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Assimil Experiment Group Log | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4699 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes  Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 41 of 344 05 November 2012 at 6:17pm | IP Logged | ||
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Le Breton sans peine (pevare kentel)
Having seen four lessons of Breton now it is time to comment a bit on the book itself. It adheres very clearly to the Assimil structure - assimilate, develop the vocabulary bit by bit (repeating important words such as the conjugations of to be) and has the reassuring remark that "L'étude du breton a peut-être l'air difficile au départ. Mais en fait, une fois apprises les quelques règles de base assez différentes de celles du français, ce n'est pas bien compliqué. Sachez qu'il n'existe pour ainsi dire pas de verbes irréguliers, à part le verbe être et le verbe avoir. Voilà qui devrait vous rassurer pour l'avenir". In short, it's everything you can expect of an Assimil course in the beginning, given that the topics have been focused on clearly Breton things (situating the sea and the post office, asking about the weather and being able to speak Breton, going swimming and finding yourself a nice creperie). I cannot say I am disappointed, but for one thing - the recordings don't come in mp3 format, which is a shame because it means I can't download them to my laptop and I have to be at home to listen to them. Some Fun Facts About Breton Grammar Continuing in the series of "why Breton is simple, but very different from what we are used to" - partitives. You see, a partitive in Breton doesn't require a preposition (like in French). Nope - you just plunk the noun after the noun that is being modified - "ar krampouezh gwinizh" (les crêpes du froment). Simple, effective. Pretty much like in English, only you now put the noun after the noun. Another fun fact is that the verb "to be" has two conjugations and it depends on what you are saying which conjugation you use. There are some more exceptions to the verb "bezañ" (one of only two really irregular verbs), but here's the most important thing - to be is different if it's a state (he is happy) or if it's a description of location (he is at the beach). The first is "Laouen eo" and the second is "En aod emañ". Note also that prepositions can be fused with articles like in French - the preposition for place is "e", so e Breizh (in Brittany) but er mor (in the sea). Edited by tarvos on 06 November 2012 at 2:41pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Kronos Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5253 days ago 186 posts - 452 votes Speaks: German*, English | Message 42 of 344 05 November 2012 at 7:12pm | IP Logged | ||
There are a lot of free programs that convert various audio formats to mp3. If the source files are from CD, they are likely to be in wav format. One can copy them to the hard disk first and then convert them to mp3. If the CD has copy protection, it may be a bit trickier. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| fabriciocarraro Hexaglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Brazil russoparabrasileirosRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4707 days ago 989 posts - 1454 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, EnglishB2, Italian, Spanish, Russian, French Studies: Dutch, German, Japanese | Message 43 of 344 05 November 2012 at 11:53pm | IP Logged | ||
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I've completed the first 3 lessons and half of the 4th already from O Novo Francês Sem Esforço. As far as I know, the French text is exactly the same as the one from "French With Ease", only the notes and translations change, which is good!
The book is very good, until now I have no problem whatsover with the language, since it's very close to Portuguese and Italian. My only "attention" point is at the construction "Est-ce que..." to make a question. I'd never seen it before and it's taking some time to "sink in". I understand it, but I still can't see myself using it in real life, so I'll probably just redo the lesson a couple times and try to "insert" this construction in my daily life. So far, so good! =) 2 persons have 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 44 of 344 06 November 2012 at 6:31am | IP Logged | ||
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El Nuevo Francés sin Esfuerzo
So I´ve completed the 28th lesson, I started on the 5th of October (a bit early I know), so this is just under one lesson a day. I'm quite happy with this because in my work I often have to do 15 hour days. I just made a personal one month video and I found it really difficult to say anything. I'm still only doing the passive wave though, but I made it for comparison later. I find one area that assimil lacks in is that of teaching pronunciation. Yes, the first chapter is all about it, but it relates everything back to Spanish sounds which is not at all ideal! This is also the case under all the lessons where it writes it out phonetically in Spanish. I find this completely unhelpful and just ignore it. I just wish it would use IPA but I understand that most people aren't familiar with it. So what I have been doing is slowing down the recordings using VLC to 0.5x or 0.67x so I can really hear the sounds and try to replicate them. Another thing I am finding annoying is how Assimil very frequently uses less common words. If theyre aiming for a 2000 word vocabulary why don't they design the course so that they only use the words from a 2000 word frequency list? Basically my process is that I first read the Spanish version to make sure I understand that side of things, then I read the French version looking at the notes, and try to guess how different words will sound. I then listen to the recordings at a slowed down speed as above and try to get my pronunciation and prosody etc correct. I then listen to the whole thing while reading it, then without reading it to see if I can understand it. I then finally go sentences by sentence first reading it in my head, and then seeing if I can remember how to say the whole sentence. For the exercises I just speed through them, I first read the French versions to see if I understand them then check with the Spanish versions then I listen to it. For the fill in the blanks I don't do anything special. I was doing a bit of shadowing initially but each lesson is already taking 30 mins +. Overall I'm finding the process enjoyable and I'm curious to see the results. Due to my Spanish and English knowledge I can already make out the meaning of a lot of basic written French. Outside sources I have used: - Assimil French without toil, I am up to lesson 14 on this assimil version. I have been using it when I've been bored with the nuevo frances version. I haven't been intensely studying each lesson just doing a quick glance over a lesson now and then. I must say that I'm finding the french without toil version to be of much higher quality, and far more enjoyable so far. - FSI French Phonology. Yes this is not assimil, but I'm finding it necessary to learn correct pronunciation. It is a really short course, and it doesn't use more than a few dozen french words that you will have already known. I think phonetics is an important aspect of language learning and I want to get it right from the outset rather than having to fix it later. - I haven't used Michel Thomas yet as I said I might. Edited by jeronz on 06 November 2012 at 9:06am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Tuco Pentaglot Newbie Brazil Joined 4504 days ago 17 posts - 25 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, English, Italian, Spanish, French | Message 45 of 344 06 November 2012 at 1:42pm | IP Logged | ||
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I've just finished Lesson 46 of Il Francese Senza Sforzo. I picked Assimil with
the purpose of improving my vocabulary and my listening - and already I can feel a slight improvement. I did Michel Thomas's entire French course prior to beginning Assimil. Otherwise, the fact that my mother tongue is also a romance language gives me a good head start - although the base language for the course I'm doing is also a romance language and thus similarities should already be taken into account. However, if I were expecting Assimil to clarify grammar and conjugation I'd be extremely disappointed. Maybe it's just that I don't really pay much attention to parts I already know but I do feel that I'd be at a lost without having done Michel Thomas first. I should also note that I took French classes for a year at school when I was like 10. I didn't think it would help me a lot because that was a long time ago and, besides, even then I wasn't able to actually say anything useful. However, it seems that pronounciation isn't as difficult for me as it would've been if it weren't for this brief contact with French. Interesting. Edited by Tuco on 06 November 2012 at 1:52pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| QiuJP Triglot Senior Member Singapore Joined 5847 days ago 428 posts - 597 votes Speaks: Mandarin*, EnglishC2, French Studies: Czech, GermanB1, Russian, Japanese | Message 46 of 344 06 November 2012 at 3:02pm | IP Logged | ||
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Here is my first post here. Here are my findings after using Le Tchèque sans peine and
completed 7 lessons and some browsing. Unlike most other Assimil books, the lessons in Le Tchèque sans peine are long. Each lesson is at least 8 sentences long and there are 14 sentences at lesson 6. I have peeked into the last few lessons and they are even longer: 16 sentences with each of them running 2 to 3 lines, giving you a maximum of 48 lines of text per lesson. It will be very impressive if one can write or read out the text without errors in the active phase, where one is to look at the long French text and translate it into Czech. The first seven lesson have already introduced 4 irregular verbs, but only 2 regular verbs. There is quite a lot of vocabulary in the first 7 lessons. One thing I noticed that in the audio ř is pronounced almost identical to ž. I wonder is it true that Czechs pronounced ř in this way or I have heard an variant. Overall, it will be difficult to work though this book if not for the fact that I have already committed 95 hours prior to this challenge in Czech. However, I think the book will lead to a relative higher level of proficiency than other Assimil books. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 5158 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 47 of 344 06 November 2012 at 5:30pm | IP Logged | ||
You not only are familiar with "qu-est-ce que", but you use it everyday! Qu'est-ce que = que + est + ce + que = o que + é + o/isto + que From more formal to more familiar: Que fais-tu? = O que você faz/está fazendo? Qu'est-ce que tu fais? = O que é que você faz/está fazendo? Tu fais quoi? = Você faz/está fazendo o quê? You see that the grammar in both French and Portuguese is similar, also considering the register levels. 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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