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Assimil Grec sans peine | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| seldnar Senior Member United States Joined 6943 days ago 189 posts - 287 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin, French, Greek | Message 1 of 8 25 September 2012 at 8:55am | IP Logged | ||
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I thought I'd get in a little practice using an Assimil course before the experiment
(?), project (?), I don't think its a challenge, begins in November. Then I plan to use Tamoul sans peine but I've been itching to start a new language and thought I'd try modern Greek. I ordered Grec sans peine from Schoenhof's last week and it arrived about six days later. I've looked at and played around with other Assimil courses before but they were for languages that I already had some familiarity with. I have almost no knowledge of modern Greek. I did have 7 years of classical Greek in high school and college, so I recognize vocabulary but the grammar (or maybe I should say apparent lack of grammar compared to classical Greek) and pronunciation aren't familiar to me. It really does strike me as something entirely new (unlike Italian or even German neither of which I know but with which I do have lots of familiarity). So the first thing I learned is: its harder than it looks. I know lots of people say they spend at least thirty minutes on an Assimil lesson but, because the lessons are so short at the beginning, I thought I'd be finished sooner. Not so. I easily spent a half hour on the first lesson and I could have spent more. I played it incessantly as I looked at the Greek and then the French and back again. Then I just listened to it several times without reading anything. I even shadowed a bit but as I was in a coffee shop I didn't do it more than once. (This is also the first time I've used a language course with an mp3 disc. I love it. Not only is there audio but the Greek text is on my player as well. Each lesson in mp3 format consists several tracks the first of which is the audio (and text) for the entire lesson (translation exercises included), then individual tracks for each line of the dialog. The only glitch I encountered is I didn't know how to import it into iTunes in the first place. After I loaded the disc I expected iTunes to ask if I wanted to import the disc. It didn't. Apparently, it only does that with audio discs. I had to go to Files and choose Add Folder to Library. After that it was easy-peasy.) I don't have a set method for attacking this yet. I figure I'll try out the different approaches I've read about here and see which fits best. If anyone has suggestions, I'm happy to hear them. I've never posted a language log before so I'm not sure what I'll write about or how often (I'm thinking a minimum of once a week). I thought this might be a good way to make me more conscious of the Assimil process and that some people might be interested to learn more about this particular course. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| embici Triglot Senior Member CanadaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4421 days ago 263 posts - 370 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Greek | Message 2 of 8 25 September 2012 at 3:54pm | IP Logged | ||
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Good luck, Seldnar! I look forward to following your log.
I've been working on le nouveau Grec sans peine since the start of the August 6 week challenge. It's my first Assimil and I too find it is going slower than I expected. I usually need much more time per lesson than the 20-30 minutes people seem to recommend. And I'm not aiming for 100% comprehension. Perhaps I haven't found the right methodology yet for working through it. I look forward to reading how you use it. Also, I often read around here how amusing the dialogues are in Assimil. Am I missing something? I don't find these particularly interesting at all. At least, no more interesting than the ones in Teach Yourself Greek. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| vermillon Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4489 days ago 602 posts - 1042 votes Speaks: French*, EnglishC2, Mandarin Studies: Japanese, German | Message 3 of 8 25 September 2012 at 4:08pm | IP Logged | ||
I don't know how far you are in the book, but I have it and when I had looked at the first week or so, it was indeed not interesting at all, at least not amusing in the least. Other languages have much funnier content (Norwegian, Latin, German, sometimes Polish and Swahili) however. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 4977 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 4 of 8 25 September 2012 at 6:31pm | IP Logged | ||
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Good luck seldnar!
I have two editions for Grec sans peine, the latter with "nouveau" (I'm not speaking of Le grec ancien which is another issue). I also plan to join that Assimil challenge with a brand new Assimil book, I think I'm already watching that thread to make sure I'll be there when it starts. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| seldnar Senior Member United States Joined 6943 days ago 189 posts - 287 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin, French, Greek | Message 5 of 8 25 September 2012 at 9:53pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks everyone for your encouragement. I'll try to get another post about the course
up in a day or two.
@embici, I agree. The lessons I've previewed so far aren't funny but I think I have enough excitement to look past that fact. Like you, I've long heard about the humor in Assimil's courses but the only one that seems to have humor consistently throughout is the French course. The Italian I have looks decidedly unfunny (useful no doubt but not amusing). I have looked through the Tamil course and it does seem that there is some humor there. @vermillon, I'm glad to hear there's humor in some of the other courses. Referring to another post of yours, I'm sorry to hear the Assimil Indonesian is so disappointing. Its one of the languages I'd like to study. Perhaps the new edition this fall will be funnier. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| seldnar Senior Member United States Joined 6943 days ago 189 posts - 287 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin, French, Greek | Message 6 of 8 01 October 2012 at 8:59am | IP Logged | ||
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Well, its been a week and I've just finished the review lesson.
The week started off bumpy when my lessons kept shuffling around. It took me a while (more like two days) to realize I had somehow managed to hit shuffle. Since there isn't a shuffle icon in audiobook setting, I didn't realize that selecting shuffle in music would affect audiobooks as well. I can be really thick sometimes. It took me two days to figure it out. After that everything went well. I've opted for "over-listening." I listen to the dialog once, then on the second pass I read along in the Greek and on the third I read along in the French. Then I listen to it maybe 10 or 15 more times. Before I begin a new lesson, I listen once to all the preceding lessons. That's sustainable now, but not for much longer. I'll probably limit it to the preceding five lessons. I find that my listening has really improved--of course, part of that is undoubtedly the fact that I've unintentionally memorized the dialogs by so much repeated listening. Midway through the week, I was really craving a grammar book. Although the explanations in Assimil are nice and clear, I wanted to have a bird's eye view of the language. I went ahead and ordered a Routledge grammar from Amazon but a day later realized that years ago I had bought Le Grec de poche by Assimil. I dug it out and discovered it has a nice little overview. While digging for it, I also noticed that I had a Colloquial Greek course published by Routledge in the 90s. Funny, I thought my desire to study modern Greek was a whim I had a few weeks ago. Apparently not. Apparently this idea has been rolling around in the back of my head for years. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| embici Triglot Senior Member CanadaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4421 days ago 263 posts - 370 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Greek | Message 7 of 8 16 October 2012 at 6:14pm | IP Logged | ||
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How's it going, seldnar? Any updates?
How do you find the Colloquial Greek? I'm finding with Assimil that just when I get discouraged by the difficulty of one or two lessons, one comes along that I have no trouble with at all. I wonder if they do that deliberately or if my Greek has good and bad days. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 4977 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 8 of 8 16 October 2012 at 6:35pm | IP Logged | ||
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They don't do that deliberatedly, it's just that sometimes you come across lessons with less familiar vocabulary then another lessons shows up with more down to earth vocabulary. At least that's what happens with the Norwegian book.
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