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Assimil versus US language programs | ||
Tags: Learner type | Platiquemos | Pimsleur | Reading | Language Program | FSI | Assimil | Accent | Book | Grammar | ||
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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 184 20 February 2006 at 2:18pm | IP Logged | ||
Extra drills may help eliminate some of the more typical errors up front, although a motivated learner may be able to accomplish this by other means, but since you are talking about long-time residents, I can't imagine any course being able to take care of all the eventualities of usage and all the finer points of grammar for someone who will continue living "in the language" for the rest of his or her life. Something else is needed for that final polish. My notion of a good way to assure (near) perfection is a 3-step process (it's just a sketch, of course): (1) Go back to basics, and (re)read an advanced reference grammar, not turning your nose up at reviewing even the more elementary stuff. Take mental note of all the surprising discoveries and things you find you don't know as well as you thought you did. (2) Then take a writing course with a teacher, where you write and have your teacher correct your compositions, all the while consulting reference works regarding the errors made, until there are none. You also discuss your errors with the treacher when stumped, of course. (3) Then you do the same with a tutor with whom you converse and who catches your remaining speaking errors. All the while, watch your speech and writing while you are undergoing this process, internalizing what you've been learning. Of course, it's still a good idea to arrive to an intermediate/early advanced stage of language knowledge with the minimum of errors in one's oral and written production, regardless of the fact that you plan to get rid of them later anyway, and in this drill-based courses do seem to do well. It is those truly final steps that may need a more academic approach. Edited by frenkeld on 20 February 2006 at 11:29pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| maxb Diglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 7186 days ago 536 posts - 589 votes 7 sounds Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: Mandarin | Message 146 of 184 21 February 2006 at 3:54am | IP Logged | ||
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I have had an opportunity to look at the books for Assimil Chinese now and I would definetely say that it is a better choice than modules 1-6 of the Standard Chinese course. It teaches more words than those modules and the words it teaches are more useful. So unless you are dying to learn words like "section chief", "naval officer" and "travel permit" (which is not needed in china nowadays), my advice is to go with Assimil and then do modules 7-9 of the standard chinese course which are more vocabulary intensive. Furthermore I don't agree that Assimil is more demanding. How demanding is it to listen to a 2 minute lesson over and over? With the standard chinese course you have 2.5 tapes to listen to for each lesson.
So you need to spend at least 2 and a half hours for each lesson in this course. Probably more if you want to get the sentences down perfectly. If you edit the Assimil lesson to only contain the dialouge it will probably only last a minute. So if you spend 30 minutes a day you will be able to listen to the lesson 30 times. If you have an mp3 player with a loop function this is not a problem. This in my view is a much more convient way to study than the standard chinese course. Listening to an FSI lesson more than two times is quite frustrating. Note that these recommendations apply to the Standard Chinese course only. Other FSI courses may teach more useful vocabulary. 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 147 of 184 21 February 2006 at 4:14am | IP Logged | ||
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What are the Assimil courses you are using? You say you will edit the lesson to only dialogue and you will halve, or more than halve, its length. What else is on the recording apart from the dialogue? Do you mean pauses on the recordings for you to answer? None of my courses have pauses.
I have some of the new Assimil courses and the lessons are all dialogue from the book. Nothing else. What does frustrate me is the repetition of each sentence for the first three lessons. For that reason, I don't review the first week's lessons because they are slow and because of the repetition. A few people have commented on editing the recordings and I think someone did say they edited out the pauses. None of my programs have pauses or any other material on the recordings. I have courses with cassettes and with CDs but I convert them all to mp3 files. I would be interested to learn just what you mean. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Andy E Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 7106 days ago 1651 posts - 1939 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French | Message 148 of 184 21 February 2006 at 5:08am | IP Logged | ||
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I'm assuming this is a reference to the spoken Exercises which have prompt + pause.
I have also thought about editing the audio to place these on a different track since I often want to repeat the main dialogue several times whereas I rarely do through the exercises more than once or twice. Andy. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| maxb Diglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 7186 days ago 536 posts - 589 votes 7 sounds Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: Mandarin | Message 149 of 184 21 February 2006 at 6:20am | IP Logged | ||
I have looked at the "Chinesich ohne Mühe". In the first lesson the dialouge is said two times. First very slowly with pauses and then a bit faster. Apart from the dialouge the excersises (comprehension and sentence completion) are also recorded. I haven't used the course myself (and do not plan to either because I already know most of the vocabulary and grammar) so I do not know if this will be disturbing or not. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| zorglub Pentaglot Senior Member France Joined 7003 days ago 441 posts - 504 votes 1 sounds Speaks: French*, English, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: German, Arabic (Written), Turkish, Mandarin | Message 150 of 184 21 February 2006 at 6:47am | IP Logged | ||
I've used with great pleasure and satisfaction Pimsleur Portuguese (brasilian)Italian, Spanish, and Assimil for the same languages. Assimil is more comprehensive, by far. But with Assimil, you have to open the book, while with Pimsleur, you hust listen understand repeat or reply. You can walk around, drive etc... Pimsleur is very rewarding. Assimil goes way further and beyond the survival skills. What I do is use 3 version of Assimil books one and a previous pone, this increases vocabularu and engraves more of the grammar in your brain. FOr Brasilian portuguese there is only one veesion available, so I now started Portuguese from ...portugal: it educates my ear to another (useful) pronunciation but I sstill repeat converting to Brasilian pronunciation. When I'm over with bokks number One, I'll proceed to books number 2 (perfectionnement). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| rafaelrbp Pentaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 7016 days ago 181 posts - 201 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Spanish, English, French, Italian Studies: German | Message 151 of 184 21 February 2006 at 7:13am | IP Logged | ||
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I used to edit Assimil's tape (Goldwave function: reduce silences to half a second).
Then I could listen to the lessons in a random or straight order, over and over again. It's 2 hours for Spanish lessons 8-109 (the first seven repeats two times, so I had excluded them). The said thing is that I had to heard "Ejercicios" dozen of times. When I get serious in learning French, I'll first listen to all Assimil lessons (without speaking), and then shadow it once, and after that I'll read and try to learn what is being said exactly. Good method?! 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 152 of 184 21 February 2006 at 4:37pm | IP Logged | ||
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You are quite right. I have been playing my old Assimil recordings and they have no pauses. I can't believe that I had forgotten that three of my Assimil programs have pauses to repeat the exercises.
I actually only have three new Assimil With Ease programs. Two of these are for French and one is for Dutch. I have two new French programs because I upgraded my French With Ease from the Internet. I have been playing the old French Without Toil recordings I made from phonograph records where space was a premium and they had no pauses anywhere, not even recording all of the exercises. I intend to revise both language programs shortly and I will edit out the pauses. What is the Goldwave function? My Russian recordings with exercises expects you to ADD the pauses. This was so they could get the maximum information on the minimum number of recordings. I simply left them as they were, although I do try some of the exercises without the pauses. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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