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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| Seth Diglot Changed to RedKing’sDream Senior Member United States Joined 7227 days ago 240 posts - 252 votes  Speaks: English*, Russian Studies: Persian | Message 129 of 191 13 July 2007 at 4:45pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm not sure if the lack of grammar explanations would explain everything. In Assimil Hungarian there are no glosses, for one thing. So when listening to a new lesson it can be very difficult to know which word in the translation a new word corresponds to. This is complicated by the fact, as I have mentioned before, that so much of the vocabulary of the lesson is new.
My probelm with Assimil is so simple that I'm afraid its been over looked. Whenever I read a new lesson where a very large percentage of the conversation consisted of new wordse, the dialogue just sounds like nonsense. I would read the translation several times. Then I would read the lesson over and over. Then I would listen while reading the lesson or listen while reading the translation. While a few words might seem a bit clearer, the dialogue would still sound like nonsense. Even as I became familiar with some of the words in a functional sense, I would realize that I still didn't really know the meaning of the individual words. The only recourse was to sit down and memorize the words of the dialogue and then finally the dialogue would start to make sense. But of course using rote memorization sort of defeats the prupose of Assimil. As for research, I haven't really seen evidence AGAINST Assimil or how it works, though it would be hard to develop an experiment to do so really. Rather, I have come across some research which seems to support the Pimsleur-style of adult language acquisition. At the moment I don't really feel like digging through a lot of (though rest assured that I do have it cited), but one paper to start out with concerning vocabulary acquisition would be Barcroft, Joe (2007). Effects of Opportunities for Word Retrieval during Second Language Vocabulary Learning. Language Learning 57 (1), 35–56. Edited by Seth on 13 July 2007 at 4:47pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6442 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 130 of 191 13 July 2007 at 4:57pm | IP Logged | ||
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I've found Assimil most pleasant and effective for languages where I already have a base, either through study of the language itself, or some knowledge of a similar one. It took me much longer to get comfortable with Assimil Persian than Assimil Dutch, French, Italian, German, or even the Esperanto one which I hardly used.
What it took for Persian was using it for several weeks, and then trying to do an 'onion' pass through it (I did this twice), just listening, without even using the book. I then restarted using it normally. At least for the parts I've redone so far, it's making sense, and I'm not having trouble distinguishing words (that is, knowing which is which), which was a problem which greatly irritated me on my first attempt. I should try Ardaschir's full onion approach on a new language with Assimil one of these years. Edited by Volte on 13 July 2007 at 5:00pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7208 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 131 of 191 13 July 2007 at 5:06pm | IP Logged | ||
That sounds a lot like my early experience with Assimil Using Spanish, the advanced course in an English base. It was only after spending a couple hundred hours on the course that things started to make sense. Part of the problem was that the translations were nonsense. Another part of the difficulty was that the sentences were long and full of clauses. Which course(s) are you referring to? How were the translations? I'm hoping that Using French and New French with Ease are better than the Assimil Spanish courses. So far, they seem to be. Edited by luke on 13 July 2007 at 5:09pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6946 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 132 of 191 13 July 2007 at 5:35pm | IP Logged | ||
This is the reason I was talking about seeing it as a graded collection of dialogs in a pinch. I tend to think of Assimil as a conversational course to follow another course, which can be a regular textbook (not just a reference grammar though!). Since many good, even great, textbooks don't come with recordings, I might use the first dozen Assimil dialogs to make some sense of the sounds of the language, and then leave it until after the textbook is finished or at least substantially under way. Even as just a 2-hour collection of dialogs, Assimil is still reasonably priced compared to many other products. And if it works out as a stand-alone foundational course, why not. Even in the best of circumstances, it will leave plenty of gaps, but one can fill them in later. Edited by frenkeld on 13 July 2007 at 5:51pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7208 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 133 of 191 13 July 2007 at 5:52pm | IP Logged | ||
I couldn't help but think, "frenkeld's talking about me", The moron comment caught my attention, and then the rest of the paragraph seemed like a summation of my learning logs. That first paragraph really sums up my experience. I'm really hoping that laziness, the French Assimil courses, and FiA will prove to be a more pleasant row to hoe than the wandering in the dark and bumping into walls experience that learning Spanish has been. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6912 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 134 of 191 13 July 2007 at 6:01pm | IP Logged | ||
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One thing that I find difficult is the second wave - I'm currently there in two languages (German and Mandarin) and for some weird reason English->Mandarin goes better than English->German - it must be due to the sentence patterns and translations. In the Mandarin course there are word-for-word translations which are very helpful. Even if I don't "know" how to say a sentence, I can figure it out. That's not the case with the German course, though. I don't think that the original text is badly translated, only more freely.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6946 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 135 of 191 14 July 2007 at 12:11am | IP Logged | ||
That post was pretty tongue-in-cheek, and no close resemblance to any specific persons, living or dead, was implied. It was, nevertheless, based on generalized impressions from this forum of how things sometimes evolve. :) In a way I got lucky with my Spanish in that back when I started it, I hadn't yet run into any course that had the chutzpah to call itself a "method", so I had to slog through a crusty old textbook that at least spared me unrealistic expectations. Edited by frenkeld on 14 July 2007 at 12:15am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| fanatic Octoglot Senior Member Australia speedmathematics.com Joined 7149 days ago 1152 posts - 1818 votes Speaks: English*, German, French, Afrikaans, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Dutch Studies: Swedish, Norwegian, Polish, Modern Hebrew, Malay, Mandarin, Esperanto | Message 136 of 191 14 July 2007 at 12:43am | IP Logged | ||
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One aspect that seems to be ignored in this thread is the value of the audio being entirely in the target language. Not just that you get more of the target language for your time and money but, being entirely in the target language, you are inclined to think in the language rather than make translations.
I have a number of language programs which are entirely in the target language besides Assimil. Mowimy po polsku and Russky Yazik dlya Vsyekh. (I have a host of such programs teaching Russian.) I find I can listen to the lessons, review old lessons and think in the language. The Transparent language programs for PC come under the same category, with the added help that you can click on any word and get the meaning and grammatical details. Lernu offers the same benefits for the Esperanto language. I have saved the audio from these programs as mp3 files and play them while driving or when I am walking with my mp3 player. The Assimil dialogues are beneficial.They even go through the verb conjugations in the recordings, contrary to the comments of some in this thread. Now, I am not saying that everyone should learn with Assimil. Use whatever does you the most good and gives you the best results. Just don't criticize a program that has helped so many people. It has certainly helped me. Why should I give up learning with a program that works for me and gives me the results that I want because some on this forum think the program is flawed? You can say that Assimil is not the way that you want to learn or you find that it doesn't concentrate enough on drills and verbal responses but it is going way to far to call it a "rip off" or that the program is useless. The question obviously has more to do with learning styles than the value of the program. Is Assimil a good language program? Obviously, yes, because so many people have succeeded in learning a language using Assimil. Is it as good as or better than product x? That is hard to determine. You have to lay down criteria to determine if it is or isn't. After completing Assimil, can you speak and understand the language as well as or better than someone else who has learnt the same language with Pimsleur? Or FSI? Is the answer the same for everyone who has used the course? Assimil suits my learning style and I have found it to work well for me. Would I recommend it? Certainly. Do I find the course more interesting and easier to use than Pimsleur and FSI? Again, yes. Would I try to talk someone out of using FSI or Pimsleur to learn a language? Not at all, especially if the program is working for them. My experience with Pimsleur is that the lessons are too long. (30 minutes.) The Synergy Spanish lessons are much shorter and I can listen to them while I drive and not get bored or frustrated. But, it is easier to listen to Assimil or my Russian course (my favourites) when I am on a long drive and I find I am listening and thinking in the language and making no conscious translations. As I say, that is my experience. My advice is to find a method that works for you and then to just use it. Edited by fanatic on 14 July 2007 at 12:48am 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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