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Overwhelmed by Resources for TL/L2 | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| vikavictoria Pentaglot Groupie United States Joined 4850 days ago 49 posts - 74 votes  Speaks: Persian, English*, German, Spanish, Tajik Studies: Russian | Message 1 of 12 05 December 2011 at 5:58pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hello all,
So, maybe this is the perfectionist in me speaking, but I feel that since I have so many resources (Assimil, Speak Easy, Linguaphone, University course books (3), High school books (3), Colloquial, Teach Yourself, and a bunch of media and audio files) I feel like I somehow have to get through all of them and ace everything that's in them, like vocab, and each sentence that they contain. Note also that I'm a busy college student. What should I do? Best, Vika 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6240 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 2 of 12 05 December 2011 at 6:03pm | IP Logged | ||
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Use Assimil, and any material that your university requires you to use. Forget the rest until you're done with Assimil. Then decide whether you think it's worth doing Linguaphone too, and act accordingly, and spend an hour or two leafing through the other books to see if they have explanations that click for anything that's still confusing you after Assimil.
Feel absolutely free to ignore most of the material, such as Teach Yourself. Is this the only option? Absolutely not. Feel free to substitute in any combination of the above materials instead (though I'd tend to prefer Assimil to start with, for most languages); it's just one way to get un-paralyzed. 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6271 days ago 2608 posts - 4866 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Esperanto, Greek, Mandarin, Latin, Dutch, Italian Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swahili, Indonesian, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Portuguese | Message 4 of 12 05 December 2011 at 7:31pm | IP Logged | ||
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What Volte said.
And if ever you feel bored or overwhelmed with one course, read through another. This will re-inforce what you already learned and teach you just a few new things. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4810 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 5 of 12 05 December 2011 at 10:25pm | IP Logged | ||
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What I do is to look at all I have available, move things I find trully unatractive to a side, than choose two or three various sources and don't move to the rest till I finish them. Exception for native material which works as motivation as well and is always a good thing to spend time with. A good combination of sources in my opinion is Assimil (or Linguaphone), a more traditional course (such as Colloquial)and a grammar book (preferably with exercises). And later, I can choose different courses if I still need them or just grammar and vocabulary books to cover gaps I have when facing native material.
I used to feel the need to go through everything not that long ago but when I looked at all there is available (for exemple for Spanish), I realised it is just not possible if I want to study several languages and move to native materials earlier than in the retirement age. So I invest some time in choosing the best material instead. I believe that one hour spent on it now will save me much time going through different materials later. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| vikavictoria Pentaglot Groupie United States Joined 4850 days ago 49 posts - 74 votes Speaks: Persian, English*, German, Spanish, Tajik Studies: Russian | Message 6 of 12 06 December 2011 at 1:37am | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks, all! But I am wondering, since I hear this everywhere, why is Assimil so highly regarded? I am 20 lessons in
and just think it's old and outdated (?) I have used Pimsleur, and in my honest opinion, I am more impressed by Pimsleur than many other people are. I kind of view it as what got me off the ground and able to SPEAK, which was great. So, why is Assimil so good, even though it's from 1950s? Thanks, Vika 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| NickJS Senior Member United Kingdom flickr.com/photos/sg Joined 4760 days ago 264 posts - 334 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Russian, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese | Message 7 of 12 06 December 2011 at 2:13am | IP Logged | ||
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I cannot remember where I saw it, but just have all the books in front of you and just
pick up the one that interests you most, then when you are bored swap to another one - just keep track of where you are in a journal etc. I personally think the more resources the better with anything, plus what one book overlooks, the other might not. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tractor Tetraglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5254 days ago 1349 posts - 2292 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, Catalan Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 8 of 12 06 December 2011 at 2:18am | IP Logged | ||
I believe it has been discussed ad nauseam, for example here http://how-to-learn-any- language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=22 or here http://how-to-learn-any- language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=402 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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