omicron on 16 June 2006 at 6:14pm
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Felixelus
Senior Member
United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 6837 days ago
237 posts - 244 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish

 
 Message 10 of 57
16 June 2006 at 12:08pm | IP Logged 
wow! My New French with Ease doesn't go into the method that much!! I wish it did though...it would have made things so much more clear. Thank you so Omicron for posting that!
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omicron
Senior Member
United States
Joined 7120 days ago
125 posts - 132 votes 
Speaks: English*

 
 Message 11 of 57
16 June 2006 at 7:02pm | IP Logged 
Quote:
Now re-read each phrase, while listening to yourself, to the point where you are able to repeat it with its natural rhythm.


Well, that did't look right, so I looked it up again.
That's what I do, but that's not what it says.
I mistranslated it. Sorry about that.

It should say :
Now re-read each phrase while listening to it, to the point where you are able to repeat it with its natural rhythm, and, remeber, always out loud.

They appear to be recommending a version of what Ardaschir calls "Shadowing" which is very much worth reading. See this thread. Shadowing new lessons didn't work for me because my mouth couldn't keep up. It probably works very well for the more nimble-mouthed folks.


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luke
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
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Speaks: English*, Spanish
Studies: Esperanto, French

 
 Message 12 of 57
16 June 2006 at 9:07pm | IP Logged 
omicron wrote:
Shadowing new lessons didn't work for me because my mouth couldn't keep up.

I haven't been following directions very well as far as Assimil is concerned, but I can say that some dialogs were flying so fast I could hardly keep up. So instead of shadowing, I've mostly just been listening. Now that I've heard many of the dialogs dozens of times, I can say the phrases at full pace, although for the most part I'm still in "just listen and understand" mode. I can't say all of the dialogs, because I haven't actually practices that aspect of the audio, but my experience has changed from "that's incredibly fast" to "when I put my mind to it, I'll be able to talk that fast too".
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fanatic
Octoglot
Senior Member
Australia
speedmathematics.com
Joined 7145 days ago
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Speaks: English*, German, French, Afrikaans, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Dutch
Studies: Swedish, Norwegian, Polish, Modern Hebrew, Malay, Mandarin, Esperanto

 
 Message 13 of 57
17 June 2006 at 6:23am | IP Logged 
luke wrote:

I haven't been following directions very well as far as Assimil is concerned, but I can say that some dialogs were flying so fast I could hardly keep up. So instead of shadowing, I've mostly just been listening. Now that I've heard many of the dialogs dozens of times, I can say the phrases at full pace, although for the most part I'm still in "just listen and understand" mode.


That has been my method for using most of the Assimil courses, although I do speak the language out loud to a limited extent. I feel it is probably the lazy way to learn the language, but who says we have to work at it.

I spoke Dutch, Italian and German out loud but French, Spanish, and Russian I was more inclined to just listen and understand. I think a lot depends on what you want with the language and your own learning style.


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Farley
Triglot
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United States
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 Message 14 of 57
17 June 2006 at 9:28am | IP Logged 
For comparison here is what my copy of French without Toil 1940 has to say. The author was also A Chérel, but given the different instructions it seems that is just a common pen name for a group of author. It appears there is no “one” way to use Assimil other than adapting the instructions to your personal use.

French without Toil 1940 wrote:
]
from the preface

Has it ever happened to you to find yourself humming a snatch of a song, without remembering exactly when and where you picked it up?

When you first heard it you probably did not pay any particular attention to it at the time. Still, your memory registered it, and now it recurs to your automatically.

Two or three days later, you would vainly try to recall it to mind. But if by chance you hear it again and yet again, several days in succession, then not only do you remember it, but it grows to be a real obsession.

Upon this natural and subconscious power of retention we have based the present Course of French.

We do not require from you any hard work, -- nor indeed any “work” at all.

You just have to listen to the records, and to read the text-book and its explanations, with the same attention that you would give to the rules of a new game.

If you do this regularly, once or twice a day, say ten minutes at a time, the process of intuitive assimilation will do the rest.

That is to say, you will understand the French text of the lessons with ease, and will be able to repeat each paragraph immediately after having read it.

That will be the first, or passive stage of your study. Then, after about two months, you will reach a point where the active stage begins: for each new lesson, you will take up another one, starting from the first, and translating if from English into French. This will be an easy matter, the graduation of the course being such as to offer no serious obstacle to your progress.

It is the logical way of learning a language: first understand, the speak, in the same way as you acquired you English in you infancy.

At the rate of one lesson a day, you will thus acquire a practical knowledge of the French in about six months of spare-time study.

Let us add this is no “school French”, but the real everyday language of the French people.

From Lesson 7
Let us remind you one again that you are not expected for the present to translate form English into French.

All you have to do is to understand the French text, and to repeat each paragraph for memory, immediately after having read it.

from lesson 56
We shall now enter upon the active stage of our study. With this aim in view, we beg you to add five minutes to you daily study, for the following exercise:

When you have been through Lesson 57 in the usually way, return to Lesson 1, and after having heard it, read the French text through, then cover it up with a piece of paper, and try to reproduce it, orally and in writing, from the English translation, correcting yourself as you go, by glancing at the French paragraph.

We trust you will find this an easy matter, and by repeating this process every day you will this automatically consolidate your knowledge and become fluent.

This “second wave” followed at the distance of 56 lessons back will work wonders.



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Fraktal
Diglot
Newbie
Germany
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Speaks: German*, English
Studies: French, Spanish, Mandarin

 
 Message 15 of 57
17 June 2006 at 3:54pm | IP Logged 
For my studies I follow Mrs. Vera F. Birkenbihl's approach to language learning, which is similar though not identical to the Assimil approach. (V. Birkenbihl is a (personal) coach having written quite a few books on how to use your mind and brain more effectively.)

In her method she introduces a step called "passive listening". When you are able follow the spoken text you start listening to it nonconsciously for a longer period, could be several hours. Just let the lesson play repeatedly at low volume in the background. This is no extra effort, because you can do anything meanwhile, clean the house, watch TV, listen to the radio, do sports, almost anything. She claims the brain deals with the text on a subconscious level and does some wiring to enable you to understand it better.
Only afterwards you start speaking or writing or whatever you like to do in your target language.

I've made the experience that after some hours of passive listening I start repeating / shadowing the sentences,sometimes even without realizing it at first. At that point pronouncing the sentences becomes easy to me - I just do it. I don't have that awkward feeling that I would have pronouncing unfamiliar sentences e.g. when I have just started a new lesson.

The whole procedure may take longer to assimilate the text. However, the time you deal actively with it is shorter. Furthermore, the assimilation process is very thorough. You listen to the texts years later and they still sound very familiar.

And finally, yes, Mrs. Birkenbihl tried her learning method as well. Among the languages she has studied so far are Japanese and Arabic and currently she's on Chinese. I just add this because I am sometimes sceptical when I hear about some fancy method how to do things right. I usually wonder whether its inventor was successful at using it.

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luke
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 7204 days ago
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Speaks: English*, Spanish
Studies: Esperanto, French

 
 Message 16 of 57
17 June 2006 at 5:52pm | IP Logged 
Fraktal wrote:
When you are able follow the spoken text you start listening to it nonconsciously for a longer period, could be several hours. Just let the lesson play repeatedly at low volume in the background.

I've found this to be helpful too. When I'm too busy to concentrate, I get more out of listening to lesson dialogs that I've previewed, than say passively listening to a news program I've never heard before.

Edited by luke on 17 June 2006 at 5:54pm


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