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Assimil Experiment Group Log | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Marishka Newbie United States Joined 5246 days ago 25 posts - 56 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, French, Dutch | Message 241 of 344 10 February 2013 at 2:26am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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Dutch With Ease
Active Wave: Lessons 43-49 I had a random Assimil moment this week while watching a tv news program. One of the stories was about the discovery of the bones of King Richard III. They showed a clip of a scene from a film version of the Shakespearean drama with the famous quote, "A horse! My kingdom for a horse!" I instantly realized that I could say that in Dutch. "Een paard ! Mijn koninkrijk voor een paard !" I knew that only because in lesson 34 there was a joke about going to see Richard III at the National Theatre of Antwerp and that quote was included in the dialogue. Remembering how to say it in Dutch was a real confidence booster. Unfortunately, my week with Assimil went downhill from there because I've reached the active wave lessons starring Mia and Dora. I didn't like the Dora and Mia bicker fests during the passive wave and I like them even less the second time around. And because I've already been down this road, I know that they'll also be featured in next week's lessons. I think I may be starting to lose the will to live. ;-) Even though this group of lessons wasn't particularly difficult, I had to give myself little pep talks just to get through them. Besides the fact that I don't like the way the subject matter of these particular lessons is presented, I think I'm also just plain bored with using only Assimil. It seems like it's taking forever to get through both waves of this course. For anyone else experiencing boredom or burn-out, what are you doing to stay motivated? Are we allowed to watch films, listen to music or read books in our target language during this experiment? 1 person has 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 242 of 344 10 February 2013 at 4:01am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
I would say: Absolutely! I've already started to read "Sandàlies D'Escuma". Once there is nothing more new to read or listen on Assimil, getting other stuff is the only way. Moreover, this is how we'll find out how much one already knows. Of course, since some languages are much easier, the difficulty levels of this extra material will be different for each of us. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5379 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 243 of 344 12 February 2013 at 1:45pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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A quick update on Assimil Romanian:
Passive 72 / Active 22 I've definitely slowed down as you get a sense that there is so much information piled on that you have to slow down in order to digest it all. On the upside, I can feel that active use of the language is getting a bit easier, which doesn't mean that I get the active wave translation perfect. I usually get around ten mistakes per lesson (counting everything). 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Mareike Senior Member Germany Joined 6222 days ago 267 posts - 323 votes Speaks: German* Studies: English, Swedish | Message 244 of 344 12 February 2013 at 1:51pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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Do you use a dictionary for the active wave translation?
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| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5379 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 245 of 344 12 February 2013 at 2:00pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
Me? Never. But you are meant to review the lesson first, so there is no need. 1 person has 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 246 of 344 13 February 2013 at 2:34am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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I still want to write a review of the passive wave, but this is what I want to say now and, maybe, some of the more important conclusions that I could contribute to this experiment. It comes from my own log, but I want to repeat it here because, well, there are way too many personal logs here but only one Assimil Experiment log :-))
After the passive wave of Assimil, I've been reading the book "Sandàlies D'Escuma" and it should be added that I've been also listening to radio through the internet. Assimil works. At the beginning of this course, say, during the first 10 lessons, I could barely undertsand it. Let me quote myself:
Indeed, only in Lesson 15 I could finally say that I've understood it already through listening.
Which doesn't mean that later on it couldn't become harder again:
and again
and again
The last quote is from 08 January 2013, but now, only a bit more than a month later, I can listen and understand radio stations, long interviews about different subjects, and even some jokes. Of course, as many times repeated ad nauseam, Catalan is an easy language for speakers of Romance languages, even more so for those who speak some combinations of them. This must be even more true for pairs of even closer languages, which I'm not going to mention because some people feel like this reduces the value of their knowledge. My improvement in German has been, so far, the hardest to achieve. But all languages that I've studied have helped me as much, introducing me to books, music, history and people that I couldn't understand as well if not through the knowledge of their languages. Edited by Flarioca on 13 February 2013 at 7:37pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| JSBR_C Newbie United States Joined 4313 days ago 19 posts - 38 votes Studies: Spanish, Mandarin | Message 247 of 344 13 February 2013 at 6:24pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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Chinese With Ease
Active 8-14 Passive 57-63 Active translations were once again not difficult. I think I missed 3 words all week. For Chinese the first two weeks of dialogue are spoken twice on the CD's. Next week starting with less 15 it was only spoken once and correspondingly the dialogues start to get a bit longer. So I expect a bit more time will be required. For the passive wave I always listen to the dialogue several times, trying to understand what I can, before looking at the translation. I usually don't get much. Something about a book. Something about traveling. That sort of thing. It would be interesting to hear a dialogue that is new but only uses words I've already been exposed to and just see if I can understand, even if that meant pausing the audio at the end of each sentence. In any case it's clear to me that I'm making progress, and that's the key for my motivation. I have to say that I kind of dread going to Anki. I've loaded about 630 words/phrases. I load every new word I'm exposed to during the passive study. Yesterday I had over 70 to review in addition to the new words added due to the new lesson, which was an unusually few this time, only 9 or 10. I know there will be a lot of words I won't know. It takes a bit of time. I do load new words that I find in the notes, and I do notice that if it comes from the notes rather than a dialogue it's tougher for me to remember it. Learning it in a context works a lot better, which is probably why so many people like the Assimil method. Edited by JSBR_C on 13 February 2013 at 9:04pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| jeronz Diglot Newbie New Zealand Joined 4856 days ago 37 posts - 79 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Yiddish, Latin, German, Italian | Message 248 of 344 14 February 2013 at 3:32pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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El Nuevo Francés sin Esfuerzo
Passive Wave: Lessons 85-91 Active Wave: Lessons 36-42 Things are going fairly smoothly. I've been on holiday for a week and so I've been managing to do one lesson of passive and one of active a day, but this will again likely fall off once I start work again on Monday. I feel like things are gelling and getting a conversational level of French seems achievable before I go to France on holiday in June (for three weeks). I have had a couple positive French experiences since the last update. I ran into a copy of L'Étranger in French in a language bookstore, had a look at the first page, and I was really surprised to see that I could understand roughly 90-95% of it. This was a big confidence booster. I also made friends with a French girl while holidaying, and while we spoke mainly in Spanish, my conversational French has definitely improved since the last road test. I don't have much longer to go until I finish the passive wave. The Spanish version of the course has 99 lessons while the English version goes on until lesson 113. I'm starting to wonder exactly what steps I should take next once I've finished the passive phase. I think what I will do is do the five or so lessons in the English Assimil version before lesson 99 that don't correspond to the Spanish Assimil, and then I will go on to do lessons 100-113 in the English version. This will extend the completion of the passive wave After that I need to make a decision whether to go straight on to FSI or do the second volume - Francés Perfeccionamiento - which has a further 70 lessons (as does the English version Using French). Both seem like they would be very valuable. I also would like to do the advanced michel thomas course and finish the FSI pronunciation course. And also do the original Assimil French course! 1 person has voted this message useful |
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