seldnar Senior Member United States Joined 7140 days ago 189 posts - 287 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin, French, Greek
| Message 1 of 4 27 December 2008 at 2:06am | IP Logged |
Hi,
I am determined in the new year to get a handle on my conversational French. Thanks
to high school and college, I can read French at an intermediate to high intermediate
level, but am lousy with conversation.
The description of the Assimil courses intrigue me and I'd like to try the French With
Ease, but worried I might be too bored. I do know the next level in the French series
is a little too advanced conversation wise, so I'm guessing that by lesson 50 or so,
the dialogues are a bit more complex than some of the easy examples I've seen.
Does anyone have experience with this?
Many thanks.
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Felixelus Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6846 days ago 237 posts - 244 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish
| Message 2 of 4 27 December 2008 at 5:31am | IP Logged |
I was in a pretty similar situation a couple of years ago. Thanks to school French lessons I could read but talking was a real problem. Assimil by itself won't solve it...but I found myself speeding through the earlier easy lessons and I started to learn new vocab from lessons 40/50 onwards. The second wave was nice and challenging even for the early lessons as reading the dialogs over and over again is one thing, reproducing them from the English translation is quite another.
So from my personal experience, Assimil approved my French alot and gave me more rounded skills (I could listen and spell as well as read) but there's only one way to improve conversational skills...and that's talking to people :)
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seldnar Senior Member United States Joined 7140 days ago 189 posts - 287 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin, French, Greek
| Message 3 of 4 27 December 2008 at 11:26am | IP Logged |
Thanks for your answer. I whole heartedly agree that speaking is the only way to
improve this, but when I have a chance for conversation (as opposed to simply relaying
information) my mind goes blank. I am hoping that because is Assimil has been
described as drills for conversation similar to the pattern drills of FSI, that it may
help me overcome the problem.
I'm rather fortunate--there are two French conversation groups that meet regularly in
my city. So, I'll hunker down with Assimil and start going to the groups more often.
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Spiderkat Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5820 days ago 175 posts - 248 votes Speaks: French*, English Studies: Russian
| Message 4 of 4 27 December 2008 at 12:59pm | IP Logged |
If you don't feel too confident talking face to face with Frenchies or French speakers then you could start using some of these instant messenger programs, either by simply typing or typing and using a mic. That way you would built/increase your conversation skills and then feel more confident later on when being part of any conversation out there.
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