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How to do Assimil every day | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6445 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes  Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 9 of 42 23 November 2008 at 12:55pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Very debatable. There's research (which I can't be bothered to look up - it's been many years since I read it) showing that if you make doing desired-thing A contingent on doing less-desired thing B, you can simply teach yourself to dislike A. Premack correctly points out that you can increase the probability of doing A. Experientially, I find this to be a rather short-term effect; for me, the long-term effect is to make both A and B less likely. Premack's principle can be a useful tool, in moderation, but it's not a silver bullet, and I'd be exceedingly wary about using it as a cornerstone of a long-term learning effort. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| slucido Bilingual Diglot Senior Member Spain https://goo.gl/126Yv Joined 6681 days ago 1296 posts - 1781 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Spanish*, Catalan* Studies: English | Message 10 of 42 23 November 2008 at 3:36pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
You don't need to complicate things. The problem pointed out here is simple. They want to increase a single behaviour: they want to work on Assimil everyday. Prescription: Use positive reinforcement to maintain this behavior. The stronger the reinforcement, the stronger is going to be the behavior. In fact,this is best and only method. It only changes the kind of reinforcements between persons. It is going to work for short term and long term behaviors, but I hope Assimil will be short term. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6445 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 11 of 42 23 November 2008 at 4:09pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
You know, communication would work much better if you'd simply say what you meant. "Use positive reinforcement" is one thing - and one I'm certainly not going to disagree with. "Use a half-discredited behaviorist principle which you'll have to look up to figure out what it is from the name" is rather another. Trying to claim that you said the first when you said the second is silly. I also didn't particularly appreciate your accusation that I'm complicating things. Anyhow, enough - I'm signing off on this thread. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Felixelus Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6844 days ago 237 posts - 244 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 12 of 42 23 November 2008 at 4:09pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Thanks for your ever wonderful advice Volte!
I see your point that life is too short. I think I'm finding the thought of sitting down and reading a language pretty boring right now because reading is what I'm mostly doing at work right now. I think I need to get into an audio program like Pimsleur or MT. At the moment I'm finding RS quite entertaining! I know it's not the most complete method and that it is rather looked down upon on these boards but as you say it's better than not studying at all right? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| TheBiscuit Tetraglot Senior Member Mexico Joined 5929 days ago 532 posts - 619 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Italian Studies: German, Croatian | Message 13 of 42 23 November 2008 at 4:10pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Chances are if you find something boring, it probably doesn't fit that well with your learning style so your brain kind of rejects it, or rejects a certain quantity of it. Variety is good.
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| J-Learner Senior Member Australia Joined 6036 days ago 556 posts - 636 votes Studies: Yiddish, English* Studies: Dutch | Message 14 of 42 23 November 2008 at 5:44pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I find that I just need to buckle down and do it. If you want it enough you had better be ready to sweat enough. If your mind can't go 1 hour of study (which is too much for sssimil anyway) then you had better just go back to watching tv.
Start off slow. Slowly build up. You don't have to build rome in a day. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| fanatic Octoglot Senior Member Australia speedmathematics.com Joined 7152 days ago 1152 posts - 1818 votes Speaks: English*, German, French, Afrikaans, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Dutch Studies: Swedish, Norwegian, Polish, Modern Hebrew, Malay, Mandarin, Esperanto | Message 15 of 42 23 November 2008 at 10:36pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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The Assimil courses are probably the easiest to stick with.
You only need to do five to ten minutes at a time and that is not anywhere near so difficult as having to spend say, half an hour, with a Pimsleur lesson. Pick a time that is easy for you, while you eat your breakfast, have a morning coffee break, and read and play through the lesson then. Try and stick to the same routine as much as you can every day. I play the audio on my mp3 player so I can play it while I have lunch, walk or travel. At the very least, play over old lessons to revise what you already know if you can't motivate yourself to start a new lesson. Bribe yourself. Give yourself a reward when you accomplish a lesson you don't feel like doing. At the absolute minimum, read a joke or a cartoon in your target language. Listen to music in the language. Read an Internet page. Usually, making the first move will motivate you to go back to your course and do the next lesson. I would ask you though, are you using the course correctly? Many people make hard work of Assimil and spend time doing all kinds of exercises when you only need to read and listen to the lesson a couple of times until you understand it. Then revise a couple of times through the day. If you are making hard work of it, it is easy to become discouraged. Edited by fanatic on 23 November 2008 at 10:37pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Raincrowlee Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 6708 days ago 621 posts - 808 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin, Korean, French Studies: Indonesian, Japanese | Message 16 of 42 23 November 2008 at 11:09pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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If you have a waiting time in your day, where you have to be somewhere and not do anything, it's easy to slot it in.
I ride the Metro (subway) to school every day and listen to the lessons on the way down (if I don't have reading to do for class) and try to do a lesson each time I ride back home. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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