|
 |
Assimil question | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| watupboy101 Diglot Groupie United States Joined 4902 days ago 65 posts - 81 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 1 of 8 15 August 2012 at 5:21am | IP Logged | ||
|
Right now I am on lesson 78 of Assimil's New Spanish With Ease and quite honestly I'm getting bored, I still love
learning Spanish but in more authentic ways such as watching movies, skype with natives, reading books, etc. Is Assimil worth the pain of pushing through the next half? Or should I be okay moving on to native materials? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| habadzi Super Polyglot Senior Member Greece Joined 5573 days ago 70 posts - 106 votes Speaks: Greek*, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian, Hindi, French, German, Italian, Ancient Greek, Modern Hebrew, Arabic (classical), Indonesian, Bengali, Albanian, Nepali | Message 2 of 8 16 August 2012 at 12:00am | IP Logged | ||
|
The better you learn the boring stuff, the easier it will be to do the interesting stuff. Otherwise you will just stress yourself. Stay with assimil.
8 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 6150 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian | Message 3 of 8 16 August 2012 at 1:37pm | IP Logged | ||
I'm afraid I have to disagree. If you feel comfortable moving onto native materials then do. You'll need to move onto native materials eventually, so I'd start early. I completed Assimil Spanish and found the poor translations had slowed me down. Other Assimil courses have better translations, but the Spanish with Ease course doesn't have good ones. The translations seemed to get worse as the course progressed. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5261 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 4 of 8 16 August 2012 at 3:22pm | IP Logged | ||
|
Courses aren't everything. Too many people spend too much time "studying" and not enough time learning how to use the language in the real world. Start learning Spanish as it is spoken and written in the Spanish-speaking world. Do get yourself a good Spanish grammar book and use it. Write, speak, read, listen- LEARN!
4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4687 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 5 of 8 17 August 2012 at 1:07am | IP Logged | ||
|
I've struggled to stick with Assimil French since getting to the 70s in the passive wave. I had been doing a lesson a day, and then I missed several weeks and couldn't get inspired to go back to it until very recently. Each lesson is incredibly useful, but around lesson 70 I got good enough at reading and listening to really start enjoying reading and listening to "real" sources. The good news is, you can continue to learn plenty by jumping to books, newspapers, podcasts and the like.
I think it would be very useful to finish, especially to get some explanations and lessons in more grammar concepts, but if it's a choice between drudgery and boredom (which could lead to neglecting or quitting studying) and enjoying yourself (leading to increased study) the choice is clear. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| fanatic Octoglot Senior Member Australia speedmathematics.com Joined 7145 days ago 1152 posts - 1818 votes Speaks: English*, German, French, Afrikaans, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Dutch Studies: Swedish, Norwegian, Polish, Modern Hebrew, Malay, Mandarin, Esperanto | Message 6 of 8 17 August 2012 at 3:01am | IP Logged | ||
|
I remember a teacher in primary school telling us that you don't have to finish a book you find boring - even if it is a classic. I haven't given up reading many books once I have started but if I find a book boring I dump it. Sometimes I have come back later and finished the book and enjoyed it.
You are not obliged to finish an Assimil course. You are not obliged to enjoy it. I don't find Assimil courses equally interesting or enjoyable. People on this forum are enraptured by one Assimil course that I have been unable to finish. Our tastes and interests are different. I used the old Spanish Without Toil and thoroughly enjoyed it. The material was interesting and I got sucked in. I don't know the With Ease course. It may be totally different and I might not like it. If you decide not to continue with Assimil then follow your other methods and keep the Assimil for reference. I sometimes revise the revision lessons (each seventh lesson) to remind myself of the grammar. Do it your way. 5 persons have 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 7 of 8 17 August 2012 at 3:26am | IP Logged | ||
|
Personally, the whole point of Assimil is to get me to the point where I can use native
materials with pleasure, and carry on a rudimentary conversation. It also provides a nice daily structure and saves me from having to worry or plan. If you're Skyping, reading and watching movies, there's no reason you need to finish Assimil if you don't feel like it. You might want to grab a cheap, thin grammar book for looking up stuff that you don't understand. It's perfectly possible to work with native materials from day 1—AJATT works a bit like this, as does Gordon's Old Norse. It's just that native materials are a bit overwhelming on day one: I made it through a couple of sentences of Old Norse in 3 hours, including a half-hour trying to look up a single verb in the dictionary. So it's nice to have a tidy, well-organized course like Assimil in the beginning, and move on to something else when you're ready. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| sfuqua Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4764 days ago 581 posts - 977 votes Speaks: English*, Hawaiian, Tagalog Studies: Spanish | Message 8 of 8 20 August 2012 at 3:44am | IP Logged | ||
|
Lesson 78 is a significant place in Spanish with Ease. You've just completed the hardest
lessons in the book, lessons 63-77. It get easier from here on. They're not shoveling a new tense at you every day. They're going to spend time on the conditional and the subjunctive, and then spend time on irregular verbs. It's useful, but why not start some native speaker material as well? You could do Assimil every other day, or just drop it and restart it when and if you feel the need. I'm on lesson 84 in Spanish with Ease, and I'm feeling a similar hunger to start some native materials. Assimil is great material, but there is nothing magic about it. I'm going to complete Spanish with Ease myself, but that's just me. I may start a novel on the side while I finish up the active wave. 1 person has voted this message useful |
If you wish to post a reply to this topic you must first login. If you are not already registered you must first register
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
