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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 4887 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes  Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 257 of 344 15 February 2013 at 11:59pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Le Grec ancien Active 63 / Passive 14
It took me three weeks to finish the last set of seven lessons. My pace has seriously slowed down, but a lot of this is due to the fact that I'm insanely busy right now. I have free time in the evening, but don't always have the energy to do much active studying. Breaking up my study time into 15 minute blocks, though, has been great. Right now it takes me, on average, 30 minutes for the passive section (dialogue only) and 30 minutes for the active (15 minutes transcribing the lesson, 15 minutes drilling on the exercises). I thought I was doing fine, but this last revision lesson was a killer. Revision 63 introduces: 1. Declension of pas, pasa, pan (all), which is declined in the 3rd declension if masculine or neuter, and in the 1st if feminine. 2. Pronoun-adjectives 3. Verbal-adjectives 4. The imperfect in the active and medium voices. 5. The subjunctive in the active and medium voices 6. A verbal participle in the aorist and active tenses that is translated in French as il prit et s'enfuit ... . It's all a bit much. I don't even understand a lot of what Assimil is trying to say here. The recordings remain the best part; it's too bad that the dialogues are so dull. Here is lesson 6 from the 1950's Teach Yourself: Ο Θεός, αγάπη εστί, και ο μένων εν τη αγάπη εν τω Θεώ μένει και ο Θεός εν αυτώ (God is love, and those who remain in love remain in god, and god in them) And we get a footnote that let's us know that αγάπη / agape is a spiritual type of love. And here is lesson 60 in Assimil: The mother accompanies the children to their room. The women and children don't eat with the men. The children talk by the light of the oil lamp, and demand that their mother tell them a story. "Mama! Tell us a story before we go to sleep!" - It's hard to get excited about dialogues like this - especially given that the authors could be giving us stuff from Homer, the gospels (and I'm not even religious), poets, philosophers, dramatists, etc. I mean, this is what people study ancient Greek for! And none of it is copyrighted. The instructions on the phase active are really vague: Traduisez en grec ancien le dialogue français. Vos résultats vous surprendront! Seriously. That's it: Translate the French into ancient Greek. The results will surprise you! I am making progress, so I'm happy with that, and I think this is a great way to expose yourself to all the complexities of Greek ... but I'm also looking forward to moving on to the next course. Edited by kanewai on 16 February 2013 at 12:03am 1 person has 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 258 of 344 16 February 2013 at 12:17am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Man... Whoever is going to read over this entire thread after the experiment is over and write a summary post
is sure getting my vote. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Marishka Newbie United States Joined 5246 days ago 25 posts - 56 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, French, Dutch | Message 259 of 344 16 February 2013 at 1:40am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Active wave instructions from Dutch With Ease: 1.Read the lesson, repeating each sentence once. If you have the recordings, listen to them carefully. 2. Cover the Dutch text and try to reconstruct it, looking only at the English sentences. Make an effort to do this both out loud and in writing. This is the most important part of the second wave! 3. After you are finished, uncover the Dutch text and carefully correct any errors you have made. After each new lesson you will be told which earlier lesson you are to review in this precise way. This second wave of your study will lead to an active and, in a very short time, spontaneous knowledge of Dutch. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Kerrie Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Kerrie2 Joined 5393 days ago 1232 posts - 1740 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 260 of 344 17 February 2013 at 6:11pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
It's not really that complicated. - The Assimil method is better for languages closer to one(s) you know. - The method will not bring you to a true level B1/B2 (as they seem to claim) with 30 minutes of easy study for six months. - The majority of courses are very good and cover more material than a lot of other courses out there. But to expect to be at a fluent level in six months with half an hour a day, ie: their prescribed method, is not going to happen. The problem with Assimil, if you want to call it that, is that you simply cannot learn a language in 90 hours. (Six months = 180 days at half hour a day = 90 hours) For some people, it might work. For a Portuguese speaker who speaks French, Spanish and Italian, and wants to learn Catalan - it might get you there (or at least close). For most people, it will require a lot more work than that. This is not uniquely a problem with Assimil. 7 persons have 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 261 of 344 18 February 2013 at 6:25am | IP Logged | ||||||||
I disagree. I believe that you can get to a B1/B2 level using Assimil. However I agree that 90 hours is not going to get you there, but none of the successful language learners on this forum recommend only spending 90 hours on Assimil! Sure you could "finish" the course in 90 hours, but you'd only be getting a superficial view of the course. I for one, being 2/3rds of the way through the course have easily spent more than 150 hours on it. Just counting the hours spent doing what Assimil asks of you, each study session takes me at least one hour with passive plus active. Even with the second wave there are many things that I have not internalised such as all the extra phrases and words in the notes. However the beauty of Assimil is that if you utilise some of the learning methods on the forum (scriptorium, shadowing, Anki etc) to help you internalise EVERYTHING, there is more than 300 hours of possible learning material packed into the 100 lessons. 300 hours is enough to get you to a comfortable B1, or B2 if it is a closely related language. Edited by jeronz on 18 February 2013 at 6:26am 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Kerrie Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Kerrie2 Joined 5393 days ago 1232 posts - 1740 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 262 of 344 18 February 2013 at 7:04am | IP Logged | ||||||||
I am not talking about what experienced language learners on this forum recommend for Assimil. I am looking at what Assimil claims about their method. (Which, to my understanding, is what the experiment was supposed to be about.) The back of my French book says "Without any useless gadgets, in only a half hour of relaxed study each day, you will acquire French in the same way you learned your mother tongue." With a half hour or relaxed study a day for six months, no. You cannot learn a language in 90 hours. The results of most posters on this thread show as much. 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 263 of 344 18 February 2013 at 8:42am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Yes that is true but this experiment was never meant to explicitly test the 30 minute a day statement. I refer you to the registration page where it says:
There have been no rules setting time limits on how long you spend on each lesson in this experiment as far as I know. http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=33888&PN=1 Edited by jeronz on 18 February 2013 at 8:44am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4887 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 264 of 344 18 February 2013 at 10:58pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I agree with Kerrie's list, and would add one more:
- For languages that aren't related to ones you know, Assimil is not "without pain!" It still takes work, and a fair amount of mental energy. I started ancient Greek thinking it would be a fun thing to do on the side. Instead it's turned into a third language that I need to actively focus on and devote time to. And I'm going to need to continue on with some courses after Assimil. I was hoping that the experiment would show that Assimil is a great method for language wanderlust, for those little side projects where we just want a taste of a language - that I could, for example, do a couple months of Russian or Japanese with Assimil just for fun. Now I'm not so sure. I think each would turn into a major undertaking. On the other hand, I think I could do another Assimil Romance language just for fun, and maybe even German. 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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