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Assimil Experiment Group Log | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Kronos Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5253 days ago 186 posts - 452 votes  Speaks: German*, English | Message 73 of 344 13 November 2012 at 7:11pm | IP Logged | ||
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Russisch ohne Mühe (Le Russe sans peine, 1971 version)
The original Le Russe sans peine written by A. Chérel came out in 1948. In the early Fifties they brought out some foreign editions, in English and German at least, Russian without Toil and Russisch ohne Mühe, resp. The later 1971 course is a thorough reworking and expansion of the old course, edited by a number of language experts mostly from the University of Leningrad. It was published under the same title Le Russe sans peine (and again Russisch ohne Mühe), but I believe there was no English edition this time. This is also the course that Prof. Arguelles comments on favorably in his Assimil video. There is an informative thread comparing the old Assimil Russian courses, recommending the 1948/51 course as a good study complement to the later one which is overall better structured and somewhat fresher. Both courses have 100 lessons each. -------------------------- This weekend I got news on some impending changes in my working life situation which will probably last for months and right now are already putting me under considerable pressure. After giving it some days of consideration, I have decided to sign off from the Assimil project for now. Hope I will be forgiven, since this is already the second time this year that I am canceling an Assimil project right at the start. Learning Cyrillic Anyhow, here is at least a small contribution, on learning Russian script. I studied the introductory chapter of the Russian Assimil course dealing with the alphabet, the script and the pronunciation already this summer, and here is my report. If I restarted the course now I would require some further reviews first before going into the lessons. I would also write down some of the lesson texts, probably several times a week, since the cursive writing differs from the block letters that you are used to see in print. It is better to be 'fluent' in both, one reason being that you will have problems later on if you want to do wordlists, writing exercises etc. and still don't know how to write properly and effortlessly. And really getting used to a foreign script takes time and a lot of practice. Time Frames I can't say exactly how LONG it took me to go through the introductory chapter, learning the script, the writing and the pronunciation basics as a total newcomer and really digest all this material, but I estimate it would be a month at least if I studied for one hour each day. Same with the whole course. In the preface Assimil suggests that it may take you six to ten months to finish this course, i.e. if you really want to finish it within just six months you have to put in some extra effort. Leafing through the course, "one hour for each lesson" springs to my mind as the absolute minimum, and probably much more once the second wave sets in. Prof. Arguelles wrote in one post that when he learnt Russian he spent 15-20 minutes each day with this course, shadowing and writing down all the lessons numerous times, and still it took him several years to assimilate all the content. I can't give an exact figure. If I really wanted to thoroughly learn and internalize everything this course does offer, rather than more or less rushing through it, I think the required effort will be somewhere in the 200-400 hour range. Certainly not 50-60. When I signed up for the Assimil Experiment I was aware of this, having done the basics already, being prepared to put in at least an hour a day. There are some other learners here who are also learning Russian with Assimil, mostly with their newer courses. It will be interesting to see how far they have got in about half a year, and what they report. ------------- Signing off here, big thanks to kanewai for initiating this experiment, and wishing everyone success in their learning. :) 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| melkior79 Newbie Japan Joined 4623 days ago 16 posts - 31 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Latin, French | Message 74 of 344 13 November 2012 at 10:28pm | IP Logged | ||
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Day 5 Lesson 5 New French With Ease
I just finished going through Lesson 5. I am setting a timer at 30 mins and trying to complete the lesson in that time. I following the instructions from the Dutch with Ease Assimil which are often mentioned in this forum. However, I have found that it takes longer than 30 minutes with those instructions so I have sped up the process by less re-reading of the dialougues and trying to give time to the exercises. I am in passive phase so I am avoiding writing as much as possible. So far ------- At the end of a lesson, I can listen to it and understand what is being said. Before the Assimil started I could not understand ANYTHING. Even after going through a process such as listening to the French. Reading the English. Listening to the French while reading the French. Listen and repeating the French and shadowing. I still cannot READ the French out-loud correctly. So many silent letters!! It sounds like liquid! I hope to get used to it. I don't think I am memorising new words either. What the heck is with French numbers!! On the other hand, This is a long long book and there are two waves to go through! Main Point. I am having fun! The lessons are a good length for me. Each lesson has a little joke. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Vārds Bilingual Diglot Newbie Latvia Joined 4902 days ago 24 posts - 41 votes Speaks: Russian*, Latvian* Studies: German | Message 75 of 344 13 November 2012 at 10:34pm | IP Logged | ||
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French with ease
Lesson 14 completed. After first two weeks, I don't feel like I can say or understand anything. I'm still not able to understand new lessons when listening for the first time, maybe some fixed expression, but not enough to get the story. I'm not trying to remember verb tables or grammar rules (just like Assimil suggests - relax, read, repeat), so may be thats why I don't have such a good results as other participants, but it's just first two weeks and until active wave I'm going to stick to this light approach of relaxed reading and repeating. “Eighty percent of success is showing up.” 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Emme Triglot Senior Member Italy Joined 5339 days ago 980 posts - 1594 votes Speaks: Italian*, English, German Studies: Russian, Swedish, French | Message 76 of 344 14 November 2012 at 8:30pm | IP Logged | ||
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This post is copied -- with a few slight differences -- from my log.
Il nuovo russo senza sforzo, Italian edition of Le Nouveau Russe sans peine I'm two weeks into this experiment and today I've finished lesson 14, i.e. I've completed my second review lesson. I was a bit disappointed last week when I found out that starting from lesson 7 they no longer use phonetic transcriptions. If you consider that Assimil French gives the phonetic transcription of the dialogues up to lesson 14, I found it slightly disconcerting that in Il nuovo russo senza sforzo they opt to let you wade through a sea of Cyrillic symbols without help less than a week into the course. In the last few days, though, I've come to realize how much quicker you learn the new alphabet when you have no other option. If they had continued with the transcriptions I would probably have used them instead of focusing on the Russian. Of course, I haven't mastered the alphabet completely yet, but I made great progress in just a few days. From lesson 8 they introduce a little bit of Cyrillic handwriting, by printing a few words or sentences in a handwritten script and inviting you to read and copy them (unfortunately they offer no other explanation to the exercise). Another little disappointment about the review lessons is that the dialogues are not included in the CDs, so you can only use them as a reading exercise. In other Assimil courses I know (German, Swedish, etc.), dialogues in the review lessons are recorded, but that may be true only of the latest generation of Assimil courses (published starting from the 2000s). So far I've presented my "objective" observations about the book, but now I'd like to add a few personal observation about my experience with this course. I'm trying to use the relaxed approach Assimil so fervently advocates and that's why I limit my study-time to half an hour every day*. In that little time I hardly finish the entire lesson**. In particular I usually skip the written translation exercise at the end which I leave for the active wave. I'm not retaining much of what I'm learning, just some words and snippets of language, and this is not the way I usually study (I tend to overlearn the material, and I also tend to suffer from burnout a lot); but I must admit that moving on to the next lesson every day in any case is a very liberating aspect of this new way of studying. ---------- *As I wrote in my registration post, I'm not using and I don't plan to use any other material during this experiment apart from some internet resources for learning the Cyrillic alphabet and Russian pronunciation. I try to spend an additional half an hour working on that, but most days I don't have enough time. **I've always found impossible to work through an Assimil lesson (after the first couple of weeks) in less than 45-60 minutes at the very least even in languages I know fairly well like German; considering that Russian is a more challenging language and that Il nuovo russo senza sforzo has only 70 lessons I'm planning to spend 2 days on average on every lesson instead of continuing with the usual one-lesson-a-day pace, even though until now I've managed to get through 14 lessons in a fortnight. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| melkior79 Newbie Japan Joined 4623 days ago 16 posts - 31 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Latin, French | Message 77 of 344 14 November 2012 at 10:29pm | IP Logged | ||
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Day 6. Lesson 6 New French with Ease
Les achats ------------ Today I changed my routine to make sure I am finished within 30 mins.I have to move quickly with these steps or I will go overtime. Here is my current routine with a comment on how things felt today. 1. Listen to lesson without book: Understood almost nothing! 2. Listen again while reading French: (A little better understanding but main point is learning how French pronounce their words.) 3. Listen again while reading English.(Associate meaning to sounds) 4. Read each sentence quietly and check translation to work out what words mean what. (not spending too long) 5. Listen again while reading English 6. Listen again while reading French 7. Listen again with book closed (Usually I feel I can understand at this point) 8. Listen and repeat sentence by sentence. (try to copy sounds as best as possible) 9. Listen line by line, stop if there is a note number. Read ALL the notes. 10. Do the exercises by listening and trying to say in English. Check if wrong. (Today was fine for this part) 11. Do the written exercises (usually got 5 or 6 mins on the timer for this.) (I cant really do these without looking back at the text again to answer these. I still made made many mistakes anyhow.) 12. If there is enough time. One more listen where I try to shadow it. Todays lesson I finished in 30 mins and took an extra 1 minute to shadow the whole thing. I didnt feel that was cheating. Todays lesson of course was fun as usual and seemed practical. Onward to review lesson tomorrow 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| jeronz Diglot Newbie New Zealand Joined 4850 days ago 37 posts - 79 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Yiddish, Latin, German, Italian | Message 78 of 344 15 November 2012 at 12:40am | IP Logged | ||
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El Nuevo Francés sin Esfuerzo
Lessons 29-35 I feel like things are beginning to come together. The whole process is becoming a lot smoother and I'm enjoying the lessons more and more. I am no longer needing to slow down every single sentence in VLC, only those sentences where my tongue gets tied or I am trying to clarify a pronunciation point. I can even usually work out how a new word will be pronounced now before listening to it. I've been listening to the recordings of the lessons I've done at times while I'm out, too. It's amazing how quickly I forget words! After 6 weeks I still had any opportunity to use my French. There is a french language group meet up on the 12th of December which I will try and attend. Is this allowed in the rules? French Without Toil Lessons 15-16 I have done another two lessons in this Assimil course. I haven't been studying each lesson as rigorously as my nuevo frances sin esfuerzo course, which has lately become more entertaining. Without toil is still a very good course and I will continue along with it at a slower pace. Introduction to French Phonology by FSI Chapter three I have also done another chapter of "French Phonology" by FSI - three of the ten chapters completed. The course is really an amazing supplement to Assimil. I can feel myself sounding more and more French as the days go by. Two more weeks to go until the active phase starts! Edited by jeronz on 15 November 2012 at 12:50am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Marishka Newbie United States Joined 5240 days ago 25 posts - 56 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, French, Dutch | Message 79 of 344 15 November 2012 at 9:04am | IP Logged | ||
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Dutch With Ease I'm now up to lesson 15 of Dutch With Ease. I like the pace of the lessons so far. The dialogs are very cute, and the grammar notes are clear and easy to understand. I've come to think of Leon Verlee, who wrote Dutch With Ease and Using French, as my personal coach, as he offers a lot of encouragement in the book, assuring me that anything I encounter in the beginning that is difficult will likely seem very easy later on. He also offers much practical advice, advising me to do the following:
I'm looking forward to the next group of lessons, as the past tense finally made an appearance in lesson 13. Onward and upward! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Roman Diglot Groupie Spain Joined 5444 days ago 42 posts - 52 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, English Studies: German, Italian, French | Message 80 of 344 15 November 2012 at 10:39am | IP Logged | ||
Aside from this experiment I'm doing El Alemán (2011 edition) and am now wondering if wouldn't it be good if they had made the same thing with sentence structure and recommendation to write down things like your Dutch with ease... Since German has three genders and you have to deal with nominative, accusative, dative and genitive cases. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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