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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| menez93 Pro Member Italy Joined 4249 days ago 10 posts - 10 votes Speaks: Italian* Personal Language Map | Message 1 of 4 19 September 2012 at 10:20am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Hi all I'm a new user of this beautiful site. I'm Italian and I want to learn English.
Until yesterday I had to go in England for 5 - 6 months but now I'm a new student of my university and I will go there. I want to learn English because a lot of textbooks, best textbooks, are in English and when I read one of this I have trouble to understand it. My question is: is it possible with Assimil in English to learn the language well? If I study more than one lesson (for example six lessions) per day could be well or counterproductive? Anyone could tell me a good method (step by step) with Assimil that permits me to understand an English textbook or to listen an university videocourse?? Sorry for my bad English. I have used Google Translate for some words. I hope that someone have understood. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5331 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes  Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 2 of 4 19 September 2012 at 2:54pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Hello, and welcome to HTLAL! I've tried to write this post in simple English. First of all, what kinds of English writing can you understand right now, and how well do you understand it? If you want to understand textbooks in English, you will probably need to have reading skills at a level of CEFR B2, and possibly C1. You can find an explanation of the CEFR levels here, in Italian. Please read this quickly before continuing: Quadro comune europeo di riferimento (QCER) Assimil has two English courses with an Italian base: 1. L'Inglese 2. Perfezionamento dell'Inglese Course #1 will help you reach CEFR A2 or B1. Course #2 will help you reach CEFR B2. These levels are not exact—you may learn more or less.
Six Assimil lessons per day will be hard. You want to really understand each lesson, and not just look at it quickly. You will need at least 30 minutes per lesson. (Of course, you already know some English, so the first lessons will be easy.)
Once you finish L'Inglese, you should start trying to read English textbooks. Look up words you don't understand. If you want, you can copy interesting sentences from your textbook to an Anki deck. An interesting sentence is one which uses an important expression or a word you want to know better. If you use Anki, review your Anki cards every day. The more English textbooks you read, the easier they will be to understand. Practice makes perfect. If you spend about 500 hours studying Assimil, reading textbooks, and practicing your English, you should be able to understand most English-language textbooks (especially textbooks on technical and professional subjects), and you should be able to understand some video courses. If you've already studied a lot of English, you will need less than 500 hours.
No problem! I could understand your questions, and everybody at HTLAL knows how hard it is to write well in a foreign language. 8 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| menez93 Pro Member Italy Joined 4249 days ago 10 posts - 10 votes Speaks: Italian* Personal Language Map | Message 3 of 4 19 September 2012 at 4:03pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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I have PET certification (level B1).
I have a method for Assimil. I start with "L'inglese" with these line guide for each lesson: 1. Listen to the text with the book closed. It does not matter if you do not understand what is said. You will gain a general impression of the sounds, hearing the pronunciation without being influenced by the spelling. 2. Listen to the recording a second time while looking at the English translation. 3. Read the Dutch text aloud (with the aid of the phonetic transcription if necessary). Be sure you understand the meaning of each sentence, comparing it with the translation as required. 4. Now read the Dutch text again, but this time without looking at the translation. 5. Listen to the recording twice, once while looking at the English translation, and once while looking at the Dutch text. 6. Listen to the recording again with the book closed. At this point you should understand what is being said. 7. Listen to the recording once more. Stop the machine after each sentence, and try to repeat it aloud. 8. Carefully read the comments several times. Examine the Dutch sentences being explained. These notes are very important. 9. Read the exercises. Repeat each sentence several times. The exercises review material from the current lesson and from preceding lessons. If you have forgotten certain words, consult the English translation. 10. Examine the examples of sentence structure. They show how words and phrases are combined in Dutch, which is not always the same as in English. after point ten I could translate two lessons for week (from English to Italian) and (from Italian to English) when I will finish "L'inglese" I will use "Perfezionamento". Is it ok? Is this method good? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5331 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 4 of 4 19 September 2012 at 5:56pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I just looked at the sample papers for the PET B1 exam. This test requires you to understand the main ideas of English language text, and to write about 150 words about concrete, familiar subjects. So you already know quite a bit of English. This will make things much easier for you! All you need to do is figure out how to make it from B1 to B2, which will probably take a few hundred hours of hard work. You may find that L'inglese is much too easy for you. You might even be ready to start Perfezionamento. To use an Assimil lesson, listen to the audio and read the text until you understand 100% of the English text and 95% of the English audio. You can use the Dutch instructions that you posted above, or you can try doing things in other orders. For example, sometimes I read the text first, sometimes I listen first, and sometimes I make Anki cards for each lesson first. Try to study every day. (You might need to spend two days on some Perfezionamento lessons, if it's like Assimil's other intermediate courses.) But Assimil, by itself, may not be enough to learn how to read English-language textbooks. When I was at B1, I discovered that I needed to use a mix of different techniques to make fast progress. Assimil was useful, but it wasn't enough by itself. Here are some things that may help you reach B2. You may want to try some of these and see if they help: 1. Take a look at Perfezionamento and see if you're ready. 2. Read interesting non-fiction ebooks with a pop-up dictionary, and look up unknown words. Try to read a lot. Wikipedia's great, too. 3. Learn how to write comfortably. When I was at B1, I spent 30 days writing on lang-8, and it made a huge difference. In particular, it dramatically improved my French grammar. See my post in this thread for some suggestions. 4. Try to listen to online news radio, or to watch documentaries on TV. These tend to be much easier than TV shows and movies. Do some "intensive" listening, where you play the same audio over and over, read transcripts, and try to understand everything. Also do "extensive" listening, where you listen lots of audio and don't worry if you miss stuff. 5. Find lots of English-language materials, websites and forums that you find interesting or addictive. 6. Look for English speakers on SharedTalk and other language-exchange websites, and practice your speaking skills. It's possible to make very rapid progress speaking around B1. 7. Consider making sentence cards in Anki. Here are some samples from my French deck:
I try to learn 10 new cards per day, and to do my Anki reviews every day. (My average daily reviews are 60–100 cards.) These cards help me learn and remember new vocabulary, and also tricky bits of grammar. Basically, if you use and practice your English regularly, you should be able to read many English textbooks very soon. B2 isn't enough for every textbook, but it makes a huge difference compared to B1. And you're not that far away. Good luck! 5 persons have voted this message useful |
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