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FSI French or Assimil French | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| Talib Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6660 days ago 171 posts - 205 votes  Speaks: English*, Arabic (classical) Studies: Arabic (Egyptian) | Message 1 of 21 13 April 2013 at 2:56pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm just starting French. I'm primarily interested in using French for speaking, but
reading would definitely be a bonus. I tried Assimil French in the past, but it was too difficult for me especially in terms of connecting the written word with the pronunciation. For that reason, I am thinking of starting with the FSI French Fast course before moving onto other courses. After finishing the FSI Fast course, would you recommend the other FSI courses or Assimil with Ease? Edited by Talib on 13 April 2013 at 2:58pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 5129 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 2 of 21 13 April 2013 at 3:57pm | IP Logged | ||
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If your goal is primarily speaking, why not try something like Michel Thomas, or even
Pimsleur? They both can probably be found at your local library. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Talib Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6660 days ago 171 posts - 205 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (classical) Studies: Arabic (Egyptian) | Message 3 of 21 13 April 2013 at 4:41pm | IP Logged | ||
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I would have to see if my library can borrow one of those courses from another library. When I went yesterday, I saw that it does have Assimil French with Ease and a Living Language Course. Edited by Talib on 13 April 2013 at 7:30pm 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 4 of 21 13 April 2013 at 5:20pm | IP Logged | ||
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If, as you say, one of your goals is "connecting the written word with the
pronunciation", then Michel Thomas and Pimsleur are not your best options. They both teach a bit of reading skills, but not enough. If you found Assimil to be too difficult on its own, you are right to begin with something more basic, and then move on. But why ask questions about what you should do after the FSI Fast course before you have even started it? Work through it, and if you really like it, then the other FSI courses are the obvious next steps. Alongside the FSI Fast course, you should check out Duolingo. It is pretty fun, quite good (for the basics anyway), and it will help you with French spelling right from the start. Edited by Jeffers on 13 April 2013 at 5:21pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Talib Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6660 days ago 171 posts - 205 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (classical) Studies: Arabic (Egyptian) | Message 5 of 21 14 April 2013 at 3:53am | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks for the tip. I was wondering how advanced must one be in the language to be able to read texts with correct pronunciation. Does this take a lot of work?
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| mike245 Triglot Senior Member Hong Kong Joined 6971 days ago 303 posts - 408 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Cantonese Studies: French, German, Mandarin, Khmer | Message 6 of 21 14 April 2013 at 9:16am | IP Logged | ||
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I am still learning French, so take this with a grain of salt, but I think French takes a
bit of experience to learn to read correctly. If you're just starting out, I would suggest you considering focusing on speaking/listening until you develop good pronunciation habits before you move onto reading texts. There are so many silent letters, nasal sounds, closed/open sounds, etc., that it might be a good idea to keep listening to an audio intensive method until you get a good feel for how to pronounce things, and then move on to reading. Otherwise, you run a risk of developing poor pronunciation habits based on trying to sound word out based on how they are written, rather than how they are actually pronounced in French. Edited by mike245 on 14 April 2013 at 9:17am 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Talib Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6660 days ago 171 posts - 205 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (classical) Studies: Arabic (Egyptian) | Message 7 of 21 14 April 2013 at 2:06pm | IP Logged | ||
That makes sense. How much study does it take to get to the point of having good pronunciation habits? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5531 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 8 of 21 14 April 2013 at 3:05pm | IP Logged | ||
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For English speakers, the trickiest bits of French pronunciation are:
- The French R. This isn't essential for being understood, but it's probably the single biggest giveaway of a foreign accent. - The nasal vowels, of which in, on and an are the most important. Some accents still distinguish between in and un, but the Parisians don't, and it's fading in many other regions. - The front rounded vowels. These are the equivalents of the French sounds i, é and è, except that your lips are rounded. - The distinction between open and closed O sounds. This is somewhat less essential than the others mentioned here, because it's very rare that mixing these two sounds up will lead to confusion. For more information, see French phonology on Wikipedia. To actually hear the sounds, try these interactive IPA charts. I think it's worth listening to these sounds, trying to hear the differences, and doing your best to pronounce them correctly. But you don't need to get them perfect right away; this is an ongoing process as you learn. Simply knowing what all the sounds are and practicing them a bit will give your brain something to latch onto later on. Using Assimil (if you want to try again) As for Assimil, it can really help with build a strong connection between written and spoken French, and—if you pay attention when you listen and repeat—it can help a lot with pronunciation. For most people, one of the tricks to Assimil is to take the passive wave easy, and relax. If you spend 20 to 30 minutes per day listening to the recording of that day's lesson, reading the French text, and reading the English text, then you will very likely see really dramatic improvements after 30 days. You don't need to "study" as such—this is supposed to be pretty relaxed, and you're mostly just learning through easy, repeated exposure. (You don't need to do any brute-force memorization, unless you're really into that sort thing, in which case I recommend typing interesting sentences and their translations into Anki. But this is strictly optional.) If you're one of those people who really needs detailed instructions, try these Assimil instructions. If you're one of the people who loves grammar and really needs to see the "big picture" all laid out, try the excellent and very cheap Essential French Grammar. If you really like grammar workbooks, look into the Grammaire Progressive Du Français, Niveau Débutant. This is written in a really easy French, so you'll probably need to spend a month on Assimil before you can make sense of it. But again, this stuff is all optional—use it if you feel a desire to do so, or just blow it off. At the end of 30 days, go back and review lesson 1. If you're like most people, you'll say, "Oh, wow, that's so much easier!" If that's how you feel, then I recommend finishing the course, which should be enough to get you conversational and allow you to more-or-less read easier native texts. But if at the end of 30 daily lessons, lesson 1 is still really hard, definitely try another course. If you finish Assimil, you should have a pretty decent ability to read unknown French words and pronounce them correctly, just through sheer exposure to matching text and audio. French pronunciation looks intimidating at first, but it's far more regular than English pronunciation once you internalize some rules, which can be done by exposure. Other fine courses I concur with the recommendations of FSI French, Pimsleur and Michel Thomas, and I'd like to also mention French in Action. I've never used any of these courses myself, but they all have excellent reputations around here. What I recommend is picking one course that you really like as the backbone of your studies, and doing it on a regular and consistent basis. Some people can use 6 courses all at once and actually finish them, but most people just end up studying the same basic topics 6 times and never make it to the advanced stuff. So if you focus on finishing one course, and maybe use some others as supplements, you're more likely make it out of the beginner levels quickly. 6 persons have voted this message useful |
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