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Assimil Challenge: Pre Planning | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4679 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes  Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 33 of 129 24 July 2012 at 10:22pm | IP Logged | ||
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Maybe calling it the "Assimil Experiment" will differentiate it from the Challenges,
and take out the implied element of competition. Since we're all talking about starting a new language, it would make sense to give everyone enough lead time to clear their schedules, in regards to 6WCs and Super Challenges and getting their target languages to a safe place. But it's also a big commitment, so maybe a starting period would make sense more than a single start date. Something along the lines of: Starting Period: November 1-30 (or December 1-31) Ending Point: June 1. (or six months on) Recommended Average Pace: three to ten lessons per week (i.e., a standard Assimil pace) Level: Absolute beginner to A1 I'd like to limit it to only Assimil in the beginning - perhaps for the first 4 months (or well into the Active phase). Afterwards we can open it up for people who feel they need more. That way we don't cripple anybody if they choose a language where outside resources are needed (e.g. Arabic), or hold anyone back if they fall in love with their new language and want to rush ahead! ? Perfectionnement Level ? : Any thoughts on including this for intermediate students? I'd like to keep this as simple and elegant as possible, with one set of guidelines for everyone. By the intermediate level I always need multiple texts and approaches, but if people think this could fit let's include it - there isn't enough info out there on the advanced Assimil courses. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Kerrie Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Kerrie2 Joined 5185 days ago 1232 posts - 1740 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 34 of 129 24 July 2012 at 11:01pm | IP Logged | ||
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I really have no preference about a start date, as long as it's not before the end of the August 6WC. I am doing multiple Assimil courses anyways, with slightly different approaches to most of them. (For example, I copy all of the lessons and the exercises the first time around.) Plus, I will be adding a few new ones (Portuguese, Croatian, Russian, and Turkish for sure, and probably Dutch and Catalan as well) over the next year or two.
I am currently going through the Using Spanish and Using French courses, and plan to go through the Perfectionnement Italien and Perfectionnement Allemand when I am done with the with Ease courses. I can't speak for the Italian or German advanced courses yet, but the Spanish and French courses are very solid. They cover a lot of idiomatic expressions, and I think are more speech based - as opposed to the beginning courses, which realistically have to deal mostly with teaching you grammar and vocabulary. I think the first courses are definitely more speech-based than most other programs (in general), but the advanced courses are much more focused on that. As to whether they are included or not for this challenge/experiment, it doesn't matter to me. (It almost seems to me like we are starting an Assimil Support Group! LOL) I do think it would be interesting if more people used the advanced courses and shared their thoughts, though. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| sillygoose1 Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 4426 days ago 566 posts - 814 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish, French Studies: German, Latin | Message 35 of 129 25 July 2012 at 12:19am | IP Logged | ||
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Yeah, but if you use materials outside of Assimil as you stated with Arabic, doesn't that defeat the purpose of this experiment? Wasn't the point to see how far only an Assimil course can get you?
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| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4679 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 36 of 129 25 July 2012 at 12:30am | IP Logged | ||
For those who've done them - do the Assimil courses like Japanese, Russian, or Persian et al. teach non-Latin scripts also? The Arabic one didn't, so you would need something outside of Assimil for the course not to be a total waste. Edited by kanewai on 25 July 2012 at 3:23am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6387 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 37 of 129 25 July 2012 at 12:51am | IP Logged | ||
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What about assimilating from native resources though?
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Slothrop Newbie American Samoa Joined 4567 days ago 14 posts - 17 votes Speaks: Portuguese* Studies: English, Italian | Message 38 of 129 25 July 2012 at 3:13am | IP Logged | ||
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I've never taken part in any challenge/experiment here (as you can tell by my number of
posts, I'm just a lurker), but I'm definitely interested. As a hopeless procrastinator, I guess I need this kind of thing to get myself to work haha. Regarding the use of resources other than Assimil, what about Anki and the like, provided that only vocabulary present in the course is used? Edited by Slothrop on 25 July 2012 at 3:13am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| jsg Diglot Newbie Canada Joined 4297 days ago 30 posts - 59 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin Studies: French | Message 39 of 129 25 July 2012 at 5:04am | IP Logged | ||
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Mandarin has occupied my thoughts since last autumn. I've completed Michel Thomas, Pimsleur, and am half way through FSI and hope to be finished that by the time you are ready to begin the challenge. At that point I'm sure I will wish to put Mandarin into passive mode, that is watching TV, movies etc. but mot really studying. A few months of something else over the winter would be a nice change of pace before I move to China in the spring of next year.
I would be most interested in Italian because my wife's cousin has an Italian wife so I would have an immediate and practical use for the language. Being able to speak to her and her family would be a lot of fun, I'm sure. The extent of my Italian is the sentence, "Sono malto lieto di fare la sua conoscenza." So I would consider myself a total beginner. I hope this tiny knowledge wouldn't disqualify me. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Iwwersetzerin Bilingual Heptaglot Senior Member Luxembourg Joined 5459 days ago 259 posts - 513 votes Speaks: French*, Luxembourgish*, GermanC2, EnglishC2, SpanishC2, DutchC1, ItalianC1 Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 40 of 129 25 July 2012 at 11:17am | IP Logged | ||
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Definitely count me in for this experiment!
I am a big fan of Assimil (the only one I didn't like so far was the Esperanto one (French base) which I found too boring). I am currently working on 3 Assimils (Italian Perfectionnement, Dutch and Indonesian) and have a few more lurking on the bookshelf (Portuguese, Russian and Catalan). I would probably choose Portuguese (or maybe Catalan) for the experiment, I have some passive knowledge of both languages thanks to Spanish but close to zero active skills. The time frame from November-December to June would be perfect for me. June is also the month when official language exams are held, I'd be quite tempted to try a Portuguese exam. I think it should be possible do pass an A2 or B1 exam after going through an entire Assimil, especially in a language closely related to one you already know. Anyone else crazy enough to sign up for an exam at the end of the experiment? It wouldn't matter for the experiment what the base language is, right? My Assimil Portuguese has French as a base and the Catalan one Spanish. It might be interesting also to compare different language versions. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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