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Assimil a load of rubbish?? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| Kleberson Diglot Senior Member Great Britain Joined 6229 days ago 166 posts - 168 votes  Speaks: English*, Portuguese Studies: Italian, Russian, Arabic (Written), Mandarin | Message 73 of 92 13 April 2009 at 7:36pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Really? I went to Bari. While all the sentences have come to be second nature to me, I didn't bother too much with the audio. Could this be the reason? OR is it because Bari use a different dialect? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Kugel Senior Member United States Joined 6349 days ago 497 posts - 555 votes Speaks: English* | Message 74 of 92 14 April 2009 at 3:54am | IP Logged | ||||||||
People actually spend lots of their time looking into different SLA methods. I wouldn't necessarily call them nuts. Strange...maybe. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Betjeman Groupie Germany Joined 5954 days ago 85 posts - 204 votes Speaks: German* | Message 75 of 92 19 April 2009 at 2:13pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Kleberson,
in Germany, Assimil has published a brochure in which they advise the users of their method to “avoid any superfluous mental strain and exaggerated learning effort”, as this would “lead to a paralysis of your natural assimilation abilities”. Maybe that is exactly what you did: turning a pleasure into drudgery. And while pleasure is often a good teacher, force usually isn’t. Perhaps the process of language learning can be compared with jazz improvisation. In order to become a good musician in this field one has to listen to many other musicians improvising. Slavishly copying them note for note, on the other hand, won’t help you much. I personally like Assimil. Although I own many other language learning materials, I find myself constantly returning to their courses. The lessons are short and amusing, vocabulary and grammar are thaught not isolated but in context, and the method itself is great, as there is a lot of built-in repetition. I also like the concept of a relaxed passive learning phase followed by a more demanding active phase. And yet there are numerous flaws. Sometimes I wonder if Assimil courses aren’t designed a bit sloppily. For instance, I find it extremely annoying when it is assumed in the exercises that I already know vocabulary and grammatical concepts which are not taught until later in the course (and in some cases never). This happens regularly with all the newer courses I know. There are other errors as well. The latest “Englisch ohne Mühe” tells me that “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” was the Beatles’ first LP. It also tells me that “triple” is pronounced with an ie sound (as in “lie”) and “lead” (as in lead pencil) with an ee sound (as in sheep). None of these (admittedly minor) errors have been corrected in recent editions. But despite all these quibbles, I still enjoy them much more than any other course and get better results from using them as well. Perhaps it is their very sloppiness that helps me with language learning? After all, there is no such thing as perfection when speaking a language. So, maybe you have a point when you ask if Assimil courses are a load of rubbish. Are they? No, I don't think so. But I do think that Assimil courses could do with some quality control. And yet they are the most interesting an stimulating language courses I know. Edited by Betjeman on 20 April 2009 at 9:51am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| fanatic Octoglot Senior Member Australia speedmathematics.com Joined 6957 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 76 of 92 20 April 2009 at 3:14am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I think that Betjeman has summarised what I see as part of the problem. The idea is that you listen to the audio of the lessons until you easily understand what is being said and you don't have to translate in your mind. The same goes for reading the lessons.
I found that half an hour a day was sufficient for each lesson and I would play twenty minutes to half an hour of lessons while driving or eating my lunch. You assimilate the material. Your approach seems to have bypassed this. The method they advocate encourages you to think in the language. The only newer courses I have are the French (they shouldn't make any glaring errors there[I hope]) and the Dutch courses. I haven't found any problem with the Dutch but then again I might not recognise some of the mistakes. I can speak and read in Dutch for my purposes and that is sufficient for me. There are some things I wish they could have explained better but that also is no big deal. As Betjeman says, the grammar is explained in context and it is pleasant working through the courses. I am currently doing two Assimil courses together and I am enjoying them. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| jpxt2 Triglot Groupie United States Joined 6542 days ago 46 posts - 52 votes Speaks: English, Spanish*, French Studies: Mandarin, Catalan, Portuguese, German, Italian | Message 77 of 92 20 April 2009 at 5:54am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Kleberson,
A couple of things occur to me: Italy is famous for its many "dialects" which are technically often different languages from each other altogether; I think they just call them dialects out of habit or for political correctness. Standard Italian is based on the speech of Tuscany... near the center-north of Italy. And Bari is actually said to be particularly famous for a most "distinct" local dialect (see Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bari_dialect). So, first things first, maybe you just picked the wrong city for your visit :) Second, Assimil is simply meant to give a beginner an easy path to a solid foundation on which to build on. At this -- and I say this owning many Assimil courses myself -- it usually succeeds pretty well. Yet, as easy and as gradual as an introductory Assimil course is, it's still work, so you should follow the instructions as laid out. Do a lesson a day. Use the audio. Don't bother inputting it all into SRS, at least not until you've completed the whole course, because that's not how it's meant to work. It has a plan and a gradual progression and different phases quite on purpose. So have a little faith in the method. Of course, it's not the end-all, be-all, so one should not get attached to it or hung up on one course. Combine it with other courses, watch Italian movies, listen to Italian music, talk to Italians online, etc. Have fun with the process. This is your personal thing. You are quite literally exploring the language, and that entails... well, exploring. Be willing to learn the smallest lessons at any time, anywhere, from whoever and wherever you can get them. Italian is a living language, and this is the only way to build a deep understanding. Chalk this early difficult experience up as an experiment. Since you speak Portuguese, why not get O Italiano sem esforco, instead? Along the way, if there is something you don't understand or you encounter some difficulty, don't get hung up on it or blame the course. Just say "so what?" and move on. Have the attitude that you will clarify it sometime, somewhere down the line eventually. I promise you that if you keep exposing yourself to the language and to diverse practice materials that the mysteries will solve themselves. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| OCCASVS Tetraglot Senior Member Poland Joined 6454 days ago 134 posts - 140 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Italian*, English, French, Polish | Message 78 of 92 21 April 2009 at 12:23am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Hello. I'm sorry if I am being too picky, but I'm going to write a clarification :) I'm from Bari. I'm totally sure people didn't speak Barese to Kleberson. People only speak Italian to those who can't understand Barese. Only some elderly or uneducated people can't speak it very well, since Italian isn't their native language. No one in Italy speaks with the "standard" accent, except actors, some journalists, etc. In Bari people speak Italian with our local accent, which is understandable enough once you get used to it. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| jpxt2 Triglot Groupie United States Joined 6542 days ago 46 posts - 52 votes Speaks: English, Spanish*, French Studies: Mandarin, Catalan, Portuguese, German, Italian | Message 79 of 92 21 April 2009 at 7:10am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Occasus, that's what I figured, but I thought it might explain his difficulty if it wasn't so for some reason. Edited by jpxt2 on 21 April 2009 at 7:10am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| zxxxz Diglot Newbie United States Joined 6286 days ago 25 posts - 27 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Italian | Message 80 of 92 26 April 2009 at 2:50pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Wow! You didn't listen to or use the audio... but you still felt like posting "Assimil a load of rubbish"? 1 person has voted this message useful |
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