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Assimil | ||
Tags: Shadowing | Polyglottery | Alexander Arguelles | Reading | Language Program | Learning Technique/Method | Assimil | Book | Grammar | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| fanatic Octoglot Senior Member Australia speedmathematics.com Joined 6934 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 89 of 278 03 April 2006 at 4:12am | IP Logged | ||
It certainly is possible because you don't actively commit the words to memory. You just note the new words and their meanings and just recognize them when you hear them and read them. The context will generally help so recognizing the words is not difficult. You are reminded each day from then on as the words are repeated in future lessons or you repeat them as you review the previous lessons each day. It is not long before the words have found their way into your active vocabulary, and you have learnt them and revised them in context. All I can say is, the method works well in practice. I remember feeling cheated when I came across new words in German (while living in Germany) that hadn't been included in my Assimil course. The vocabulary is the vocabulary you use in real life under ordinary circumstances. I remember having to learn a technical vocabulary and a religious and philosophical vocabulary to indulge in religious and philosophical arguments. And, so far as I have done a word count, the words are either all different or maybe the same root word used in a different form. For instance, the word used as a noun and as a verb. That is, two different forms of the same root word. So far as my early counts were concerned, I think they were all different words and not different forms of the same verb. You also couldn't count an adjective qualifying a masculine, feminine and neuter noun as three different words. I would say the word counts and the vocabularies claimed by Assimil are the dictionary forms. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| fanatic Octoglot Senior Member Australia speedmathematics.com Joined 6934 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 90 of 278 03 April 2006 at 4:18am | IP Logged | ||
I think it would defeat the purpose of the passive/active waves. The idea is that through the passive wave you don't do any drills. A lot of drills I have seen and heard are not true to real life anyway. I think the ability to say what you want in the target language should be your goal in the active wave anyway. Maybe I just don't like drills. My children learnt German in Germany and didn't do a single drill but spoke like natives without any trace of accent. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| axe02 Triglot Groupie Joined 7009 days ago 71 posts - 73 votes Speaks: English*, Portuguese, French | Message 91 of 278 05 April 2006 at 2:40pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hi everyone. Does anyone know what the basic Assimil programs (the "With Ease" set) teach in terms of verbs? I'm wondering if the "With Ease" series would at least teach the subjunctive forms or is that only in the second level programs? I assume compound forms of the subjunctive, conditional, the past definite, etc. would be taught in the "Using ..." series.
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| Farley Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6880 days ago 681 posts - 739 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, GermanB1, French Studies: Spanish | Message 92 of 278 05 April 2006 at 3:41pm | IP Logged | ||
Just as you suspected, French with Ease just introduces the present subjective, Using French covers the subjunctive and other advanced verb tenses in detail. I would assume the same goes for other Assimil Language courses. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| mike245 Triglot Senior Member Hong Kong Joined 6760 days ago 303 posts - 408 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Cantonese Studies: French, German, Mandarin, Khmer | Message 93 of 278 06 April 2006 at 3:19pm | IP Logged | ||
So to clarify, the "With Ease" sets are not, in themselves, complete in terms of grammar? For many languages, especially from an English base, there is no Advanced book set available, so this would be a big obstacle to fluency for those languages if this is the case. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Farley Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6880 days ago 681 posts - 739 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, GermanB1, French Studies: Spanish | Message 94 of 278 06 April 2006 at 9:00pm | IP Logged | ||
The “With Ease” series takes you to the intermediate level and the “Using” series to the advanced level. I mentioned elsewhere (I can’t remember where) Assimil is a vocabulary heavy course. You learn more words in the “With Ease” series than with most other courses for the given price so for some languages this may not be a problem depending on your goals. Judging from you profile, you might be able to take advantage of your German and use the German language versions of the “With Ease” and “Using” courses where they are not available in English. As for fluency, you have to supplement the course with something else to get the “it sounds right” effect. Fanatic, above, recommends using three different grammar/text books with exercises along with Assimil, others prefer using Assimil with FSI. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Farley Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6880 days ago 681 posts - 739 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, GermanB1, French Studies: Spanish | Message 95 of 278 06 April 2006 at 9:11pm | IP Logged | ||
Judging from your book, you do a lot of reading out-loud from textbooks and phrasebooks learn high frequency words and structure? Perhaps that is just a drill by a different name? Anyway I agree on the active/passive of Assimil, trying to make the method “interactive” would destroy the method. What I find interesting is that compared to FSI, Assimil is just a dialog drill and variation drill all crammed into one – with the active passive wave. The method takes some adapting but I think the elements of drill are still there – just with a “global” context. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Asiafeverr Diglot Senior Member Hong Kong Joined 6130 days ago 346 posts - 431 votes 1 sounds Speaks: French*, English Studies: Mandarin, Cantonese, Shanghainese, German | Message 96 of 278 26 September 2007 at 1:41pm | IP Logged | ||
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I was just wondering about the "editing the pauses" part using Audacity. I tried to do it. It was quite long for a single lesson and when I tried to listen to it, there was literally no pause: the voices spoke one after the other and it didn't seemed natural.
Should I leave a mini-pause so that it still looks like a real conversation? Do I have to do it by hand for every lesson at every place there is a pause? What is the best way to do this? I also cut off the beginning when it says "Lesson X - Theme of the lesson" and the exercises, that way I only have the conversations. Is it the way it should be done? Thanks in advance. Edited by Asiafeverr on 26 September 2007 at 3:24pm 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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