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Assimil plus FSI plus Grammaire book? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| maromad89 Triglot Newbie Argentina Joined 4679 days ago 19 posts - 22 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2, French Studies: German | Message 1 of 9 10 April 2012 at 7:01am | IP Logged | ||
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Hello people, this is my first post in the forum so I will present myself. I am Mariano
from Argentina and last year I started reading some very interesting posts in this forum. However, this time I need to ask you a direct question regarding my French learning strategy. I am a complete beginner in the world of French (maybe with the sole advantage of knowing Spanish, another romance language) and I wanted to learn French as fast as possible. At first, I started using Assimil Francais with ease, and although I really found it funny and entertaining, I wanted to complement it with something more strict, with grammar drills maybe, so I followed some advice from this forum and also started Grammaire Francaise Debutant and I am doing it along with my beloved Assimil. As I really want to advance as fast as possible and to have an overall good preparation for oral, pronounciation, vocabulary knowledge, listening and reading comprehension skills, I was wondering If it would be worth it to add FSI Basic French to my strategy of learning, ...maybe doing one lesson of Assimil every day plus alternatively (one day each) complementing it with one Unit of Grammaire francaise debutant or FSI Basic French, would be a wise option? What do you think? In addition, I think it is important to say that I will only have approximately 1h or 1h30m each day to work with the methods although I can also listen to audio tapes on my MP3 for 1 extra hour each day. What do you think, is it a waste of time to do both Grammaire francaise debutant book AND FSI along with Assimil? Can you help me choosing the right combination? Edited by maromad89 on 10 April 2012 at 7:15am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5007 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes  Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 2 of 9 10 April 2012 at 1:14pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think it is a really good combination.
Because 1.I'm not sure how much grammar and to what detail does FSI cover, even though it could be more than debutant level of the grammar book (which one do you use? there are more options more or less suiting to your description) 2. FSI is wonderful, but can be boring. It wouldn't be nice to catch yourself not in a mood to study grammar because it would mean the FSI I think with one hour a day or more, this combination will get you far really soon. Just don't be shy to add more listening (or reading) material as well to keep having fun, to practice and to see your progress quite easily. :-) Good luck. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| maromad89 Triglot Newbie Argentina Joined 4679 days ago 19 posts - 22 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2, French Studies: German | Message 3 of 9 10 April 2012 at 5:59pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thank you very much for your answer Cavesa, the title of the Grammar book I am using
is: "Grammaire Progressive du Francais, avec 400 exercices - Niveau Débutant" (CLE International). With your last paragraph "I think with one hour a day or more..." you mean adding podcasts, reading newspapers, etc? or maybe something like "French in Action" (which I also have available)? After this initial plan, my idea was to continue with "Assimil Using French" and with the following volumes of "Grammaire Francaise, niveau Intermédiare and then niveau Avancé" while I continued with FSI French Basic, and after that start with native material like newspapers, radio, TV news, etc. Any additional suggestion from you or any other member of the post will be great, thank you very much!!!
Edited by maromad89 on 10 April 2012 at 6:03pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5007 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 4 of 9 10 April 2012 at 7:48pm | IP Logged | ||
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That's the grammar I thought you meant. It is a really good one, I have used the
following two volumes. It doesn't cover all the points needed for an advanced learner but it is near to it. And rich in examples :-) Podcasts, French in Action, newspapers, graded readers whatever you like. It will help you prevent burn-out (which is quite a real danger when you get past the exciting "brand new language" phase and even more importantly, you will learn to use the language. You will learn to think in it. Your idea about how to continue sounds very reasonable. I personally like the Vocabulaire progressif as well and have found it really helpful. And a lot of native materials is the best thing, of course. A great point to start are BDs (french comic books). Francophone literature has a great tradition in those and you will surely find something interesting in this genre (there are classics in BD form, even poetry, there is sci-fi, horror stories, non-fiction,... nearly whatever you can think of). 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| maromad89 Triglot Newbie Argentina Joined 4679 days ago 19 posts - 22 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2, French Studies: German | Message 5 of 9 10 April 2012 at 8:06pm | IP Logged | ||
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That is very interesting advice for the aim of not getting bored, so I think I will take
it and start combining the methods with the materials you recommend. That was exactly the kind of answer I was expecting, so I would like to thank you once again, Cavesa! I hope I can help you with something in the future, of course I am only fluent in English and Spanish so I fear I cannot be of much help :(. Edited by maromad89 on 10 April 2012 at 8:28pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4907 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 6 of 9 11 April 2012 at 4:15pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have been working through Assimil as well, on lesson 57 now, and have been doing one almost every day. Now that I'm on the active phase, I sometimes take a whole day's Assimil time working on the active lesson, rather than working on it for 5 minutes at the end of a passive lesson. I occasionally watch FIA, and I am also working through Phase I of Pimsleur (thanks to my local library). I think I will get myself a copy of the Grammar Progressive as well, to round out my studies.
It might help you to know that the publisher of your Grammaire Progressive is CLE, who also have a lot of reading/listening material available. They have a lot of low vocabulary readers, which can be bought with or without an audio CD. For example, I have Maigret et la jeune morte, which says it has 600 words. I plan to begin tackling books like this one once I have finished the passive wave of Assimil. The best way to find suitable CLE books is to find them on their website, then order them from Amazon.fr. The section of the catalog I looked through is here. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Elexi Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5563 days ago 938 posts - 1840 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 7 of 9 11 April 2012 at 4:27pm | IP Logged | ||
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An alternative series to Grammaire Progressive du Francais is Grammaire en dialogues -
also by CLE - It currently comes in three volumes A1-B1 that cover the same ground as Grammaire Progressive du Francais to the intermediate volume and has a dialogue and the answers in the back (Grammaire Progressive du Francais requires you to buy a separate answer book). Both are excellent, however. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| maromad89 Triglot Newbie Argentina Joined 4679 days ago 19 posts - 22 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2, French Studies: German | Message 8 of 9 11 April 2012 at 4:49pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thank you very much for your suggestions Flexi and Jeffers. I am going to take a look at
the additional books you are recommending me, to see If they can add a new approach to the way I am tackling French. I wonder If anyone is using the same combination (FSI+Assimil+Grammar Book) in parallel and to which success... 1 person has voted this message useful |
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