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Learning Finnish, and... | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| Shounenbat Diglot Newbie United States Joined 4172 days ago 3 posts - 3 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese | Message 1 of 11 27 June 2013 at 5:17pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I'm a newbie here, though a long-time lurker, and I registered so that I could ask this question: Is it worth it to learn French just to have access to the entire Assimil course.
Of all the languages I want to learn, or at least have working knowledge in, French was never one of them. I enjoy Asian and Scandinavian languages the most, so a lot of European languages just haven't been on my list of priority. However, Assimil seems to be very well-loved on here, and looking through their selection, they have a lot of books for the languages I want to learn. The catch is that they are available only in French. Are the Assimil books really worth it? Right now I'm dabbling in Finnish (I really need to get my other languages in my profile, too), and as far as I know, there's no Pimsleur for Finnish, and the Assimil books are only for French speakers. I usually start off with a textbook, then spend a lot of time reading, listening, and writing on Lang-8 to build up my knowledge. I use Anki with Subs2SRS a lot, however, I was thinking of trying these programs as a way to get going faster before I go into pseudo-immersion mode. Going through textbooks is almost a waste of time (I used the Genki books for my basic Japanese and just used the Internet to look up grammar points I didn't understand as I read/listened to native material), since a lot of it is for exercises meant to be done in a classroom. I think there's a Colloquial book for Finnish, but I wasn't that impressed with Colloquial Norwegian, so I was hoping for something different. Any advice? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5011 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes  Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 2 of 11 27 June 2013 at 5:40pm | IP Logged | |||||
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There are people who have learnt French to use Assimil.
But doing it for Assimil only is not worth it, in my opinion, for these two reasons: 1. I believe Assimil can make a wonderful and very useful supplementary resource even if you don't know the base language. I understand the French used in assimil perfectly but still I use it "only" as a supplement because I love the dialogues and audio (which is in target language only) but I use something else for grammar. With a dictionary, assimil can be awesome as a very early graded reader even if you don't know French. Especially as you love the immersion or pseudo-immersion way of learning 2.If you decide to learn French, I recommend you to find more reasons. It is not that hard to find something you love that has something in common with French. It is a language well worth learning. I think one of your more imminent question is "what resources are great for Finnish?" but that is just my guess. If you desire to learn Finnish, than learning another language first, no matter how awesome, might not make you happy. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cabaire Senior Member Germany Joined 5601 days ago 725 posts - 1352 votes | Message 3 of 11 27 June 2013 at 5:43pm | IP Logged | |||||
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If you are on the road to polyglottery, i.e. learning many, mamy languages in the future, it is advisable to have a working knowledge of English, French and German, because in all three languages there is a incredible wealth of materials available.
But if you are only (which is also already a lot) learning tree or four, it would be a waste of time, because it distracts you from your goal and you would have to learn a language you are not interested in in the first place. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| daegga Tetraglot Senior Member Austria lang-8.com/553301 Joined 4523 days ago 1076 posts - 1792 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Swedish, Norwegian Studies: Danish, French, Finnish, Icelandic | Message 4 of 11 27 June 2013 at 5:48pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Assimil Finnish is also available in German, if that's any help. But Assimil alone won't get you to the reading stage anyway, but I found it useful to get a light overview over Finnish grammar.
There's a 30-day Pimsleur course, but those 30 day courses won't get you far. If you want to learn Scandinavian languages via Assimil, I would rather go for German than for French. Asian languages are also available in German. But it seems like an overkill nonetheless. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5011 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 5 of 11 27 June 2013 at 5:58pm | IP Logged | |||||
Thanks, you made me laugh. I already considered learning to speak dog or cat but not tree. I wish there was an Assimil Tree. Imagine what could the old trees tell us, what they have seen! //sorry for getting out of the topic, I just found this awesome. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Shounenbat Diglot Newbie United States Joined 4172 days ago 3 posts - 3 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese | Message 6 of 11 27 June 2013 at 5:59pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Thanks for all the advise thus far. I know a bit of German, and I do have an interest in German. Maybe Assimil in German would be an interesting experience.
There's a few language I want to know really, really well, but right now Finnish isn't one of them, so if I don't hit my own definition of "fluency" that's okay. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4709 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 7 of 11 27 June 2013 at 7:43pm | IP Logged | |||||
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FSI is free and available online, good alternative in my opinion
3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6599 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 8 of 11 27 June 2013 at 9:56pm | IP Logged | |||||
Yeah, OP, if you want to learn Finnish, learn it. I've found Assimil very useful even despite not knowing French. And I've found FSI horrible tbh, the audio is very unpleasant. Not to mention the boredom. It's considered thorough but by the time I got to it I already knew everything from other sources. I've also had a good experience with Teach Yourself Finnish. 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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