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Assimil a load of rubbish?? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 5821 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes  Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 9 of 92 07 April 2009 at 10:52pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Assimil's purpose is to try to get you to generalise and infer the rules from massive input and exposure, and it uses stories and dialogues to make the sentences meaningful -- taking them out of the context surely makes some, in not all, of them meaningless...?
Furthermore, there comes a point where repeated exposure leads to memorising rather than generalising. What do I mean? Well, if you see the exact same sentence every time, you don't need to break it down, you don't need to understand it. For example, many beginning learners of Portuguese would be asked to memorise "Como se chama?" without knowing how to manipulate reflexive verbs. They can do it -- they don't need to know why it means what it means, but there are people (myself included) who don't believe that this really "teaches" the student anything, and instead is a matter of a teacher with his fingers crossed hoping that the student will actually learn. When you say:
Well... why? Quantity vs quality, and all that. Being able to regurgitate fixed phrases at will doesn't mean you're going to be able to say anything new, anything unique, anything that expresses how you feel. Being able to explain the rules doesn't mean you can do anything useeful with them. Language is not a matter of fixed, unambiguous answers to fixed questions, so training yourself to produce fixed, inflexible responses to fixed prompts will not teach you how to speak a language. You need to actually use the language creatively to get anywhere. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Javi Senior Member Spain Joined 5791 days ago 419 posts - 548 votes Speaks: Spanish* | Message 10 of 92 07 April 2009 at 11:45pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
How did you drill the sentences with Supermemo? I fear the worst, that you did translation drills. I think you should have move to other materials anyway, specially real native content, and use Supermemo with really interesting sentences. Assimil, like most if not all language courses is boring. In the beginning it is OK, because it is written in the language you are starting with and excited about, but there's only so long you can stand that dullness. No wonder you're in such a bad mood after drilling that. Edited by Javi on 07 April 2009 at 11:52pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Kleberson Diglot Senior Member Great Britain Joined 6228 days ago 166 posts - 168 votes Speaks: English*, Portuguese Studies: Italian, Russian, Arabic (Written), Mandarin | Message 11 of 92 08 April 2009 at 12:06am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Just like this: Q: The cast (singers) come out many times on the stage to thank the public A: i cantanti escono molte volte sul palcoscenico a ringraziare il pubblico Q: The usherette shows the spectators to their seats A: La maschera accompagna gli spettatori ai loro posti Q: Silence, children, dont disturb the gentleman! A: Silenzio, bambini, non date fastidio al signore! Q: There is a short break, shall we go out for a smoke? A: C'è un breve intervallo, usciamo a fumare una sigaretta? Q: If you hand me your overcoat, I'll take it to the cloakroom. A: Se mi dai il tuo capp otto, lo porto al guardaroba Q: My friend Ida is among those ladies in evening gowns. A: Fra quelle signore in abito da sera c'è la mia amica Ida Q: The theatre is full: the orchestra, the balcony, the gallery are all completely crowded. A: II teatro è completo: la platea, i palchi e la galleria sono stracolmi. ------ It was horrible, but I felt I had to complete it. I don't think I'm grasping the fundamentals of the sentence method at all. Confusing. Thanks 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Kleberson Diglot Senior Member Great Britain Joined 6228 days ago 166 posts - 168 votes Speaks: English*, Portuguese Studies: Italian, Russian, Arabic (Written), Mandarin | Message 12 of 92 08 April 2009 at 12:08am | IP Logged | ||||||||
So. . . How do I actually do this? With Portuguese, my family all speak it, and so I easily picked this up. Italian, I wish to do the sentence method, but have no idea how. Thanks 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Javi Senior Member Spain Joined 5791 days ago 419 posts - 548 votes Speaks: Spanish* | Message 13 of 92 08 April 2009 at 12:57am | IP Logged | ||||||||
I think the whole point about Assimil is that you spend 99.9% of your study time working with your target language. You use the right page as an aid to understand the target bit and to start breaking your new language. Then you do the translating exercises, which are not so, they are rather recalling exercises and finally you've got the second wave where you are expected to translate. But all that is just a one-off. The bulk of your work is monolingual, repetitive listening and reading aloud. After having finished the course, if any review is needed at all, it should be listening and reading. Going back to the English part is crazy. You're making links between your English and your new language that shouldn't be there if you followed the course properly. I reckon you expected too much of what it is just an introduction to the language, but that said, Assimil gives you a really good grasp of the spoken language. You should take advantage of that and start listening to real content and use SRS to learn new vocabulary so that you can make more sense of what you hear. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| jimbo baby! Senior Member United States Joined 5787 days ago 202 posts - 208 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English* | Message 14 of 92 08 April 2009 at 3:27am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Assimil alone won't bring you to fluency. It's a great place to start, but by itself it will only give you enough to be comfortable using the language at a basic level. You have to continue with the Assimil method by using the L-R technique that's always being discussed on the forums. You must also use separate grammar books so you understand more how the language works. Eventually you will have to completely immerse yourself in the language to get you to advanced, near-native and native fluency.
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| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6249 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 15 of 92 08 April 2009 at 3:43am | IP Logged | ||||||||
I feel the need to reply to this, because almost everything in it is wrong. 1) Assimil apparently has brought some people to fluency - look at Fanatic's posts. For someone who already knows several closely related languages, I see no reason why it shouldn't. 2) You do not have to continue Assimil by doing L-R - what gave you this idea?! L-R is one useful method (which I prefer to do before Assimil, but that's neither here nor there), but it's certainly not a requirement! People have been becoming fluent in languages since long before audiobooks were invented. 3) Grammar books are not a necessity; they can be helpful, but it's perfectly possible to learn to speak a language well without using them - see Steve Kaufmann for an example, or Khatzumoto. 4) Advanced fluency doesn't require 'immersion', for any meaningful definition of it that I can think of - unless living mainly in your native language while doing things like using forums counts as immersion. Native fluency is rather ill-defined for non-natives. All this thread illustrates is that you can take anything, use it in an entirely unintended way, and find the results aren't good; I truly hope this isn't news to anyone. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| jimbo baby! Senior Member United States Joined 5787 days ago 202 posts - 208 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English* | Message 16 of 92 08 April 2009 at 6:47am | IP Logged | ||||||||
No, you feel the need to reply to this because you just want to be argumentative. Big difference!
I'm here to offer suggestions and help in any way I can. Obviously no one "has to" or "must" follow my suggestions. I probably should have been more careful with my choice of words. I didn't expect anyone to take it literally, but if you want to argue frivolities like that then go right ahead and knock yourself out. But my post still stands. What works for one person might not work for others, which is why I find it amusing and hypocritical that you bring up Fanatic, Kaufmann and Khatzumoto, but according to you my approach is dead wrong, even though it might work for me, just as their approaches worked for them. And just for the record, my idea of immersion is similar to Khatzumoto's. I've always been an advocate of "All Language X All The Time". Anyway I hope the threadstarter can differentiate between people who want to be helpful and offer suggestions, and people who want to be argumentative and attempt to inflate their ego on an internet forum by trying to shoot down other people's posts. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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