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Assimil: My first thoughts

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21 messages over 3 pages: 1 2 3  Next >>
christian
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5251 days ago

111 posts - 135 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish, Japanese, German

 
 Message 1 of 21
03 February 2011 at 12:53am | IP Logged 
I just thought I would give a quick throw-down of how my Assimil studies with German
are going. I just finished lesson 12 today and I must say that it is very easy and very
addictive I might add, to learn German. I feel as though I have learned more in almost
two weeks than I would in several months in any high school class. To give my routine:

1. Read German text aloud
2. Read English text aloud
3. Read each German sentence then the English sentence to see similarities and to
figure out which word is which.
4. Listen to the audio while reading the German.
5. Listen to the audio while reading the English
6. Repeat step 3 while trying to translate from English to German.
7. Once I feel that I have fully mastered the story, I do the Ubung and the activities.
8. I then look at the English text and try to translate it into German aloud. Once I
have done this several times I am done.
9. I make flashcards from simple 3x5 notebook cards of words I kept forgetting or
pronouncing incorrectly.

I think the most important part is having interest in the language. I find German
fascinating because of the history (yes the evil dreaded history).

I highly recommend this program. I am a beginner language learner. If I can, anyone
can.
4 persons have voted this message useful



Elexi
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 5566 days ago

938 posts - 1840 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: French, German, Latin

 
 Message 2 of 21
03 February 2011 at 8:58am | IP Logged 
What version are you using With Ease or Without Toil?

Edited by Elexi on 03 February 2011 at 8:58am

1 person has voted this message useful



Normunds
Pentaglot
Groupie
Switzerland
Joined 5965 days ago

86 posts - 112 votes 
Speaks: Latvian*, French, English, Russian, German
Studies: Mandarin, Indonesian

 
 Message 3 of 21
03 February 2011 at 10:38am | IP Logged 
christian wrote:

1. Read German text aloud
2. Read English text aloud
3. Read each German sentence then the English sentence to see similarities and to
figure out which word is which.
4. Listen to the audio while reading the German.
5. Listen to the audio while reading the English
6. Repeat step 3 while trying to translate from English to German.
7. Once I feel that I have fully mastered the story, I do the Ubung and the activities.
8. I then look at the English text and try to translate it into German aloud. Once I
have done this several times I am done.
9. I make flashcards from simple 3x5 notebook cards of words I kept forgetting or
pronouncing incorrectly.

I think the most important part is having interest in the language. I find German
fascinating because of the history (yes the evil dreaded history).

I highly recommend this program. I am a beginner language learner. If I can, anyone
can.


Is it me or you are proceeding very differently from what Assimil suggests? So "I highly recommend this program." means you like their content, even if you use it differently than suggested? I just wonder because I'm in a similar situation - I also modify their recordings and otherwise ignore their advice. But still like the material :-) Well I'm doing only Assimil courses based on French, but that's not supposed to make difference, does it? French ones must be even better.

Edited by Normunds on 03 February 2011 at 10:39am

2 persons have voted this message useful



magictom123
Senior Member
United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5594 days ago

272 posts - 365 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Italian, French

 
 Message 4 of 21
03 February 2011 at 12:00pm | IP Logged 
So aren't you bothering with the passive and active waves if you are already translating
from the beginning. I believe Luca the Italian polyglot does something similar. I
myself have followed the 2 wave approach with my Italian with ease course but I am
tempted to use a different technique when I get around to using my German with ease
course.

Do you think as the dialogues get longer and more grammatically complex, you will still
be able to spend the required time to 'master' each lesson in one go?
2 persons have voted this message useful



christian
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5251 days ago

111 posts - 135 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish, Japanese, German

 
 Message 5 of 21
03 February 2011 at 10:30pm | IP Logged 
You guys are making me think. What should I be doing in the passive phase? I really don't know what my
passive goals should be so I just resort to thinking I should learn the whole text. What is my goal?
3 persons have voted this message useful



magictom123
Senior Member
United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5594 days ago

272 posts - 365 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Italian, French

 
 Message 6 of 21
04 February 2011 at 12:05am | IP Logged 
The idea of the passive wave is to understand the
dialogues so far as to knowing roughly what is
happening within them. I don't think the point of the
passive wave is to have memorized every sentence and/
or every word. I believe the idea of the active wave is
that things will have sunk in with ease over time rather
than using rote memory or constant repetition from the
get go. Of course, people use the courses in a myriad of
different ways with varying results.

2 persons have voted this message useful



christian
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5251 days ago

111 posts - 135 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish, Japanese, German

 
 Message 7 of 21
04 February 2011 at 12:24am | IP Logged 
For today's lesson (13) I did not try to memorize, instead I
focused on reptition of the audio and reading out loud. I would
then look at the German and read out loud in English a pretty
good translation. I did not try to go from English ti German
though. It seems to have a taken a big stress of my mind to not
try to learn each word. I will try this until the active phase.

Btw, this is the latest version of German with ease. The one with
the cube.
3 persons have voted this message useful



staf250
Pentaglot
Senior Member
Belgium
emmerick.be
Joined 5698 days ago

352 posts - 414 votes 
Speaks: French, Dutch*, Italian, English, German
Studies: Arabic (Written)

 
 Message 8 of 21
04 February 2011 at 1:04pm | IP Logged 
Does the first lesson begin with:
"Herr Ober, der Tee ist kalt."
So we will know about the edition, thanks.


2 persons have voted this message useful



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