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Your favorite language program?

 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes Post Reply
376 messages over 47 pages: << Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ... 17 ... 46 47 Next >>
zorglub
Pentaglot
Senior Member
France
Joined 7003 days ago
441 posts - 504 votes 
1 sounds
Speaks: French*, English, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese
Studies: German, Arabic (Written), Turkish, Mandarin

 
 Message 129 of 376
09 May 2010 at 8:29pm | IP Logged 
What you say here is exactly what I also notice with Assimil:
Except for the first lessons in easy languages, each new lesson is quite difficult whereas the previous one is joyfully well mastered. And each lesson is eventually overcome. That's I think an important feature of well made Assimil courses.

About Pimsleur: I am more enthousiastic, it's a great primer that gives confidence and provides the essentials for survival . It makes Assimil as a second course feel easier and I think more profitable.

Are you learning Turkish with Assimil ? I am reaching lesson 10 but I find it increases troo fast its level of difficulty. I also notice some verb conjugations seem not to be seen, whereas they look useful as far I can judge from Pimsleur's 30 lessons.


noriyuki_nomura wrote:
After having read so many positive review on Assimil from many of you here, I decided to get myself a copy of Assimil Russian. Prior to this, I have been using my 'usual method' to learn a foreign language through textbooks that come along with a CD. I must say that, upon reaching chapter 7 (I know, I am still at the beginning stage of this wonderful language) of Assimil Russian, I am pleased that I have learnt quite alot of phrases, which do come in pretty handy when I bump into my Russian/Ukrainian colleagues at work. What strikes me about this program is, when I start a new chapter, I find the dialogue very difficult - in terms of its pronounciation, new words, etc. But after hearing them for the entire day, the dialogues somehow get stucked into the head, especially when I repeat after the dialogues...

I have used Pimsleur, and I do find that Pimsleur helps one to get the initial exposure to the language, but that's pretty much it.    

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noriyuki_nomura
Bilingual Octoglot
Senior Member
Switzerland
Joined 5343 days ago
304 posts - 465 votes 
Speaks: English*, Mandarin*, Japanese, FrenchC2, GermanC2, ItalianC1, SpanishB2, DutchB1
Studies: TurkishA1, Korean

 
 Message 130 of 376
09 May 2010 at 8:59pm | IP Logged 
Hi Zorglub, thank god then, because I thought I was the only one who felt that each new lesson in Assimil was difficult, especially when I read that, the recommended amount of time allocated for each Assimil lesson should last for 20 minutes per day. For me, I definitely need more than 20minutes to get all the right phrases and pronounciation. I must say that, on lesson 8 today, I felt that it's getting really difficult :( Hopefully I can hang on in there and at least make it to lesson 50, which still seems like light years away...

As for Turkish, I am using the following textbook to learn:

http://www.amazon.de/T%C3%BCrkisch-Fortgeschrittene-alphabet ischem-W%C3%B6rterverzeichnis-%C3%9Cbungsschl%C3%BCssel/dp/3 447057645/ref=pd_sim_eb_10





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iamrobertyee
Bilingual Triglot
Groupie
Philippines
Joined 5297 days ago
48 posts - 54 votes 
Speaks: Tagalog*, Cebuano*, EnglishC2
Studies: Mandarin

 
 Message 131 of 376
05 June 2010 at 9:55am | IP Logged 
I would have to say that Fluenz and Linguashop are my favourites. I think Linguashop
wasn't mentioned. Well I'm quite a beginner but so far, I love these two language
programs. ;)
1 person has voted this message useful



geirtbr
Groupie
Norway
Joined 6660 days ago
83 posts - 90 votes 
Speaks: Norwegian*
Studies: Russian

 
 Message 132 of 376
10 June 2010 at 5:29pm | IP Logged 
I have to mention the intercomprahension people, as exemplified with eurocomrom (and the others). It seems to
me to be a very good strategy, to aim for language families instead of a single language. I think that the ways you
think about what constitutes a language and different languages is very much connected to political ideology. For
example, arabic could just as well be split into several distinct languages, it is a great ideological project to think of
it as unified (with standard arabic). And,on the other hand, that many consider the nordic languages (norway,
swedish, danish) as separate also political-ideoological projects.


1 person has voted this message useful



Mikael84
Bilingual Pentaglot
Groupie
Peru
Joined 5303 days ago
76 posts - 116 votes 
Speaks: French*, Finnish*, English, Spanish, Portuguese
Studies: Arabic (classical), German, Russian

 
 Message 133 of 376
10 June 2010 at 11:12pm | IP Logged 
Definitely agree with the fact Assimil requires more than 30mns a day. Or, you could do 30mns a day I guess but then you'd have to spend more than 1 day per lesson. The risk - I learnt this at my own expense - is that you move from one lesson to the next without having really mastered it. I feel this is important with Assimil, you need to make sure you have, uh, "assimilated?", everything before you begin the next lesson. If you don't, your weaknesses - be it vocab or grammar or whatever - which might seem manageable at first will snowball as difficulty - steeply- increases and unfortunately you can't really build anything on weak foundations. This doesn't mean you should use active phase techniques in the passive phase, just follow their instructions but be a little more thorough than they suggest. It's not quite "without toil".

So, a word of advice for Assimil users... make sure you really assimilate...
2 persons have voted this message useful



Volte
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Switzerland
Joined 6442 days ago
4474 posts - 6726 votes 
Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian
Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese

 
 Message 134 of 376
11 June 2010 at 3:32am | IP Logged 
Mikael84 wrote:
Definitely agree with the fact Assimil requires more than 30mns a day. Or, you could do 30mns a day I guess but then you'd have to spend more than 1 day per lesson. The risk - I learnt this at my own expense - is that you move from one lesson to the next without having really mastered it. I feel this is important with Assimil, you need to make sure you have, uh, "assimilated?", everything before you begin the next lesson. If you don't, your weaknesses - be it vocab or grammar or whatever - which might seem manageable at first will snowball as difficulty - steeply- increases and unfortunately you can't really build anything on weak foundations. This doesn't mean you should use active phase techniques in the passive phase, just follow their instructions but be a little more thorough than they suggest. It's not quite "without toil".

So, a word of advice for Assimil users... make sure you really assimilate...


That really varies by language, I'd say. It's not hard to do lessons in closely related languages to ones you know in under a half hour.

4 persons have voted this message useful



grunts67
Diglot
Senior Member
CanadaRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5305 days ago
215 posts - 252 votes 
Speaks: French*, English
Studies: Spanish, Russian

 
 Message 135 of 376
12 June 2010 at 11:03pm | IP Logged 
Mikael84 wrote:
Definitely agree with the fact Assimil requires more than 30mns a day. Or, you could do 30mns a day I guess but then you'd have to spend more than 1 day per lesson. The risk - I learnt this at my own expense - is that you move from one lesson to the next without having really mastered it. I feel this is important with Assimil, you need to make sure you have, uh, "assimilated?", everything before you begin the next lesson. If you don't, your weaknesses - be it vocab or grammar or whatever - which might seem manageable at first will snowball as difficulty - steeply- increases and unfortunately you can't really build anything on weak foundations. This doesn't mean you should use active phase techniques in the passive phase, just follow their instructions but be a little more thorough than they suggest. It's not quite "without toil".

So, a word of advice for Assimil users... make sure you really assimilate...


I agree with you. I'm using, right now, Assimil - Le russe sans peine, and it take ma bout an hour to do a complet lesson. Even in that time, I found that I don't assimilate 20-25% of the lesson. Because of that, I tend to cut my lesson in 2 days, and I listen and read previous lessons from time to time to make sure I do understand the lessons.

On related language, It seem possible, as Volte said, to finish and assimilate them in 30 minutes or so.

Edited by grunts67 on 12 June 2010 at 11:52pm
1 person has voted this message useful



zekecoma
Senior Member
United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5347 days ago
561 posts - 655 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: German, Spanish

 
 Message 136 of 376
23 June 2010 at 7:42am | IP Logged 
I'm switching between Pimsleur and MT German. Both are really good. Though, Pims. doesn't
tell you how the words are spelt. There is no book to tell you words, etc. Or it didn't
come with it when I get it from the library. That's the only downside I see otherwise I
love it.


1 person has voted this message useful



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