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How can i make the best out of Assimil? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| BelgoHead Senior Member Belgium Joined 6245 days ago 120 posts - 119 votes  Studies: French, English* Studies: Esperanto | Message 1 of 8 05 April 2008 at 8:18pm | IP Logged | ||
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I recently bought Assimil for learners with a good base in vocabularly and grammar.
I would like to use Assimil to the fullest and exploit it as much as i can. Currently I have writing the french dialogue out by memorization mostly i suppose. I plan on putting the sentences on flash cards aswell. and I will ofcourse do the lessons that need completing. Other then how can i best exploit Assimil to my advantage? Regards,Belgohead 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Faraday Senior Member United States Joined 6060 days ago 129 posts - 256 votes Speaks: German* | Message 2 of 8 05 April 2008 at 10:04pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have found that the most important component is to listen as much as you can. Listen, listen, listen, then listen some more.
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| Kubelek Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland chomikuj.pl/Kuba_wal Joined 6794 days ago 415 posts - 528 votes Speaks: Polish*, EnglishC2, French, Spanish Studies: German | Message 3 of 8 06 April 2008 at 5:24am | IP Logged | ||
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That's how I feel too. After I make sure I understand everything in a lesson I start listening to it, until it becomes intenalized.
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| DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 6093 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian | Message 4 of 8 07 April 2008 at 6:58am | IP Logged | ||
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Depending on the Assimil, I'll might write out the dialogue by hand, and annotate it. Then I'll set the track to repeat, go for a walk, and let it repeat till I know every word. I don't write out the exercises, so I'll listen to them, trying to translate them back into English. When I get back from walking, I'll check that I got the translations correct.
On different occasions, I'll play the Assimil recordings, straight through, so I'm going back over earlier lessons. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| jaguar8311 Groupie Canada Joined 6598 days ago 84 posts - 96 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 5 of 8 20 April 2009 at 9:57pm | IP Logged | ||
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I am sorry to revive this thread but I purchased Assimil, been reading through the forum comments and I heard good things about it and the different methods that people use. Before reading the dialogue, should I just listen to the dialogue many times before reading? Is L-R Listening and Reading? and is shadowing just speaking aloud while your reading and listening to the mp3?
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| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7147 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 6 of 8 20 April 2009 at 10:45pm | IP Logged | ||
Check out the Professor's shadowing videos. It will give you a useful starting point. http://www.foreignlanguageexpertise.com/foreign_language_stu dy.html Edited by luke on 20 April 2009 at 10:45pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| zorglub Pentaglot Senior Member France Joined 6942 days ago 441 posts - 504 votes 1 sounds Speaks: French*, English, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: German, Arabic (Written), Turkish, Mandarin | Message 7 of 8 24 April 2009 at 12:42am | IP Logged | ||
What follows is from my ancient webpage , now extinct. Whatever the method, you need an audio-portable device that allows rewinding. You can burn your CDs to MP3 files that you can transfer on an MP3 reader that you'll take everywhere. I started with Spanish , and not knowing of Platiquemos, I started with Assimil (see further what John McWhorter says about it , he is responsible for my starting Assimil. If you are to use Assimil: you'll see the CDs are far from user-friendly. Far from the quality of Pimsleur or Platiquemos CDs that design exercises cleverly. I think that you need to work extensively with the CDs, repeating after the speaker until you're able to: - repeat without interruption with good tone and pronunciation, - while listening (on the flow): ie almost simultaneously. Some call this process "shadowing" the sound track.. - while understanding all you say as you say it. You will not succeed on the first attempts. You'll need to cast an eye on the book to make it. You need a portable device that allows slow rewinding. If you cannot achieve this you'll have to do it more slowly, using the Stop/rewind/Play buttons until you get cramps. But the program is very intelligent and leads to a very good conversation level. You just have to use it "audio-way" much more than they say in the instructions. You will understand how effective it is when you go through the "second wave" . There, you are to translate from your language into the target one: you'll be amazed at how well you do it! Especially if you rehearse with your Cds in your car or wherever you have nothing better to do. You will rarely have better thing to do. Look up shadowing hee : http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=22&PN=1 Look up : http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=22&PN=1 Some standpoints and good instructions on how to efficiently use Assimil can be read in Mr Micheloud's Website Forum. Mr Micheloud himself now came to agree Assimil is not a bad program. Imagine ! Linguistics specialist McWhorter writes here: http://www.edge.org/q2003/q03_mcwhorter.html "For years, I have been amazed at how an obscure series of books published by the Assimil company in Europe can give the solitary learner a decent conversational competence in any language in just six months of home study, so cleverly are the lessons arranged to impart what is really needed to speak the language in real life". Here he repeats:http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/ 000245.html " It always ticked me off that after God knows how many years of French classes I had no idea how to say THAT TASTES LIKE CHICKEN, GET YOUR FEET OFF OF THERE, or STICK OUT YOUR TONGUE. Often we are told that these things are "idioms," but they actually simply require learning usages of certain nouns or verbs that do not line up with how they are used in English. No one considers it a distraction to teach students similar cases like JE M'APPELLE for "My name is" or ME GUSTA for "I like" in Spanish. But for my money, drills should be constructed that put students through similarly everyday necessities like expressing PICK THAT UP, PUT THAT DOWN, GO ALL THE WAY TO THE END, COME DOWN FROM THERE, STICK IT IN THERE and HE LEFT RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE MEETING (ask someone who claims to "know" a language how to say these things and you easily separate the men from the boys!). The occasional teaching book that takes a chance and gives learners real sentences heartens me that language pedagogy can improve here. Lewis Glinert's marvelous MODERN HEBREW kicks right off with sentences like HEY, BENNY, IS THAT YOU? IT'S ME AGAIN and COME OVER TO THIS LINE, IT'S MOVING. Wonderful! The little-known ASSIMIL book series is also good with this -- spend the half-hour a day they recommend and you actually come out able to lope along with shambling effectiveness in actual conversations, because they try their best to give students words and constructions they will actually need (actually beware the Arabic books, which are a sad exception -- back to the aunts and spoons). " I do agree with this ; John McWhorter convinced me I should try Assimil, which I had heard of as a bad method. His book "The power of Babel" is very interesting, by the way, if you're fond of languages. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Hebe Newbie United States Joined 5624 days ago 9 posts - 7 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Modern Hebrew | Message 8 of 8 05 May 2009 at 8:52pm | IP Logged | ||
I checked out this book and what a great reference! Thanks a lot. I also recommend it. Edited by Hebe on 05 May 2009 at 9:29pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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