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Assimill frustration...is it just me? | ||
Tags: Assimil | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| AmyinBrooklyn Senior Member United States Joined 4052 days ago 87 posts - 122 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 9 of 19 03 September 2014 at 6:26am | IP Logged | ||
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I just want to say that it's ok to walk away if it's not working for you. I think I got somewhere around lesson 80 with the passive and lesson 53 with the active and then I just threw in the towel. I just hated every minute of it. Now, I'm doing FSI and I'm much happier. I don't find it tedious at all. I also have done a lot passive listening and speaking practice and I try to remind myself that the goal is not to finish a language program, the goal is to speak Spanish. And those of us studying Spanish are lucky to have a wealth of resources. There are so many resources out there. I think if you're not enjoying it, move on. (Have you heard of the telenovela method That one is a bit more fun!) Good luck!
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| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4689 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 10 of 19 04 September 2014 at 1:31am | IP Logged | ||
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Ditto what others said about relaxing and not worrying that you aren't 100% solid on things that aren't explained
100%. That's kindof by design. I also have a vague recollection that some people suggested the "bad translations" were partly due to differences between common Iberian Spanish and Latin American Spanish. I can't vouch for that position myself, however. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7206 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 11 of 19 04 September 2014 at 1:44am | IP Logged | ||
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Reviews are also important. The first time through I listen and read the lesson several times during the day.
In my main study slot, I also review at least the previous lesson. Sometimes I listen and read several previous lessons. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5263 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 12 of 19 04 September 2014 at 3:03am | IP Logged | ||
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Assimil is so popular on HTLAL that there isn't a day that goes by on the forum that someone doesn't mention it. The company really should make a large donation to the forum- HTLAL is their best free advertising.
Most long-time members know I am not an Assimil fanboy. I've never used it to learn a language. I have many issues with the course. That being said, I think your problem is not so much with Assimil but with your methodology. You seem to be doing courses in sequence. I think that Assimil would work better for you if you were doing it alongside something else, say Destinos, FSI Spanish Basic or Learning Spanish Like Crazy, etc. Try Assimil in the morning and, say, Destinos in the evening, for example. One will reinforce the other and provide opportunity for synergy as Spanish comes at you in different ways from both courses. No wonder you're having difficulty. If I were just using one course I'd be going nuts too. You can also try your hand at DLI's Global Language Online Support System- GLOSS. Simply select Spanish and the level 1 exercises. The Centro Virtual Cervantes Aveteca lessons are monolingual Spanish but designed for learners with lots of pictures and clues to help. Scroll down to A1 or A2. Lyrics Training helps with a gentle introduction to native materials via songs. For a further explanation on how to learn with multiple resources, have a look at the multi-track approach. Also, try to stop being hung up on translating word for word. It's a hard habit to break. I agree with what others are saying, you should be looking for meaning and understanding first and foremost. If this doesn't help you, well, Assimil is not the only course/method out there for learning a language, especially for Spanish. Just because it is so hyped up on the forum doesn't mean it is for everyone. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7206 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 13 of 19 04 September 2014 at 11:16am | IP Logged | ||
I would also dispense with translation on your first wave through the course. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4910 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 14 of 19 04 September 2014 at 2:24pm | IP Logged | ||
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From what you wrote, it seems to me you are getting hung up on the idea of exact or correct translations
(as mentioned in the previous two posts). Once you get beyond the "This is a cat" phase, there really isn't such thing as an "exact translation".
There is actually not much semantic difference between "One must celebrate it", "We must celebrate that", and "It is necessary to celebrate it." I don't know Spanish, but I looks to me like all three capture the meaning of the Spanish sentence. One of the important lessons all of us have to learn when we learn other languages is that the other language works differently to our own. It seems an obvious point, but this is why we get hung up on word for word translations, ask questions like "Why do they do X in Spanish?" and so on. They do X in Spanish because Spanish isn't English. There are three possible translations of "Eso hay que celebrarlo" because Spanish isn't English. One of the strengths of Assimil is that it helps the learner to get a feel for the language, rather than tell them X in Spanish = Y in English. That feel for the language will necessarily include some areas of ambiguity when you try to understand the foreign language through your own language. But the more you work on listening to and reading the text, and simply understanding it rather than translating it, the more you will have assimilated the language (the goal of Assimil courses, of course!) Edited by Jeffers on 04 September 2014 at 2:27pm 7 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| rlnv Senior Member United States Joined 3952 days ago 126 posts - 233 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 15 of 19 05 September 2014 at 2:19am | IP Logged | ||
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I finished Assimil New French With Ease, and I must say that I think it was the best thing since sliced bread. That is, sliced bread with a few bites missing. The translations in the French version tended to be anywhere from mildly annoying to horrible. Horrible, as in what the hell were they thinking. I found myself frequently using a dictionary for look-ups.
But besides that, for me the course was absolutely worth its weight in gold. I'm a firm believer that the best methods are the ones that get you to native materials the quickest. That's where Assimil shines. It provides a smooth path of learning language from common speech, with humor and idiomatic expressions. I think the advice from other above regarding doing the passive wave without trying to over internalize the dialogs is the best approach with Assimil. Following the passive and active waves, without putting too much pressure on to learn every deal, and doing one lesson per day yields results. Just don't curse out loud about the bad translations - because they get really bad towards the end. But you know what? By then, you don't really need them any more. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Elexi Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5566 days ago 938 posts - 1840 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 16 of 19 05 September 2014 at 9:44am | IP Logged | ||
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The issue of translations in NFWE that speakers of American English find could be
because it is written by a native British English speaker and thus contains language that Americans no longer use. Certainly I remember that there was a complaint that 'cher' translated as 'dear' to mean 'expensive' was a poor translation, when, in fact, it was just common British English usage but apparently not used in American English. What examples of bad translations are you talking about? - Personally, I did not notice many (any) bad translations in NFWE. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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