Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6595 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 57 of 129 14 August 2012 at 5:08am | IP Logged |
kanewai wrote:
2) To use Assimil 'as directed.' |
|
|
With a lot of people participating, why not allow various methods? The way I see it we'll be testing the Assimil courses, not the suggested method.
(I have no preferences myself here...)
3 persons have voted this message useful
|
ZombieKing Bilingual Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4525 days ago 247 posts - 324 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin*
| Message 58 of 129 14 August 2012 at 5:28am | IP Logged |
Serpent wrote:
kanewai wrote:
2) To use Assimil 'as directed.' |
|
|
With a lot of people participating, why not allow various methods? The way I see it we'll be testing the Assimil courses, not the suggested method.
(I have no preferences myself here...) |
|
|
I agree with Serpent. Some people might get farther than they would if they had studied in exactly the way assimil recommends, so finding out how they do it and how much better they do compared to other methods of using Assimil will be very helpful.
1 person has voted this message useful
|
dbag Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5020 days ago 605 posts - 1046 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish
| Message 59 of 129 14 August 2012 at 10:01am | IP Logged |
I think the trouble is, you will get better results if you start doing extra
things with Assimil. I agree with Prof. Arguelles estimate of roughly 365 hours to
assimilate the contents of an Assimil book.
I really think it would be great if people kept to the idea of this being an
experiment and not a challenge. I imagine a lot of people came to Assimil
after reading of Fanatics experiences with "German without Toil".
I would love to see if anyone can replicate his results.
Maybe it would be best if people chose a language that they are not necessarily
interested in pursuing much further than the length of an Assimil course? That way
people maybe wouldn't feel like they have to make hard work out of it, by doing stuff
like Anki. I think this kind of thing may be why so few stick with Assimil through to
the end. It doesn't have to be a burden!
One of the beautiful aspects of the Assimil method in my opinion is that it is so easy
to see through to the end, if you at least roughly stick to the directions. Just do 15
minutes in the morning, 15 minutes in the evening, and don't do more than one lesson a
day.
4 persons have voted this message useful
|
vermillon Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4676 days ago 602 posts - 1042 votes Speaks: French*, EnglishC2, Mandarin Studies: Japanese, German
| Message 60 of 129 14 August 2012 at 12:23pm | IP Logged |
dbag wrote:
after reading of Fanatics experiences with "German without Toil".
|
|
|
Could you provide some link to what you're talking about? I don't think I've read about that before...
dbag wrote:
Maybe it would be best if people chose a language that they are not necessarily
interested in pursuing much further than the length of an Assimil course? |
|
|
That's what I'm doing. I'm not waiting until November and have started my own Assimil experiment at the end of July. My languages are:
-Egyptian Hieroglyphs
-Latin
-Norwegian
-Polish
-Swahili
-Indonesian
I've started them with 1 day offset (so that Egyptian is advanced of 1 lesson more than Latin, etc) and am at lesson 19 for Hieroglyphs / 14 for Indonesian. All of these are languages I felt attracted to but had no plan to study seriously. Perhaps by the time I finish them (around Christmas) I'll want to continue with some/all of them.
I'm considering starting a log about it, where I plan to compare the different languages. I can already see the vast differences in difficulty of the languages, quality of the method both depending on language and generation (old/new). The OP seems to suggest we need to wait until November to start posting (but as it's not a challenge, there are no rules to be enforced). If people are interested in an early log, let me know.
3 persons have voted this message useful
|
Flarioca Heptaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 5880 days ago 635 posts - 816 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Esperanto, French, EnglishC2, Spanish, German, Italian Studies: Catalan, Mandarin
| Message 61 of 129 14 August 2012 at 2:54pm | IP Logged |
This Assimil Experiment may be a great event and I totally agree with kanewai and dbag when they say that it would be much better if we take this as an experiment rather than a challenge.
We shouldn't create too much restrictions for we'll learn different languages, with different number of extra language studies, from different backgrounds etc.
However, it would really spoil this experiment if we all use too much extra material.
At least in the beginning phase, we should use only Assimil and it should remain always the main source of study. Of course, people could use extra material to learn the corresponding writing system, if needed. In some cases, there are Assimil books for this, but it's meaningless to make this restriction.
The main point would be to have as much as possible precise data of initial and final status from each person, but above all detailed logs too see what and how exactly people have done. Even the register from each of us of every minute dedicated to this experiment could be an useful data.
I've done the "Perfectionnement Allemand", but I don't believe that someone at this stage would be satisfied only with this source of study.
3 persons have voted this message useful
|
fabriciocarraro Hexaglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Brazil russoparabrasileirosRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4713 days ago 989 posts - 1454 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, EnglishB2, Italian, Spanish, Russian, French Studies: Dutch, German, Japanese
| Message 62 of 129 14 August 2012 at 5:36pm | IP Logged |
Awesome!! I'll definitely be a part of it.
But since I'll probably start taking French lessons next month, I'd have to choose another language for the Experiment.
I'm still uncertain, but it'll probably be either Swedish or Norwegian.
1 person has voted this message useful
|
Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5332 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian
| Message 63 of 129 14 August 2012 at 6:14pm | IP Logged |
fabriciocarraro wrote:
Awesome!! I'll definitely be a part of it.
But since I'll probably start taking French lessons next month, I'd have to choose another language for the
Experiment.
I'm still uncertain, but it'll probably be either Swedish or Norwegian. |
|
|
Did I hear Norwegian :-)
1 person has voted this message useful
|
fabriciocarraro Hexaglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Brazil russoparabrasileirosRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4713 days ago 989 posts - 1454 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, EnglishB2, Italian, Spanish, Russian, French Studies: Dutch, German, Japanese
| Message 64 of 129 14 August 2012 at 6:39pm | IP Logged |
Solfrid Cristin wrote:
fabriciocarraro wrote:
Awesome!! I'll definitely be a part of it.
But since I'll probably start taking French lessons next month, I'd have to choose another language for the
Experiment.
I'm still uncertain, but it'll probably be either Swedish or Norwegian. |
|
|
Did I hear Norwegian :-) |
|
|
You probably did =)
1 person has voted this message useful
|