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Assimil Adventure - French log | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| gsusk Newbie United States Joined 4990 days ago 2 posts - 2 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 1 of 3 19 March 2011 at 7:19pm | IP Logged | ||
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So, I've decided to dedicate my immense amount of free time to learning French, as I plan to begin a French major in university in August. I took French in high school and thoroughly enjoyed the language, but I did not enjoy the teaching style, so I never really progressed past the stage of regurgitating answers to make an A on exam.
As such, I'd like to get a good foundation of French, in hopes that I can exempt myself from Elementary French 1001 & 1002, as well as Intermediate French 2001 & 2002, so I can jump into the good stuff in university. I've calculated that I've got about seven months to achieve this goal and roughly 3-4 hours a day to dedicate to it. As for the materials I'm using, I've chosen three courses to form the daily backbone of my autodidactic regimine. Assimil's New French With Ease, Assimil's older French without toil, and the entire spectrum of French in Action materials. This puts my study time at around two hours a day for FIA and one hour a day for Assimil during the passive phase, with two hours a day dedicated when I have to do both phases of both Assimils. It's going to be quite busy, but I've nothing else that requires my time, so it should be doable. I'll probably have to dedicate a bit more time to French without toil once the lessons progress, as it seems to get pretty steep. We'll cross that bridge once we come to it, though. Now, onto progress Today, I did the following: Assimil With Ease, Lesson 4: 30 minutes Assimil Without Toil, Lesson 4: 30 minutes French In Action Lesson 2: 2 hours Total Hours Today: 3 Total Hours To Date: 6 As for how I use these materials, it's more or less how they were designed. I am doing one lesson a day from each Assimil course. I just make sure I understand the dialogue, then I shadow it for thirty minutes and do the exercises. When the active wave starts, I plan to write each dialogue by hand during the translation, as well as throwing some sentences in Anki. For French in Action, I'm doing one lesson a day as well as completing the corresponding workbook and audio lessons. I also read over the textbook to get a chance to see the written word. I'll be able to complete French in Action around three times. The second and third time, I'll devote less time to completing the workbook exercises and more time to shadowing/copying the textbook aloud and using Anki. I started FIA a bit later than the others because it took some time for the workbooks to arrive in the post. I thoroughly enjoyed the first lesson, though. I think I can keep this level of progress going. I space the learning throughout the day so that it's not too much at once. I don't have many complaints, but I wish my audio for French Without Toil was of higher quality. It's still useable, but barely. I hope to reach a good level by August/September. Only time will tell how good it goes, though. Edited by gsusk on 19 March 2011 at 7:24pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Adrean TAC 2010 Winner Senior Member France adrean83.wordpress.c Joined 6159 days ago 348 posts - 411 votes  Speaks: FrenchC1 | Message 2 of 3 19 March 2011 at 11:16pm | IP Logged | ||
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Welcome to the forum Gsuk.
It looks like you've got a really good grasp of the tools available out there. I really hope you can continue to post and try to meet your lofty goals. One piece of advice I can give you which you may hear from others is to get the Michel Thomas courses available. It may be a different approach because you're not sitting with a book or at your computer. You can just put it on your mp3 device and listen away. For me it's best at night whilst lying in bed before sleep when distractions are minimal. Well best of luck to you. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| gsusk Newbie United States Joined 4990 days ago 2 posts - 2 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 3 of 3 20 March 2011 at 7:08pm | IP Logged | ||
Thanks very much for your advice and words of encouragement, I'll definitely look into Michel Thomas. Progress today: Assimil With Ease, Lesson 5: 30 minutes Assimil Without Toil, Lesson 5: 30 minutes French In Action Lesson 3: 2 hours Total Hours Today: 3 Total Hours To Date: 9 Things are going pretty normally and I enjoy both Assimil and FIA. I've been thinking about my goal of exempting out of the first four levels of French, and I think it's quite doable if I continue this pace. I've had a look at the syllabi for the courses and they seem quite elementary in nature and I suspect that my autodidactic regimine is far more efficient than university coursework at this point. I do worry about vocabulary, as the thematic approach as used in university courses seems to be lacking in Assimil. I suspect that FIA may counter this as it was designed for both academic and self study, so I imagine it'll help me learn more of the vocabulary that someone would in a class, as well as more 'real-life' vocabulary. In any case, I may start going through Mastering French vocabulary soon. I spoke to the French department chair at the university I'll be attending and the exemption is based on an oral interview with the professor in French. It all sounds doable. I've got TV5monde on my television, but I'm not at the level where it is all that comprehensible to me, yet. I hope it will be soon, as it'd be great to just be able to use the language and count that toward some study time. I hope that by June, TV5 will be more usable to me. I've got a lot of motivation because exempting from these classes will allow me to study abroad in France for a year in 2012. I hope to be quite fluent by that point so that I can reap maximum benefit during my year abroad. So, I guess that makes my goal to exempt lower division French courses by September, 2011 and to have a relatively fluent level by September, 2012. Edited by gsusk on 20 March 2011 at 7:14pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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