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Two Questions about Assimil | ||
Tags: Learning Strategy | Assimil | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| The Aussie Newbie Australia Joined 4851 days ago 10 posts - 11 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 1 of 7 18 August 2011 at 11:04am | IP Logged | ||
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I've got two questions regarding Assimil.
1: Is Assimil: French with Ease enough to use other Assimil French programs, for things such as Thai and Esperanto. 2: How many lessons a day should I be doing with Assimil, what's my max, how long should I go without a lesson? Thanks in advance, also, sorry I couldn't write an essay, the questions were quite simple. Edited by The Aussie on 19 August 2011 at 12:54pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5012 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes  Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 2 of 7 18 August 2011 at 11:35am | IP Logged | ||
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There is nothing wrong about brief posts, I wish I'd be able to create them more often.
1. I don't think it is enough, you'll definitely need to understand French grammar notes etc. And you need to be comfortable enough with French pronunciation to make good use of pronuntiation explanations (at least if you are unable to get everything right from audio only). Using French as a base even though it is not your native language is however definitely possible (I am one of such users) and it can be even viewed as a kind of maintenance of your French but I believe you need to have your French at a quite good level to be comfortable with it and focus fully on your Thai/whatever language you choose. I don't know anything about Thai learning materials but I've read in the forums there is quite a lot of free materials for Esperanto for English speakers and they are of very good quality (I have had a look at them and I believe they are really useful but Esperanto doesn't appeal to me now), perhaps try to look for those. 2. Depends on you. In the beginnings, the lessons will be easy and you can progress fast but at some point it will be harder (for example for my German this point came quite early, around lesson 15) so don't plan you'll be able to go through 5 a day from the start to the end of the book. And remember, in the half you'll begin the active wave which will add to the daily amount of study. Just try and see what works for you. You can change your pace anytime. How long without a lesson? Ideally you should do at least a little bit every day. When it is not possible, try to make your breaks as short as possible. I hope this helped at least a bit. Perhaps someone who tried French based Assimils right after French with Ease will appear and give their view. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Fabrizio Pentaglot Senior Member BelgiumRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5185 days ago 103 posts - 157 votes Speaks: Italian*, EnglishC2, French, SpanishB2, Portuguese | Message 3 of 7 18 August 2011 at 11:59am | IP Logged | ||
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1. In my personal opinion yes, it is definitely possibile as long as you already have a
more than decent grasp of another romance language like Italian or Spanish, for example. Having an approximate knowledge of the French language (cause that's where in my humble opinion the ASSIMIL courses bring you up to) and study another language from scratch using it can be very tricky, thus discouraging. A good command of another romance language might, on the other hand, help you to compensate your lack of knowledge and make your learning experience smoother and then much more effective. 2. 1 single lesson per day is more than enough for me. It approximately takes me 30 minutes to go through it (I just started the active wave, I think I'll have to add 15 minutes or so to my daily study time), but I make sure that I listen to the dialogues as much as I can during the whole day. The more you listen to those audio files, the better is ;) Don't forget to review all the lessons every now and then, I do that randomly without putting too much effort on it and I can still see lots of improvements on my reading and general understanding abilities. Edited by Fabrizio on 18 August 2011 at 12:01pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| AriD2385 Groupie United States Joined 4853 days ago 44 posts - 60 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 4 of 7 18 August 2011 at 4:03pm | IP Logged | ||
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I just started learning Spanish with Assimil and it seems that a lesson per day is the pace the creators designed the program for. I'm still in the passive phase, so maybe it's different when you get more advanced, but I couldn't see splitting the lessons effectively. Just in general, though, it is important to have depth as well as breadth and it does take some amount of time and repetition for things to really sink in. So for whatever my opinon is worth, it seems that it might be better to take the Assimil course at an average pace and supplement with other materials for reinforcement rather than attempting to complete the Assimil course more rapidly.
2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6014 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 5 of 7 19 August 2011 at 10:20am | IP Logged | ||
Definitely not. Aside from the descriptions of grammar (French grammatical terminology is not covered in With Ease), there's the matter of idioms -- Assimil uses a lot of them, and they're different in each book. I used Assimil "Le Catalan" last year, and I still couldn't understand everything in the French, even though I'm currently studying French at university level. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| VityaCo Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 7084 days ago 79 posts - 86 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Russian*, Ukrainian*, English Studies: Spanish, Japanese, French | Message 6 of 7 22 August 2011 at 12:14am | IP Logged | ||
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I think the questions were posted to those who have finished the Assimil French course already and went to study
other languages using French as a base language. In my opinion, one method or a language course will not be enough to master any language. I recommend, at least three different methods at the same time, alternating them weekly, so you will go over the same material again a week later and then again a week later, but from the different prospectives and with the different teaching methods. Edited by VityaCo on 22 August 2011 at 12:17am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4912 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 7 of 7 22 August 2011 at 12:50pm | IP Logged | ||
I think Fabrizio is absolutely right about this. I wouldn't use Assimil for more than one lesson per day, unless you already know a fair bit of French. So if you have thoroughly finished your daily Assimil lesson, and want to study more, I would think using other materials would be the best thing. Listen to "Le journal en français facile" from the RFI website, for example, if you want to continue with immersion. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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