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Assimil with Prompts | ||
Tags: Learning Technique/Method | Assimil | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| chrisphillips71 Groupie United States Joined 5239 days ago 64 posts - 86 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 1 of 15 31 January 2011 at 2:40am | IP Logged | ||
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I don't have as much time to study Spanish as I like. However, I try to make the most of
my commute every day (40 minutes each way). I am currently working on Platiquemos, which I think is great. However, I am also trying to use Assimil. However, Assimil does not lend itself well to commute studying. Thus, I have come up with an idea. I am using audacity to insert English prompts before the spoken Spanish. That way, I can study Assimil completely in my car. I am curious if anyone else has tried this method. If so, do you have any tips on making the recordings that have saved you time? Thanks. Chris Phillips 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Normunds Pentaglot Groupie Switzerland Joined 5967 days ago 86 posts - 112 votes Speaks: Latvian*, French, English, Russian, German Studies: Mandarin, Indonesian | Message 2 of 15 31 January 2011 at 7:49pm | IP Logged | ||
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I split them up and add pauses and make several repetitions. I've written a program to help do that; I started with Audacity but it was too slow process and error prone. I think with prompts it becomes pretty much pimsleur like. It's a lot of work and recording becomes less valuable as you cannot listen many times (too much English), and the English does not let concentrate on the target language - 2 things I hate about Pimsleur.
That's what I really like about Assimil that they have pure target language recordings, no jerks talking with think accent and making stupid jokes like in MT, no music and pep-talk like in a bunch of other "relaxed" courses such as Pods. It means of course you still sometimes need to spend a time with a book - but no more than you would spend adding prompts. So I listen in this way both to the new lessons - I listen at least a couple of times before I open the book and find out what it actually says, and to the old lessons that I already know what they are saying - just repeating, trying to distinguish out all words and speaking myself in pauses. Then at some time I have to find time to go through the text at least once - maybe listening to the recording, maybe not. But I always keep this book session short compared to repeated listening. In fact I process sometimes in this way other courses such as FSI and either deliberately remove English speaker or leave them say their stuff once and repeat several times the target language construction (maybe splitting it up in bite-size pieces). Assimil simply got very good texts IMO, so it's pretty hard to beat them. Everybody seems to be very happy about Platiquemous, but it is basically a commercial course based on free FSI material, right? Edited by Normunds on 31 January 2011 at 7:54pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| chrisphillips71 Groupie United States Joined 5239 days ago 64 posts - 86 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 3 of 15 01 February 2011 at 12:14am | IP Logged | ||
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Your post is well taken Normuds, but I still like my idea.
I am trying to convince myself that I can produce the Assimil sentences, which I understand to be the goal of the second part of the course. The only way that I practice this during my commute is to add English prompts. I have thus far added English prompts to 4 lessons. My concern, however, is with how long it takes me to add the prompts (i.e. my time could be better spent actually studying). That is part of the reason for my post and curiosity if anybody else has used this method. Anybody else have ideas? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Andrew C Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom naturalarabic.com Joined 5193 days ago 205 posts - 350 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written) | Message 4 of 15 01 February 2011 at 1:14am | IP Logged | ||
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Sorry to not answer your question, but I second Normuds' post - why spend time making the recording less useful?
Instead of using the English as a prompt, why not try and use the Spanish itself as a prompt - each line prompting the next? I'm sure that will be much more useful and enjoyable in the long run. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Normunds Pentaglot Groupie Switzerland Joined 5967 days ago 86 posts - 112 votes Speaks: Latvian*, French, English, Russian, German Studies: Mandarin, Indonesian | Message 5 of 15 01 February 2011 at 7:30am | IP Logged | ||
Exactly the point that I forgot to mention. In my understanding this "translation element" of the second wave is the weakest point in Assimil. Well in their suggested methodology. This is something you should not do, IMO. The less source language the better. I disregard it and as Andrew points out - in the first wave just repeat in pauses, and in the second wave use each preceding as a prompt to finish off the sentence or to answer. Actually working like this, the waves become a bit mixed... on re-runs you might easily mix your response depending if you feel you still need to repeat what is said or you feel comfortable to produce response/complete the sentence. Edited by Normunds on 01 February 2011 at 7:33am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Elexi Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5568 days ago 938 posts - 1840 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 6 of 15 01 February 2011 at 11:14am | IP Logged | ||
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Chris, I think you idea sounds good. Unlike the immersion zealots above, I am not blessed with the ability
to just pick up a language by listening to the target language over and over again (although that is an essential part of the learning package). I find that the grammar translation aspect of the second wave to be a useful tool for fixing word order and grammatical structures in my internal voice, appreciating idiomatic differences and uncovering mistakes (normally with stupid things like prepositions). In fact I find immersion in a self teaching method to be of little value unless accompanied with something like a translation exercise. If it was me, I would use audacity or reaper to record each sentence of the English translation of Assimil in the first wave and insert it with a gap for each sentence of the Assimil target language (newer MP3 based Assimil courses come with sentence by sentence recordings as well as the whole dialogue) - I would then use the English as a prompt during the active wave - that way the English is reinforcing the passive wave and giving you a commute friendly prompt for the active wave. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Andrew C Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom naturalarabic.com Joined 5193 days ago 205 posts - 350 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written) | Message 7 of 15 01 February 2011 at 11:28am | IP Logged | ||
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Elexi - just to avoid misunderstanding, I don't advocate just listening. Of course you need to look at the English to discover/remind yourself of the meaning. I just think it is better to use Spanish itself as the cue for recall rather than the English. You'll still discover your mistakes.
1 person has 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 8 of 15 01 February 2011 at 2:30pm | IP Logged | ||
Because while this would practise form it would not enforce meaning. Demonstration: Loriak udan intza bezela Maite det dama gazte bat Ari ainbeste nahi dihotanik Ez da munduan beste bat Inoiz edo behin pasatzen badet Ikusi gabe azte bat Biotz guztira banatutzen zait Alako gauza triste bat That's all from memory -- it's the first verse of a Basque song written to an old folk tune. Do I understand it? No. Assimil's use of the term "natural assimilation" only really describes the first wave. In theory, the way the second wave works is that the student is forced to construct the target language from the meaning (and there is no way to express complicated meaning without language -- compare with the simplistic statements in Rosetta Stone or other courses that use pictures as a source of meaning). The fact that the student has already encountered the target sentences in the passive phase will only act as a scaffold -- in theory, it should be 1.5 to 3 months (depending on course length) between encountering a passage passively and actively. The exact wording will be well forgotten in the intervening period, but there should be a sense of familiarity about the correct answer that will help the student reconstruct it. What you are proposing is entirely different. Overexposure to particular phrases result in memorisation, and this doesn't prove the ability to apply the underlying principles. A notable number of polyglots on the internet say memorising texts or sentences has taught them the language, but as memorisation alone doesn't require understanding (hence me remembering Loriak Udan, above), people who succeed with this method must be doing something else either internally or externally to make the sentences meaningful. Until and unless you can tell us what that is, you're not advising a technique for learning. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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