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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6946 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes  Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 145 of 191 14 July 2007 at 2:01pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
The Assimil approach is very closely tied to the book, which also serves as the prompter. In fact, perhaps as a holdover from the pre-multimedia age, their books are designed to be usable on their own, without recordings. So, yes, Assimil lacks on-tape interactiveness. My own biggest gripes with German with Ease were: (a) Too much colloquial vocabulary too soon, especially the non-translatable kind. I found it was distracting me from absorbing the grammatical patterns. To see what life would be like without all those "doch" and "mal" littering every sentence early on, I read through two bilingual-format textbooks "Berlitz Self-Teacher: German" and Rosenberg's "German: How to Speak and Write It", and found that putting off some of the colloqualisms until later worked better for me. (b) What you observed, too many new words per sentence and one might as well read a novel with a dictionary. Again, for comparison, Berlitz and Rosenberg started out more gently, and it was good. Both, however, started cramming vocabulary towards the end, so nothing is perfect. (c) Translations are not great and at times confusing, even in the passive phase. Comparison with Berlitz and Rosenberg convinced me that I wasn't just being a grouch, and that one can do better. Edited by frenkeld on 14 July 2007 at 2:02pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Kleberson Diglot Senior Member Great Britain Joined 6421 days ago 166 posts - 168 votes Speaks: English*, Portuguese Studies: Italian, Russian, Arabic (Written), Mandarin | Message 146 of 191 14 July 2007 at 3:33pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I have this very same problem with "Italian with ease" right now. Edited by Kleberson on 14 July 2007 at 3:34pm 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 147 of 191 14 July 2007 at 3:35pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
For me, this was actually a huge advantage, as one of my major shortcomings in Italian is saying things in colloquial and idiomatic ways. It doesn't bother me particularly much with the other Assimil courses I'm using either. 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 148 of 191 14 July 2007 at 3:55pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
If you'd studied Italian before, then Assimil was essentially a follow-up conversational course in your case. This may not work quite as well for everyone when Assimil is used as the main foundational course in a new language. It doesn't mean I could not have worked through those issues and used it anyway, but I found a slightly different format more coddling and for that reason preferable in the beginning, so long as one is aware that conversational stuff will require some additional effort. Also, it's really the combination of too much colloquial stuff with uneven translation quality that made it particularly unpleasant. I simply lacked confidence that I could trust the translation to tell me the nuances of the meaning when it wasn't pretty clear already. 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 149 of 191 14 July 2007 at 4:08pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
My use of Assimil for Italian is extremely non-standard. I started using it while already 'fluent', to try to address persistent problems in pronunciation, using "too English" structures, wrong prepositions, etc. I've found it helpful. The translations have barely been a factor; I've picked up a handful of words, such as 'afollata', and a couple of idiomatic expressions, but I already had a rather decent level of comprehension before starting the course. My use of it in French and German are non-standard, but not as badly. I have a base in both, but with a lot of gaps. For Dutch and Persian, I'm more in the target market. I'd looked at a bit of Dutch before, but not much, and knew no Persian. I've found the Dutch course great, while the Persian one is somewhat frustrating. If I had it to do over again, I'd use Assimil from the beginning in Dutch, but not in Persian. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| LilleOSC Senior Member United States lille.theoffside.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6694 days ago 545 posts - 546 votes 4 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: French, Arabic (Written) | Message 150 of 191 14 July 2007 at 4:16pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
That is probably one reason why several people believe that FSI is better for speaking than Assimil, because it seems to cover grammar and verb tenses more intensively. I think Seth brought up an interesting point in this post:
How can you gain fluency with just Assimil if it doesn't help you master verb conjugation and grammar? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| reltuk Groupie United States Joined 6819 days ago 75 posts - 110 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, French | Message 151 of 191 14 July 2007 at 5:00pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
This construction takes my quote out of context and makes it out to say something which it is not intended to. My point was that any introductory course, Assimil and FSI included, rightfully fails to introduce you to a comprehensive descriptive grammar of the language. It also fails to introduce you to a comprehensive battery of examples of every grammatical construction in the language. Any reasonable language course is simply not going to do that; it's not conducive to your needs as a beginning learner of the language. You want and need exposure to the most common grammatical constructions, in the same way that you want exposure to the most common vocabulary and the most common idiomatic expressions. For this reason, no beginning language course is under an obligation to expose you to all of the grammatical constructions in a language. Claiming that FSI covers the grammar and verb tenses of a language "more intensively" is fine, if you want to stick to relatively arbitrary and vague criteria. The fact is, going through an Assimil "with Ease" course in the prescribed manner is going to cause you to: 1) be exposed repeatedly to the majority of grammatical constructions which are used in informal speech 2) be required to repeat and generate those constructions with regularity and consistency.
Of course, Assimil would claim that it does "help you master verb conjugation and grammar". Which is to say: 1) it regularly exposes you to the correct forms, 2) it encourages you to repeat and internalize the forms, 3) it ensures that you are correctly generalizing about the forms with notes on grammar and correct usage, 4) it prompts you to generate the forms and provides an opportunity to check if the phrase that you produce is correct. Some people have stated that this discussion is no longer useful. I would agree, in so far as I think that some complaints against the various courses stem from learning styles and personal preferences. Amount of new vocabulary in a lesson, the speed at which the student is introduced to idiomatic expressions, etc., seem to fall into this category. I don't agree that the discussion is no longer useful as long as what we are discussing is consistently mis-characterized. In that case, I think it prudent to point out the mis-characterizations and attempt to provide an more correct explanation of the situation. When you understand both courses for what they are, you're better able to pick the one that is going to work for you. Characterizing Assimil by the passive phase alone, which seems to be happening here, is not seeing the course for what it is; the student spends only 1/3 of his time during a "with Ease" course in the passive phase. If they go on the "Using ..." component of the course, they will have spent less than 1/6 of their time receiving solely passive exposure to the language. Even during the passive phase, short fill in the blank exercises and promptings to recite verb tables and the likes are provided, although the later are very rare and mostly included for confidence and review. -- reltuk 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 152 of 191 14 July 2007 at 6:02pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
You willl certainly master some amount of grammar with it, partly by developing a feel for it and partly by reading the grammar notes. What Assimil doesn't do much of is drilling. It is probably for that reason that Ardaschir says in one of his posts that with a more difficult language, once he gets a good introduction to it through Assimil, he works through a grammar workbook before moving on to readers. For someone less experienced than Ardaschir, and especially for a first-time language learner, every language is somewhat "difficult", so it certainly pays to get a grammar workbook after completing Assimil. Now, there are some people that may not do well with verb conjugations without specifically oral drills, and there are indeed learners who use both Assimil and FSI precisely so they can get both the benefits of Assimil (one of them being a quick entry into the language) and FSI drills.
So, what technical aspects of a course is it legitimate to discuss without being merely preferential? Wtih regard to new vocabulary, there have been studies of the optimal fraction of unknown words in what one reads. This may well apply to courses too, even if they can't always follow the ideal because of size limitations. Edited by frenkeld on 14 July 2007 at 6:11pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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