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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 |  | |
| 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 41 of 184 03 June 2005 at 12:33am | IP Logged | ||
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Yes, I find the repetition of each sentence very annoying. They only do it with the new "With Ease" programs. Either edit the repetition out or just put up with it for a week. After a week they just do the entire dialogue once. I find it painful to review the first week's lessons so I ignore them after I get to the second week. My only review of the first week's lessons then is to read them.
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| sanjoy Diglot Newbie United States inference.phy.cam.ac Joined 7103 days ago 1 posts - 10 votes Speaks: English*, German | Message 42 of 184 17 June 2005 at 7:50pm | IP Logged | ||
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I disagree with the critical remarks about Assimil that are in the FAQ.
In school in America I had taken French for five years, to what would be O-level in the old British system. When I went to France I could hardly talk to anyone and could not understand anything except a few signs; holding a conversation was hopeless. One summer the whole family was going to Lyon so in preparation I decided to learn enough French to survive. I started the Assimil course with Lesson 1, which was about my level in spite of (or because of) the years of school French. It was a moderately new Assimil series ("New French with ease"), revised sometime in the 1980's. I completed one lesson per day for about 6 weeks, and as D-day got closer, two per day for the last 2-3 weeks, reaching lesson 70 out of 98 or so. I spent roughly 20-40 minutes per day with the course. For the first 50 lessons, I repeated the dialogue sentence by sentence and did the few exercises at the end of the lesson. The English glosses for the conversations were helpful, especially the notes on colloquial and idiomatic phrases. Every 7th lesson is a sabbatical: a review of the grammar encountered the previous week, and I paid close attention to the explanations. The grammar, since I had already constructed sentences using it, went over much easier than when I studied French in school. With lesson 51 I began what Assimil calls the 'second wave'. In addition to the dialogue from lesson N, one translates lesson N-50 from English into French, to practice constructing moderately new sentences. The idea is that you construct new sentences using phrases and vocabulary that are by then old hat. Years later I took piano lessons and my teacher told me how to learn to sight read (play a piece without rehearing, so just upon seeing it): If one is at level 3 (on the English Associated Board scale of 1-8), pick a piece at level 1 and play it without stopping. Just play through keeping the rhythm and don't stop. The key was to choose pieces easy enough that one could play without pausing for thought. My teacher was an excellent musician and sight reader and had used this technique. Which is what Assimil does by having one translate a (by then) very easy lesson. When I got to France I could hold a moderate conversation. On the reading/writing/speaking/understanding 1-10 scale used when signing up for this forum, I was perhaps R3.W2.S6.U4. In Lyon the whole family signed up for language classes at the Alliance Francaise. I took the placement test. Just based on the Assimil course (we'd only arrived a couple days before signing up, so I hadn't had much immersion yet) I was on the border of intermediate and advanced. I asked them to put me in the advanced class since I would learn more. The teacher spoke Parisian French at native speed, and for about three weeks I had no clue what went on in the class, but I had a headache every night from concentrating on French (a good sign). In the fourth week everything clicked, and I could talk and understand everything in conversation and perhaps 70% in movies. My level was roughly R4.W4.S7.U6. I give a lot of credit to the Assimil method for getting me to a basic conversational level in 2-3 months, and a lot of credit to the Alliance Francaise course and the teacher for the rest. Traditional school language teaching is so inefficient. I think the main problem is the lack of speaking. The effort in forming sentences, even if they are other people's sentences, gives the mind (or at least my extroverted one) a feel for the language far more than reading, grammar exercises, or mere listening can. Next I would like to learn Spanish and am debating whether to use Assimil, Pimsleur, or Platiquemos. My sense, from my own experience with Assimil and from reading many threads in the forum, is that Assimil and Pimsleur are in a similar category (both focus on conversation), and are both good, and that Platiquemos or plain FSI is in another category (complete language). Within the conversation-only category, Assimil will work well for me. So it just remains to decide whether the complete-language category approach is better to start with, whether to try that later after finishing 100 or so lessons of Assimil, or whether to do the Assimil and then read and write and watch movies for the rest. 10 persons have 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 43 of 184 18 June 2005 at 2:06am | IP Logged | ||
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Thank you for your assessment, Sanjoy. My experience with Assimil is similar. My wife and I learnt German and improved our French with Assimil before travelling to Europe. If you use the material as directed, which you did, you should be fluent in the language in around six months. It makes sense for a student to do the course and save five or six years of study in school.
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| 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 44 of 184 18 June 2005 at 2:11am | IP Logged | ||
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If Assimil is working for you, why not stick with it to learn Spanish? I have the old Assimil Spanish and found it not only easy to follow, but also very friendly and useful so far as advice on Spanish culture. Because my course is old, a lot of that information would be out of date.
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| Martien Heptaglot Senior Member Netherlands martienvanwanrooij.n Joined 7108 days ago 134 posts - 148 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, German, Spanish, Turkish, Italian, French Studies: Portuguese, Serbo-Croatian, Latin, Swedish, Arabic (Written) | Message 45 of 184 18 June 2005 at 10:06am | IP Logged | ||
Assimil has more lessons (generally 100-140) and they recommend to study one lesson a day. Another advantage is that you really learn a lot of daily expressions. The drawback is the way grammar is presented. It is often shown as notes belonging to a particular sentence in the main text rather than as a topic that is systematically dealt with. Personally I prefer to buy both an Assimil and either a Colloquial or Teach Yourself volume (I prefer the latter) for a more systematical grammatical approach. To reduce costs I usually only buy the tapes or cd's with one of these volumes, unless pronunciation is very unpredictable (e.g. accent in Serbocroatian and Russian) Edited by Martien on 18 June 2005 at 10:07am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| braveb Senior Member United States languageprograms.blo Joined 7200 days ago 264 posts - 263 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, French | Message 46 of 184 22 June 2005 at 8:25am | IP Logged | ||
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If you were at R3.W2.S6.U4 for just completing level 1, then what would level 2 give you? Double that?
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| jradetzky Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom geocities.com/jradet Joined 7210 days ago 521 posts - 485 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2, GermanB1 | Message 47 of 184 22 June 2005 at 10:58am | IP Logged | ||
I once emailed the staff at Assimil about the level of their courses in the Common European Framework, and they failed to provide a reasonable answer. They claimed their courses cannot be measured using that scale. Anyway, I have the "Perfectionnement" courses for both French and German and would say that they can help you reach between level B1 (basic) and B2 (intermediate) in the Common European Framework. Using this forum's scale I would say that would be R8, W6, S7, U8. Edited by jradetzky on 22 June 2005 at 11:01am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| braveb Senior Member United States languageprograms.blo Joined 7200 days ago 264 posts - 263 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, French | Message 48 of 184 22 June 2005 at 1:13pm | IP Logged | ||
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It's interesting that Assimil can be that effective with just two courses, while FSI, which I assume has "unlimited funds" when compared to companies, can't do something similar. Edited by braveb on 22 June 2005 at 1:14pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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