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Listening to Assimil Dialogues | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| Sigridhr Newbie Canada Joined 4131 days ago 1 posts - 1 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 1 of 8 14 August 2013 at 2:27am | IP Logged | ||
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Hello, everyone!
I was hoping I could get some advice into using Assimil. I've searched the forums and googled around a bit, and I couldn't find anything that answered my question, so apologies if this has already been asked and I've missed it. To provide a (very quick) background: I'm learning French. Assimil is one of several methods I've been using, and I've started it reasonably recently (I'm about halfway through the passive wave). I've previously completed the FIA videos (but am only starting the workbooks), and spend a fair amount of time with the RFI podcasts and native- speed podcasts (of which I can follow the gist reliably, but sometimes miss the details). I took French in high-school years ago, and actually have quite good passive skills (I read very well), but my speaking skills are so poor as to be non-existent. One of the things I have the most trouble with is syntax. Particularly forgetting that accusative pronouns tend to fall before the verb, and forgetting things like "en" and "y" all the time. The way I've been using Assimil is to listen to the dialogues without the text to figure out how much I can understand, then L-R with the French text once, and then L-R with the English text. However, I was wondering whether anyone had any experience/insight into whether it would be more useful to create hyper-literal English translations to follow along with (with the English words in the same order as the French) in order to reinforce the syntax of the sentence? Since I don't really have trouble with comprehension. Has anyone done this and found it useful? Or am I just making my own life needlessly difficult? Thanks very much in advance! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| grunts67 Diglot Senior Member CanadaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5301 days ago 215 posts - 252 votes  Speaks: French*, English Studies: Spanish, Russian | Message 2 of 8 14 August 2013 at 3:38am | IP Logged | ||
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My students always have difficulties with syntax and pronouns in general. The best thing you can is immerse yourself in the language and with enough exposure, it will start to make sense.
Good luck and don't worry too much about that ! 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4908 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 3 of 8 14 August 2013 at 5:45am | IP Logged | ||
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I think Assimil is great, but Pimsleur is better for getting your head around word order. I have just started using FSI, and I imagine all those drills will do even it even better.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4706 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 4 of 8 14 August 2013 at 11:38am | IP Logged | ||
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I don't think just using Assimil will teach
you every nuance of French syntax. That requires practice in writing. It took me years of building up knowledge and consistently writing in French to get anywhere remotely near reasonable. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5008 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 5 of 8 14 August 2013 at 4:04pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think for this particular kind of troubles, a grammar book could be the solution. An explanation with examples could bring order into this mess you are experiencing (and which is very common) and than it is just a matter of practice. Both input and output.
Assimil is awesome but you won't learn everything from it. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| berabero89 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4641 days ago 101 posts - 137 votes Speaks: English, Amharic* Studies: Spanish, Japanese, French | Message 6 of 8 15 August 2013 at 5:04am | IP Logged | ||
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http://french.about.com/
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| BlaBla Triglot Groupie Spain Joined 4128 days ago 45 posts - 72 votes Speaks: German*, English, French Studies: Nepali, Spanish, Dutch, Mandarin | Message 7 of 8 15 August 2013 at 10:06am | IP Logged | ||
Seconded. I'm currently studying Spanish using Assimil as my mainstay. However, I find 'Langenscheids Kurzgrammatik' (short grammar) MOST helpful regarding the core structures of Spanish and this is what I'm personally most concerned about. This little booklet gave me more 'clicks' than any other introductory material I've studied so far, including MT and the excellent 'Madrigals Key to Spanish'. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4908 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 8 of 8 16 August 2013 at 6:15pm | IP Logged | ||
Actually, the specific problem mentioned by the OP (pronoun order) is explained very thoroughly in Assimil, giving it more space than my grammar books do (although both of my French grammars are quite small). Pages 357-358 explain most of it, and then the positions of y and en are explained on pp. 389-390. However, this is one of those things which I think has to be learnt by practice, with one eye on the rulebook. Pimsleur has been very good at helping me get all of them in the right place. And for further practice, FSI undoubtedly has some good drills. Edited by Jeffers on 16 August 2013 at 6:16pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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