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Assimil method | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| Andy E Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6884 days ago 1651 posts - 1939 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, French | Message 49 of 57 11 January 2007 at 8:35am | IP Logged | ||
Personally, I don't think it's the case that you shouldn't worry about the pronounciation, but I think if you're spending that amount of time per lesson something's not right. You need to find some other sources for assistence. I've had the same issue with pronounciation in the Assimil Catalan course. I simply wasn't "getting it" just by listening to the audio and reading the explanations contained in the textbook. So I sought out other resources on the internet to get a better feel for where I was going wrong. I think Assimil's the type of course that you can very much tailor to your individual needs and I definitely haven't adhered to the maker's instructions wholly when I've used Assimil. When I did Assimil Spanish, I wasn't a beginner so I didn't really do a passive wave at all. I was actively translating to and from source and target language all the way through. With German, on the other hand, I have been following The Way and apart from looking up grammatical explanations once in a while, I have been using no other resources. Andy. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Guido Super Polyglot Senior Member ArgentinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6309 days ago 286 posts - 582 votes Speaks: Spanish*, French, English, German, Italian, Portuguese, Norwegian, Catalan, Dutch, Swedish, Danish Studies: Russian, Indonesian, Romanian, Polish, Icelandic | Message 50 of 57 11 January 2007 at 9:20pm | IP Logged | ||
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I dont know why I started studying German, my uncle just photocopied the book for me and I just started reading it. Then, i started loving that method. I always tought that German was imposible to learn.
I lerned German, French and Japanese (this last 2 still with the books) with Assimil books. The 1º one was German, i photocopied it the 25 of May 2006 (my uncle had the book), reading and writing 1 lesson per day and going to my Uncle house (who studied German with assimil too, 6 years ago) every Friday and we read togheter 3 or 4 lessons (that i readed the week before) each friday, so, studing with someone more, i discovered that Assimils works perfect that way. The 8 of August, i passed a German exam in the UBA(University of Buenos Aires) and entered to the level 4 (of the 7 total that are the basics, and there are other 7 of technical words, etc), but, 4/7???THAT ISNT SO MUCH!!!. WAIT WAIT WAIT, i was in the lesson 51 of the book, and it have 100 lesson... Conclusion, Assimil works perfect for (at least) my mind. The 2º language i studied (and still studying) is Japanese 1º Tome (Assimil japanese have 2 tomes) and readed it and write and now im doing it for second time (to reinforce some Kanjis). I make 1 lesson per day of Japanese (the book have 49) and each one takes me 1 hour (read it and write it in Japanese only). I started with Jap the 20 October 2006. The 3º was French (still studying - it have 99 lessons, im the the 98 :P) and started it the 01 November 2006, and, cause i speak navite Spanish, 75% of frenchs words sound me familiar, and isnt so hard if u speak another Romantic language. Some tips for Assimil books: - If you have a familiar/friend that speaks/want-to-learn the target language, go to the library and photocopy the book, and start going (at least 1 time per week) studying togheter. It wont fail. - Buy a Dictionary and write every new word that appear in the new lesson. Make a orderly list, diferenciate noun from verbs and from adjetives with some marks. - Write all lessons in a notebook, its very important to write (specialy if you are learning a language with a writing system other than Romanic System, like Arabic, Chinese, etc). - Make 1 lesson per day, you have to be constant. And respect the "Second Wave" system, it works. 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 51 of 57 11 January 2007 at 10:16pm | IP Logged | ||
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As usual this topic stirs up a lot of interest.
Thanks Andy, for this observation:
If you can’t manage a lesson in 30 minutes then something is not right – find out what it is and fix it! This should have been obvious, but for some reason I never really thought of it that way – even though I have done the same thing myself. With French it was pronunciation and with German, even though I had experience, it was sentence patterns. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Roger Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6373 days ago 159 posts - 161 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, Indonesian | Message 52 of 57 12 January 2007 at 7:05am | IP Logged | ||
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During the day yesterday and this morning, I spent only 25 mins on a lesson. I just understood the lesson and moved on, pronounciation was moderate. A while later I then translated the english text into the TL text, in writing. After this pronounciation was fine, not the best mind you. I made a few mistakes in the written translation but was suprised at how much I rememberd, considering I only spent 25 mins on it.
Is this what is supposed to be done then? even though the content of the lessons are not fully in my head? I do however remember a large portion of it. P.S. I am aware that you are not supposed to translate in the first wave but I find its very beneficial, in keeping a 'tight grip' on the content in your head. Edited by Roger on 12 January 2007 at 7:26am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6986 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 53 of 57 12 January 2007 at 7:50am | IP Logged | ||
I find writing helpful too. I've only recently begun to do it with any earnestness. I'm starting to think about doing it for difficult exercises and dialogues. If I was totally focused on Assimil, I think it would be a helpful adjunct to mastering the material. 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 54 of 57 12 January 2007 at 7:53am | IP Logged | ||
It sounds like you have got it. I would not worry too much about retaining all those pesky words in each lesson that just don’t seem to stick. You’ll encounter them elsewhere and then they’ll sink in. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Roger Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6373 days ago 159 posts - 161 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, Indonesian | Message 55 of 57 12 January 2007 at 8:01am | IP Logged | ||
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This is how I will continue to do assimil.
Luke, I find writing a great way to take in a language, I will translate all the text into the target language a few hours later, in writing. It's better than just doing the standard 25-30 mins I think. Edited by Roger on 12 January 2007 at 8:02am 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 56 of 57 14 May 2007 at 4:30am | IP Logged | ||
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I'm about halfway through the Assimil course in German and Mandarin, and started to think about the first and second wave. In both courses there are 49 lessons in the first wave (and about the same number for the second). I like the idea of first/second (probably close to "the way we all learn our native language") but how did they came up with such a specific number?
Could we adapt the method to any other material? Naturally, the lessons should able to digest in a day (if we want a daily progression). I think most Teach Yourself courses have around 20 chapters, so perhaps we shouldn't do one of those each day. But doing a chapter for a couple of days, and then going on? The second wave would start at chapter 11 (or whenever half of the material is absorbed). Maybe a lot of TY courses has two dialogues per chapter, and if so, one could probably do one each day (or every other day). Or maybe this couldn't be done in the same fashion/with the same result due to the language in those chapters? Perhaps there is something magical about the Assimil lessons, more suitable for this "one lesson a day"-approach, as the "right" patterns are assimilated? Has anybody here done this kind of experiment with TY/Colloquial/Linguaphone/et.c., going through the first half of a course and then starting over "actively"? As some may have noticed, I found my old Linguaphone Irish course last week, and thought it would be a good thing to (re-)learn the language, using another method. There are 48 chapters, of which 1-12 have two parts (possibly digestable in 24 days with a little effort). Any thought are appreciated. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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