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Assimil Strategy | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| braveb Senior Member United States languageprograms.blo Joined 6978 days ago 264 posts - 263 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: German, French | Message 9 of 29 31 March 2006 at 3:29pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I've been a bit lazy on my word study of Assimil Hebrew so I'm not completly up to date with my word occurence list, but here is a list of all the different words in 9 lessons. It's on the bottom of the blog, past the German one.
http://languageprograms.blogspot.com/ If I didn't understand even one word in the audio, then I pause it and refer back to the word list to find out what the general meaning is. I usually do this at the end of the day, obviously not in a car going back and forth to work and school. But as mentioned earlier by many others, the first step is to just listen to the different sounds and train your ear. I noticed that if I went straight to the translation phase, then I would have a second or two of lag to remember the meaning of the word. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| CaitO'Ceallaigh Triglot Senior Member United States katiekelly.wordpress Joined 6638 days ago 795 posts - 829 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Russian Studies: Czech, German | Message 10 of 29 11 April 2006 at 1:20pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Tuffy, I enjoy your posts because you and I are both learning Spanish, and yet our learning styles could not be more different. On the one hand, if I thought as much as you do about how sentences work, my head would explode. On the other, I also can't help but notice how well you write in English, and that you speak German as well, and that perhaps Spanish isn't as accessable in Holland as it is where I live, so obviously you've figured out this language learning business. My own approach is to underlearn. Or maybe it is overlearning. I just throw myself in. I accept that my brain is probably absorbing more than I even realize, so I keep pummeling it, basically, with Spanish. As much as possible, primarily through television, radio, reading and conversations. All the grammar and "studying" is on the side. I went through Pimsleur 1 through III, and I only did each lesson once, and then moved on. I couldn't repeat them, no way. I'm going through FSI now, but I have to move through it quickly, or it's going to torture me. I don't even use the book. I just listen and repeat in my car, and move on. Life is a drill, when you think about it. You learn from your mistakes, you move on. :) I mean, I can't think of how many English idioms or slang terms I've learned and continue to learn, without studying a single one. I'm always hearing some new way to express something in my own language. I think, that's a clever way to say that, I'm going to say that, too! My only regret is picking up the word, "Dude". I wish I never learned that one. And "far out". Where did I learn this? I can't get rid of these words. But it's proof that you learn words just by being exposed to them, without even trying. That's my own approach. Friends at home say my method is completely unorthodox, but oh well. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6690 days ago 4250 posts - 5710 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 11 of 29 11 April 2006 at 2:37pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I've learned music (mostly traditional Irish) the same way as you learn Spanish, Cait. :) Instead of studying it "for real" I've grabbed the instrument, put on a record and trying to imitate what I hear - something which I think is close to (native) language learning. It both requires and develops a pretty good pitch. If I miss a note/long sequences of notes, I don't repeat the tune if I'm not focusing on learning it "properly". Then I move to next track, and next track and so on. After the first "round" I might listen to another record, or listen to the same one again, realising how the pieces fall into place.
Borrowing your idea about idoms, we (including non musicicans) have our heads full of tunes we haven't "learned", but have been exposed to. Just a few thoughts. :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Farley Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6873 days ago 681 posts - 739 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, GermanB1, French Studies: Spanish | Message 12 of 29 11 April 2006 at 4:13pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Fanatic’s book Fast Easy Way to Learn a Language recommends a method he calls “quickly but poorly” to learn foreign languages, similar to what you described above. Perhaps he can comment more. If you don’t like drills, he describes a systematic way to learn a language through repetition and organization. Perhaps he will comment more on “quickly but poorly”. Edited by Farley on 11 April 2006 at 4:14pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Sir Nigel Senior Member United States Joined 6885 days ago 1126 posts - 1102 votes 2 sounds | Message 13 of 29 11 April 2006 at 4:30pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I think I'm going to try to take on more of that type of method. Like mentioned above, it's in that new book on learning languages. Of course I've read that it's best to learn something the right way the first time, rather than having to correct old mistakes in the future.
I might recomend just spending a little time to make sure you understand some of the words.
Dude, you're gettin' a Dell! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Americano Senior Member Korea, South Joined 6627 days ago 101 posts - 120 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Korean | Message 14 of 29 11 April 2006 at 8:24pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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right now i'm using Pimsleur Spanish, but I am considering using Assimil concurrently with Pimsleur, instead of FSI. This method seems to demand less time, which is important because i'm a busy university student, but I assume it teaches Vosotros, instead of Ustedes. How much will would this set me back since I am going to Mexico, and not Spain? Kinda up in the air right now bout which intense program to use: FSI (requiring more time, or Assimil).
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| reltuk Groupie United States Joined 6597 days ago 75 posts - 110 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, French | Message 15 of 29 11 April 2006 at 8:34pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I'm currently going through Assimil's Spanish with Ease, and it does teach vosotros, but it also teaches ustedes (in context as both "formal 2nd person plural" and "3rd person plural"). Vosotros is just the informal 2nd person plural...it's the exact same thing as the tu/ud. distinction. I don't think it would "set you back" at all. If anything, the pronunciation is more likely to get you looked at weird, along with some differences in word choice. All in all, I think the course is a great assest, and it has an appendix with notes about variation in word selection, pronunciation and some grammar among varying Latin American countries and Spain. Assuming you learned good "Spainish", it seems like it would be easy to adjust to fit in when you got Latin America. Also, when are you going to Mexico? It takes about six months to get through a "with Ease" program at the rate of one lesson a day. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Americano Senior Member Korea, South Joined 6627 days ago 101 posts - 120 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Korean | Message 16 of 29 11 April 2006 at 8:46pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Teaching both forms sounds like a solid approach to me. I am actually leaving June 7th, and will be there for 6 weeks. So, that is only 3 months away. Could I double my effort and do two lessons a day? That would make it 3 months to completion. If they're only 30-45 minutes each lesson, then two a day seems easy to me, but i've never used the Assimil, so I only know the program from reading others reports about it. I do have FSI Barrons I right now, which is 1/4 of the original program, and I could finish that easily before I go, and get into Barrons II before going, and continue it in Mexico. I'm just really confused on what to use as my "main" program. Assimil seems faster, but maybe not as in-depth as FSI, and FSI seems to take so much time, but it supposedly pounds the language into you, so to speak.
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