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Learning through Assimil | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| PEGACS Diglot Newbie United Kingdom Joined 4750 days ago 12 posts - 12 votes Speaks: English*, Persian Studies: German, Mandarin, Arabic (Egyptian) | Message 1 of 7 28 May 2012 at 8:56pm | IP Logged |
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Hey guys
I have been posting a lot of question regarding Assimil French and Spanish and I realised some hidden feelings. I realised that I really don’t want to do French because I am not that passionate about it. Il ove Spanish for many reasons – especially since it is a good gateway into Portuguese (and I love Brazilian Portuguese) But I realised the main reason I wanted to do French was because of the Assimil courses. They have so many levels of the Spanish/German etc - They do the business ones, the colloquial ones (such as the Arabic ones) But the English base only does the “with ease” (I know it has “using Spanish” but that went out of print a long time ago and it is impossible to find online) – So my language fanatic side is telling me to learn the French Assimil (all the courses including “on the road” and “business”) then use the French base to learn Spanish since the French base has both the beginner and advanced, as well as a wealth of “on the road” material and business Spanish. Do you think what I am planning is a ridiculous idea??? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| tractor Tetraglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5454 days ago 1349 posts - 2292 votes  Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, Catalan Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 2 of 7 28 May 2012 at 9:34pm | IP Logged |
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Do Spanish first if that's what you really want to learn. You can do both Spanish with Ease and the older Spanish
without Toil from an English base. Then learn French if you're still very interested in Assimil. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5533 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 3 of 7 28 May 2012 at 9:40pm | IP Logged |
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You should clearly study Spanish. :-) And I say this as
someone who's fond of both French and Assimil. A language is just too big to learn for any reason other than passion or necessity. Also, don't worry about the advanced Assimil courses. They're nice to have lying around when you're bored at the intermediate level, and just want some nice structure for a bit. But Assimil is basically just comprehensible input with L1 and L2 transcripts, and you can find comprehensible input pretty easily at the intermediate level. Learn what you want to learn, or what gets you paid more, or what lets you speak with people who matter to you. Or learn something that you have a mad inexplicable crush on. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5767 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 4 of 7 28 May 2012 at 10:11pm | IP Logged |
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Do Spanish. And when you're good at it, and still can't get enough of other languages and Assimil, you can always add French. (It's much easier to do that with a solid background in Spanish when you aren't that motivated to learn French for its own sake - and if you're as lucky as me, that'll help you over the dry stretch until you do want to learn French for its own sake.) Edited by Bao on 28 May 2012 at 10:14pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6598 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 5 of 7 28 May 2012 at 10:19pm | IP Logged |
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Assimil can be useful even if you don't speak the base language. You can translate the dialogues on your own and google whatever confuses you (for popular languages most of your questions have already been asked by someone else on the internet) and/or ask here:)
Also, when your Spanish is good it makes much more sense to use Portuguese coursebooks for Spanish speakers, as they will highlight the difference between the languages. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| sillygoose1 Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 4637 days ago 566 posts - 814 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish, French Studies: German, Latin | Message 6 of 7 28 May 2012 at 11:06pm | IP Logged |
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don't study a language if you don't like it, it will be a very long 6 months.
4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5263 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 7 of 7 28 May 2012 at 11:30pm | IP Logged |
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Great advice, everyone! Assimil is good but it isn't the begin-all and end-all in language learning. Courses in general will only take you so far and you shouldn't expect them to take you to C1 proficiency. When you reach that intermediate level, it's time to take the training wheels off the bike and start riding on your own. For me, it's down to learning how the language works in the real world. The next level course may provide the "comfort" of structure but, to me, it is an illusion of comfort that just delays entry into the real world where the language lives and breathes. Isn't that why you want to learn to speak- so you can speak to people and not to yourself or an mp3 player?
I wouldn't learn French just to perfect my Spanish with an Assimil French based course. I'd learn Spanish to perfect my Spanish. If you just have to have a course, don't let the fact that you don't speak French stop you from using Assimil, as @Serpent says, you just have to get creative. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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