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Assimil Chinese with Ease | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6901 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes  Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 41 of 79 04 April 2007 at 8:58am | IP Logged |
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Do you devote 2,5 hours a day to Assimil Chinese? I put the current lesson on repeat for up to 30 minutes. Sometimes I "have it" after five repetitions and then I'm finished for that day. After reading Fanatic's posts about his success with the German course (some 60-70 hours in total), that's what I aim for.
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 Keith Diglot Moderator JapanRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6769 days ago 526 posts - 536 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 42 of 79 04 April 2007 at 6:12pm | IP Logged |
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Yes, two-and-a-half hours a day is my target.
Just listening, no speaking. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6574 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 43 of 79 06 April 2007 at 7:07am | IP Logged |
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Ordered the course yesterday from Swedish online bookshop (thanks, Jeff!). I wonder what I'll do with it. I've done all of Pimsleur and I'm doing mildly intensive Rosetta Stone at the moment. I think I'll use Assimil first for listening, like you, but then for chorusing. I've done all of Pimsleur without speaking, and listened to a lot of ChinesePod, so I think my brain is beginning to get accustomed to the language enough to start talking. I'm not gonna wait for 800 hours, that's just too long, but I'm hoping the pronounciation will still be good if I do a lot of chorusing in the beginning.
A question: do you listen actively for 2.5 hours a day, or do you just keep the audio on in the background whilst doing other things? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Keith Diglot Moderator JapanRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6769 days ago 526 posts - 536 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 44 of 79 06 April 2007 at 9:56am | IP Logged |
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I found that info I was talking about. It's at ALG, Automatic Language Growth. It's not 800 hours, it's only 600 hours! Isn't that fantastic!
Although, I think my method is more intensive than their method, as they would put you in a classroom and have live teachers spoon feeding you, whereas in my studies, I have removed the pauses from the dialogues and so I am listening to a lot more dialogue than a teacher could ever spew out. I am feeding my brain so much more language than any normal methods. Now to answer Ari's question. Yes, I listen actively the whole time. I do nothing else during this time. Can't completely control my thoughts, but I try to focus on the audio. In order to be able to focus better, I only listen to one audio for 10 repetitions at a time. I am trying to get one new lesson in a day with 100 repetitions, and the other time spending 10 repetitions on previous lessons. Yesterday I was able to listen to Forty-seventh Lesson 80 times and the other time spent on 25 other lessons at 10 times each. This means I am getting lots of review each day while still spending significant time on a single new lesson. But yesterday, it was 190 minutes, so more than average. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6574 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 45 of 79 07 April 2007 at 8:21am | IP Logged |
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Holy tape recorder, Batman! That's a lot of listening, that is. It'll be interesting to see if you can really make this work. As far as I know, the ALG results haven't been reproduced outside of their schools.
I have a few thoughts, though. First of all, while you might get more input than they do per spent hour, they get continuously different input, whereas you repeat the same input ad nauseam. That means that they get much more input in terms of different sentence structures, vocab, etc. I recall reading somewhere that you learn around 1000 words through the Assimil program. I'm not sure that this is enough for your brain to figure out the entire language. Then there's the issue of motivation, of course, but that's very individual. Two and a half hours a day still means it'll take almost a year. The ALG school has serious problems with this, and they have at least different input every time, and little plays to watch. So my prediction is that you'll get great pronounciation, but little comprehension and speaking skills. And as I understand it, Assimil dialogues are slower than normal speech, isn't it? At least the newer editions, right? I do hope you'll prove me wrong, but I'm a bit sceptical. I think there are better uses of your time. Me, I'm going to try to get to movie-level comprehension ASAP, and then kick back and enjoy myself. Maybe I'll get there before speaking, and thus getting loads of input without effort, and not having to try any speaking at all until I go to visit China, which may take years. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| solidsnake Diglot Senior Member China Joined 7033 days ago 469 posts - 488 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin | Message 46 of 79 07 April 2007 at 1:04pm | IP Logged |
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Before you go on to each new lesson can you accurately translate sentence by sentence? What parameters are you using to judge if you are ready for the next lesson if by not speaking you cant test your "automaticity?"
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| Keith Diglot Moderator JapanRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6769 days ago 526 posts - 536 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 47 of 79 07 April 2007 at 8:35pm | IP Logged |
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I don't know if I made it sound like I was trying to follow the ALG method, but I'm not. It's just that I notice that the lessons I have listened to more, I understand them more. A lesson I have listened to for 300 times, I understand better than a lesson I have listened to for 200 times. But then again, the older the lesson, the shorter and easier it is. But I still feel that with more listening, the longer and more difficult lessons will become just as easily understood. And so I think about how well I understand the older lessons now at 70 total hours, just wait until after I have invested 700 hours!
I'm not so sure about how much the ALG students would learn in terms of vocabulary. They may get more different input, but they won't be able to recall everything. Whereas, I hope I'll be able to recall every word in Assimil Chinese with Ease. By focusing on a smaller amount in the beginning, I have a better chance for progress. You know, Jerry Dai says the shortest short-cut in language learning is pronunciation. Although, he didn't explain why, so I'll explain why I think that is. If you can take an Assimil course, learn it perfectly and basically sound like a native, even though you start with a limited amount of vocabulary, when you start talking to natives they are going to think you are already completely fluent. So then they will speak with you in a natural manner and won't hesitate to say anything. Whereas, even if you have a large vocabulary and good understanding, but you speak with a thick accent and are slow at getting your sentences out, then you won't be given the same opportunities. People won't be patient. They'll judge your language level to be much lower than what it is. They will dumb down their speech. This is why, as even I have experienced with Japanese, that you get to a point where you can understand native speakers just fine when they are talking to you, but when they are talking to other natives, you can't follow their conversation at all. Somebody on this forum had posted not too long ago, that he did some Pimsleur Chinese lessons and at a wedding he said to the Chinese bride in Chinese that he couldn't speak Chinese and she responded to him in Chinese because she thought he could speak Chinese. That's a perfect example! Had his accent or delivery been bad, then she would never have automatically replied in Chinese. There are lots of language learners who want to speak their second language but when they do they get replies in English. That's food for thought. The Assimil dialogues progress in speaking speed. It's also very different if you take out the pauses between sentences. It then feels very fast and your brain starts to work faster because you have no time to relax. Even after listening 100 times to current lessons, I still am missing some words. I am not trying to get all of the lesson before going on to the next one. I'm letting it sink in slowly. I just want to do one new lesson a day. I am breaking it up by listening to older lessons as well. My current thinking is that I want to listen to all the lessons one thousand times. After that, I'm thinking I'll use the lessons for writing exercises. I'll also start using what I've learned with real people. Before going onto some new material, I'd like to report back here about how well I can converse with just the material from Assimil Chinese with Ease. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6574 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 48 of 79 08 April 2007 at 1:51am | IP Logged |
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You're so awesome. Honestly.
Do report back. I'm tempted to follow your approach, but I might be too impatient. I want to watch movies now. My approach is more like "get a small passive understanding of the words, the let the ones that are commonly used get reinforced by hearing them lots of times in the movies". 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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