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Assimil - don’t do the second wave! | ||
Tags: Learning Technique/Method | Assimil | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| delectric Diglot Senior Member China Joined 7209 days ago 608 posts - 733 votes  Speaks: English*, Mandarin Studies: German | Message 1 of 22 07 April 2010 at 5:50pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm currently doing Assimil French with Ease. I'm on lesson 37 at the moment. The thing
is I'm not going to France any time soon. I'm really enjoying the passive learning and I'm learning a lesson at day (along with the grammar notes). I'm putting everything into supermemo, I mean everything the audio files have been cut up and the vocabulary and text as well as the grammar notes are all being supermemoed. Of course everything is going from French to English so it's not hard. Anyway, my question is would it just be ok to carry on doing the passive phase all the way up to the last lesson and not starting the active phase until I have to? I mean I'm really enjoying myself and if I start doing the active phase I definitely won't have enough time to learn a new lesson every day. Can anyone see any harm in this? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Paskwc Pentaglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5705 days ago 450 posts - 624 votes Speaks: Hindi, Urdu*, Arabic (Levantine), French, English Studies: Persian, Spanish | Message 2 of 22 07 April 2010 at 6:26pm | IP Logged | ||
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It might not be ideal, but it should work. I figure as long as the sentences in your SRS
are both L1-L2 and L2-L1, you're probably getting some sort of reproduction exercise. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| BartoG Diglot Senior Member United States confession Joined 5475 days ago 292 posts - 818 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Italian, Spanish, Latin, Uzbek | Message 3 of 22 07 April 2010 at 8:16pm | IP Logged | ||
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If you're using Supermemo, you're already in an active phase, just not one of Assimil's devising. That is, you've gone beyond what Assimil prescribes for letting the language sink in. For this reason, doing the active phase is likely superfluous as long as the "active phase" that you've devised for yourself seems to be working.
One of the hardest parts of the Assimil Method is the waiting - waiting for things to sink in and trusting that when you come back to the Active Phase, those lessons from weeks ago really will be so obvious that there will be nothing to the active learning. I myself have jumped the gun with Assimil more than once. Since then, I have come to find that the most satisfying part of Assimil is coming back to a lesson from weeks before and discovering that what I had struggled to follow with the translation and notes is now so intuitively obvious that I can't remember not understanding it. One of the reasons you might not have time for the active phase is that you're already doing it. If you're happy with what you're doing, I'd keep at it. But if the SRS drilling loses its luster, you might try dropping it from your routine to make room for Assimil's version of the active phase. Seeing your scores with an SRS has its rewards of course. But the Assimil active phase approach has its own value in showing you just how far you've come and just how much you can do that was alien a mere seven or so weeks before. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Elexi Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5593 days ago 938 posts - 1840 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 4 of 22 07 April 2010 at 10:23pm | IP Logged | ||
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Do the second phase - If you have done Assimil right (which you haven't, but you've probably overlearned in any event) it takes no more than a few minutes (3-5) to translate the second wave lesson. In fact I do the second wave lessons whilst getting dressed or sitting on the train platform, never as a piece of 'serious' study.
Furthermore, the second wave is more than just vocabulary recall - its about how to use prepositions, correct sentence structure and idiom use. From doing this you learn parts of the language beyond the translation of the sentences, which is all very valuable stuff to practice when developing the ability to speak French. Edited by Elexi on 07 April 2010 at 10:46pm 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| delectric Diglot Senior Member China Joined 7209 days ago 608 posts - 733 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin Studies: German | Message 5 of 22 08 April 2010 at 3:17am | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks for the replies. I do need to stress that for srs I've only gone from French to
English and not the other way round. So I do feel the learning is still passive to the greater extent. I do trust Assimil but I don't trust myself! The srs is really incase something happens and I need to take a break for some reason. Also it's my insurance that I will know the material will be there passively in my head in the future. One more question. I'm using the mobi-pocket reader version of Assimil. They don't make it too clear whether the translations at the end and the gap fill exercises should be done in the first or the second wave? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Elexi Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5593 days ago 938 posts - 1840 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 6 of 22 10 April 2010 at 9:14am | IP Logged | ||
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I think you are supposed do translate the sentences (the ones on the audio) from French to English in wave 1 and from English to French in Wave 2. The fill in the gaps are to be done both times - they are to reinforce either the grammatical constructions or new words.
Although the 'fill in the gaps' sections of each lesson are heavily criticised here, I personally find them useful as a random revision tool - As well as reinforcing the lesson, I pick a lesson that I have done within the past 6 days - If I can fill in the gaps I move on, if not, I re-do the lesson. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| TerryW Senior Member United States Joined 6385 days ago 370 posts - 783 votes Speaks: English* | Message 7 of 22 10 April 2010 at 10:16pm | IP Logged | ||
If you don't do the active phase, and exactly the way Assimil tells you to, just be aware that they have "enforcers" strategically placed all over the globe. They will subpeona this forum for your name and address and come knocking at your door with hancuffs. ;-) Reading, writing, speaking, and understanding spoken languages are all different skills (with some overlap, of course), and to get good at any one or all of them takes practice. If you're having fun (and time is limited to) only learning to read and understand spoken, then great, just do that. I will be getting a lot of free time soon, and I'm planning to do Assimils in 4 languages at once, maybe only doing the passive part all the way through. I figure even though I won't be able to to actively speak, I'll have a decent basic knowledge of written/spoken Spanish, French, German & Italian in maybe 4 months, which would be pretty cool. I thought it would be interesting if I wrote about it here (assuming I do it), but I recently read that Volte tried 6 Assimils simultaneously, and I think the "proper" way, so mine would be no great feat. Edited by TerryW on 10 April 2010 at 10:16pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| delectric Diglot Senior Member China Joined 7209 days ago 608 posts - 733 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin Studies: German | Message 8 of 22 11 April 2010 at 3:53am | IP Logged | ||
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TerryW, I think that would be great! Four at one time would be a lot. Why not see if
you could do one in a month? I'm sure it would be possible. Maybe adding srs would make the studying more interesting. At the rate I'm going now I'll finish the passive wave as well as having everything in Supermemo in a couple of months, overall it will have taken just over three months to complete. Seeing as everything will be in supermemo, the passive French to English will always be kept at the front of my mind. Do you think then I will have an ok reading ability? I see no reason why 4 can't be possible in 4 months though I think it would be best to do one every month or two every 2 months. Imagine having the satisfaction of having a modest reading ability after just one month? Hmm maybe I'll try this with Spanish in the summer holiday. By the way any advice for what to do after Assimil? I'm going to continue on a big passive phase. I'll start some sort of active when I actually might get a chance to speak. Unfortunately, for better of worse, I'm addicted to the method that I'm using now with 'Supermemo'. These are the things I'm looking for... 1) French text that's already in a 'text' format that can easily be cut and pasted. 2) Ideally short stories or articles. 3) Ideally translations in both English and French (or French and Chinese). 4) Audio for the French. 5) Graded text from easy to difficult. 6) Grammar explanations for the stuff I'm reading. 7) Basically sounds like Assimil in a computerized format! I see Linguaphone has an on line French course that is supposed to be at a higher level. Has anyone tried this? Edited by delectric on 11 April 2010 at 3:54am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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