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Minimum amount of time using Assimil? | ||
Tags: Time to learn | Assimil | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| COF Senior Member United States Joined 5831 days ago 262 posts - 354 votes  Speaks: English* | Message 1 of 21 04 April 2012 at 3:55pm | IP Logged |
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Assimil recommends that you do one lesson a day for the maximum chance of being able to absorb and understand all the vocabulary and grammar points.
However, for the learner of average ability, with motivation, what would you say is the minimum amount of time a learner could spend working through an Assimil course and be able to attain a working command of the target language? Would 5-6 lessons a day be realistic, or would that probably be too much information to take in for the person of average ability? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5381 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 2 of 21 04 April 2012 at 4:22pm | IP Logged |
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As a point of reference, when we did the Accelerated Finnish Challenge, I believe both Sprachprofi and I made it into the 50's within the 35 hours or 30 days of the challenge, but we also spent a fair bit of time working on other things. Still, I think it'd be fair to say that we probably did the 50+ lessons in about 25 hours/30 days. I'm sure she'd come up with a more accurate number.
[EDIT: I went and checked: I spent a little under 20 hours for about 56 lessons.] The first lessons go fast, but then it gets harder and takes longer, and since you have to make sure you got the lesson down pat or else you'll get lost very quickly as you continue, you have to spend some time reviewing. I remember that most lessons would take 15 to 20 minutes, but after a while, I started to alternate between reviewing previous lessons and working on new ones, and at the beginning of every session, I'd also redo the previous lesson (or 2). Now this was Finnish, and language that should take twice as long to learn as a cognate language. You didn't mention what language you were working on. In short, no, 5-6 lessons a day is not realistic. I would rather suggest you start every session by reviewing the previous lesson or two, then allow a good 30 minutes for the new lesson. This could easily take you an hour, so it may be too much to shoot for a second lesson a day. But if it feels right, go for it. It doesn't have to be a rule. If you can, do this more than once a day. Don't forget that if a lesson takes you more time, you may actually be saving yourself time in the long run because future lessons will be less difficult and less review will be needed. Edited by Arekkusu on 04 April 2012 at 5:59pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 6151 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian | Message 3 of 21 04 April 2012 at 4:47pm | IP Logged |
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I've done up to eight new lessons in one sitting, but not to completion. In other words, I'll do lessons one to eight on the first day, followed by one to four the following morning. That following evening, I may then go from lesson two to fourteen. I generally cover a lesson a day but in longer stretches of lessons. With my recent purchase of Assimil Italian which uses an MP3 disk, this isn't possible. Each lesson is treated as a different album which makes switching between them very annoying.
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 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5532 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 4 of 21 04 April 2012 at 5:35pm | IP Logged |
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I approached this from the opposite direction: What's the minimum amount of consistent
effort required to finish an Assimil course? I put in 20 minutes per day for the passive wave, and about 40–60 minutes for the combined passive+active period. And I didn't speak with my wife in French until almost the end of the course. But I stuck to one lesson every day, even when things got a bit shaky around lessons 60 through 75. After about 160 days, I could carry on basic, fumbling conversations and read easy native non-fiction with a dictionary. I seriously doubt that I could have passed the DELF B1 exam. So you might be able to zoom through the passive wave if you spend several hours per day studying very had. But when you hit the active wave, you'd have to study at least 5 or 6 hours per day for a so-so command of the material. And as everybody else points out, you're going to pay a substantial price for cramming so much into a day, so it will probably be even harder than that. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Elexi Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5565 days ago 938 posts - 1840 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 5 of 21 04 April 2012 at 5:54pm | IP Logged |
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In my view, Assimil's proposals for a lesson a day until the active wave starts and then
a passive lesson and an active lesson per day is the minimum amount of time that the average person (maybe not experienced language learners) should spend on Assimil. In my case, when I do Assimil, I actively review about 7 lessons before doing the 'lesson of the day' - so it takes substantially more than the 20 minutes or so recommended. Edited by Elexi on 04 April 2012 at 5:57pm 7 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Fabrizio Pentaglot Senior Member BelgiumRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5182 days ago 103 posts - 157 votes Speaks: Italian*, EnglishC2, French, SpanishB2, Portuguese | Message 6 of 21 04 April 2012 at 10:40pm | IP Logged |
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I'm working my way through "Assimil, Le Japonais sans peine (tome 1)" at the adviced pace
of 1 lesson/day, but I've already skimmed through the whole book (49 lessons) even though I'm currently at the 30th lesson only. I do review the previous lesson everyday before I tackle a new one, but I find extremely beneficial to already know how far the course will eventually bring me. If I can give you my advice, go through the entire book in one week or so, get used to the main sounds and most basic patterns of the language but don't bother too much to understand every single details or retain any vocabulary. Then study properly at the pace of 1 lesson/day as Assimil suggests its readers to do and make sure to internalize each of the previous units by reviewing them as often as possible (SRS programs might come in handy, I guess). 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4707 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 7 of 21 05 April 2012 at 12:30am | IP Logged |
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I do one lesson a day. It costs me slightly more time now than in the beginning, but one is enough. I usually take 30 minutes for a lesson.
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| onurdolar Diglot Groupie TurkeyRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4652 days ago 98 posts - 147 votes Speaks: Turkish*, English Studies: Italian, German | Message 8 of 21 05 April 2012 at 3:43pm | IP Logged |
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I do one lesson a day and then i do blind shadowing of around 10 lessons at least once; in total it takes around 45-50 minutes.
1 person has voted this message useful |
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