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Older Learner tries Assimil for Spanish | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Adrean TAC 2010 Winner Senior Member France adrean83.wordpress.c Joined 6167 days ago 348 posts - 411 votes  Speaks: FrenchC1 | Message 9 of 175 26 January 2012 at 11:27am | IP Logged |
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Hello Sfuqua I hope your studies are moving along nicely. I have an invested interest in
how things are proceeding with your studies as I'm moving myself slowly but surely through Assimil. I have been thinking what makes Assimil work for me and I have come to the conclusion that it is the dialogue each lesson in combination with an accessible layout. The grammar is not really forced down your throat either. I have used Michel Thomas before starting and I use Pimsleur in conjunction with Assimil. Both these things I am sure have only given me much more clarity and have filled lots of the gaps. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| sfuqua Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4764 days ago 581 posts - 977 votes Speaks: English*, Hawaiian, Tagalog Studies: Spanish | Message 10 of 175 26 January 2012 at 9:24pm | IP Logged |
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Lesson 41, passive wave, Spanish with Ease.
I'm going to keep on plugging through Assimil, hoping for the best. I'm under a lot of time pressure at school (the students have important tests coming up), so I can't supplement Assimil with Michel Thomas, and Pimsleur as I first thought I would. This summer, during school vacation, I may make add in some other programs. By the start of vacation, I will be "through" with Using Spanish (if I do it the way Assimil suggests). I will need to decide what is next at that time. Right now, I'm planning to do either Streetwise Spanish or Using Spanish next. I probably won't move on to either of those two books if I find that most of my knowledge is still passive, even after completing the "active wave" of Spanish with Ease. If I'm still only passive, maybe I'll do FSI and/or DLI courses next. I bet I'm going to improve my active skills a bunch once I start the active wave. I certainly have learned a lot of passive knowledge of Spanish. If you learn 2000 to 3000 words in a "using" level Assimil course, I should have an exposure to 800 to 1200 or so words so far. This seems about right. I've been surprised how easy simple signs and the like have become. Radio, song lyrics, random conversations I walk by all come in little flashes only. My wife and daughter are going to the Philippines to visit my wife's family this summer. If some sort of "Assimil Magic" happens with the active wave, and I feel like I'm a B2 after Spanish with Ease, I'm going to go somewhere where they speak Spanish for my own vacation. I'm not planning on it, but wouldn't it be fun? :) steve 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| sfuqua Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4764 days ago 581 posts - 977 votes Speaks: English*, Hawaiian, Tagalog Studies: Spanish | Message 11 of 175 28 January 2012 at 6:24am | IP Logged |
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Assimil lesson 42, passive wave.
On a lark, to see if I have made any progress at all, I took one of the online tests today. I scored B1 on what seemed to be a simple, multiple choice, grammar test. I do not take the results one bit seriously, except that it means that I must have gotten some of the questions right. There were several questions where I didn't understand what the questions meant, but only one of the answers "sounded" right. I suppose that I actually have internalized some of Spanish grammar and have some "ear" for what a correct sentence sounds like. Interesting, although I'm no more a B1 than I am a soaring bird. steve 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| sfuqua Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4764 days ago 581 posts - 977 votes Speaks: English*, Hawaiian, Tagalog Studies: Spanish | Message 12 of 175 29 January 2012 at 7:00pm | IP Logged |
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Assimil 44 later today, passive wave.
I asked a question over on the specific languages forum.Here. I seem to have picked up Italian sounding intonation on my Spanish, according to my students who are native speakers of Mexican Spanish. I think Arekkusu and Alexander86 from the other thread have it right, I'm probably hitting stressed syllables too hard in an unconscious imitation of Italian. I'll work on it. I'm glad to hear Alexander86 say that the same thing happened to him. Perhaps I'm at a normal developmental stage. steve 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| sfuqua Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4764 days ago 581 posts - 977 votes Speaks: English*, Hawaiian, Tagalog Studies: Spanish | Message 13 of 175 04 February 2012 at 6:09am | IP Logged |
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Assimil 49 tomorrow; the last lesson before the active wave starts. I continue to use Assimil more or less a the instructions say, except that I review lessons regularly, which they don't seem to recommend, but is an obvious way to make things stick.
I have to admit to a great frustration with my lack of productive skills, but I haven't practiced any yet so I don't know why I'm grumpy. I'm probably exactly where Assimil wants me to be. I tried talking to one of my students today, and mangled things awfully. I intellectually know this is normal, but I'd like to be further along. I've read many threads where people have made similar complaints at this stage of their studies with Assimil. Let us look at the "glass is half full" view. I scored B1 on an online grammar test. This is very bogus result as far as my productive abilities are concerned, but it suggests that I have developed a bit of a feel for what a grammatical Spanish sentence sound like. I seem to be able to recognize subject - verb agreement, tense - adverb agreement, adjective - noun gender agreement at least some of the time, all without hardly any conscious understanding of the grammar. This sounds a lot like what Assimil aims to do with the passive wave. Interesting.... Vocabulary is also interesting. I have spent no time whatsoever memorizing words or word lists. I have done some L2->L1 translation; I change my mind daily whether this is useful or not without also doing L1->L2 translation. I have not studied vocabulary by itself at all. I looked at the Wiktionary Frequency list for Spanish, taken from movie subtitles if I remember correctly. I looked at the 1-1000 word list. I know them all but one. I looked at the 1000-2000 word list. I feel like I know about 40-50% with some confidence. I recognize most of them without remembering exactly what they mean. I looked at the 2000-3000 list. I recognize maybe 20%, but I don't actually know the meaning of very many of them, except for cognates. Somehow, over about 30 hours of pretty relaxed activity, spread out over 48 days, I've probably learned at least 1200 words. Are there cognates? Of course. Do I have the wrong idea about what some words mean? Probably. Are there faster ways to learn big lists of vocabulary? Probably. Are there easier ways? I really doubt it. While I am frustrated so far with my productive ability, I have to admit that Assimil seems to be working more or less as promised. Next, they seem to promise an explosive growth in my productive ability on my active wave. Could it really happen? We'll see. steve 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| sfuqua Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4764 days ago 581 posts - 977 votes Speaks: English*, Hawaiian, Tagalog Studies: Spanish | Message 14 of 175 04 February 2012 at 5:55pm | IP Logged |
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Day 49 of passive wave of Assimil Spanish with Ease.
Active wave starts tomorrow. It took too long to get to it. I am going to continue to use Assimil, more or less as the instructions say, more as an experiment than for anything else. I'm doing a lot of review, which they don't seem to mention much. I'm sure that Assimil would be better combined with Pimsleur, FSI, Michel Thomas, or something to avoid the frustration of the passive wave. If I have some reading knowledge of Spanish, and some conversational ability, after 150 days of fairly pleasant study with Assimil, perhaps I didn't really need the other resources. steve 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| kraemder Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5183 days ago 1497 posts - 1648 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 15 of 175 05 February 2012 at 3:29pm | IP Logged |
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Hey good luck with the Spanish. I think your motivation will be the determining factor on your success. I'm
cyriuous about older learners. I am 34 myself and saw that as a handicap as I approached Japanese last year although I'm younger than you. I think I am doing fine though. Getting older stinks heh. Spanish is pretty easy. It takes time and patience but it's not too different from English I think you'll find having studied eastern languages. I found reading on the computer with a pop up dictionary to be the most enjoyable way to learn. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| sfuqua Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4764 days ago 581 posts - 977 votes Speaks: English*, Hawaiian, Tagalog Studies: Spanish | Message 16 of 175 07 February 2012 at 6:21am | IP Logged |
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Assimil lesson 51 passive wave, lesson 2 active wave.
OK; two days into the active wave. It's very easy, but if you remember the early lessons in Spanish with Ease, they are very short and easy. If I can continue translating the lessons in the middle of the book without too much trouble, that will be very cool. I find that doing all the steps in the "Dutch Instructions" takes a little longer than I like. I may stop going through things step by step, and just try to achieve what seem to be the main goals of each stage daily: passive wave: 1) Listen to the last few lessons, reading along in the book if I feel like I need to. 2)Read aloud glancing at the translations, until I can read it aloud and understand it without looking at the translation. 2) repeat each sentence aloud without looking at the book. active wave: 1) translate from English to Spanish spoken. Whenever I have time, weekends or whatever: 1)Work through earlier lessons using scriptorium. 2)Listen to earlier lessons in big chunks. 3)translate earlier lessons It is a big relief to be producing language. steve Edited by sfuqua on 07 February 2012 at 6:21am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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