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Assimil Experiment Group Log | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Marishka Newbie United States Joined 5035 days ago 25 posts - 56 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, French, Dutch | Message 177 of 344 02 January 2013 at 11:04pm | IP Logged | ||
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Dutch With Ease Update
Passive Wave: 57-63 Active Wave: 8-14 My original plan, once I reached the active wave, was to split passive and active wave lessons, doing a passive lesson one day and an active lesson the next. Fortunately, I haven't had to do that yet, as the active lessons have been extremely easy so far. For the second week in a row, I had no problems translating the dialogues from English to Dutch. My only complaint with the passive wave this past week is that Dora and Mia were featured in four more lessons. In one of the dialogues, a character named Wim said to them, "Houd nu op met babbelen." (Now quit chattering.) I second that! I've had enough of their babbelen to last a lifetime. I'm hoping for at least one more week of smooth sailing with the active lessons because I am anxious to finish this course as soon as possible. Why is that? Well, let's put it this way: I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is that Santa brought me three more Dutch courses for Christmas. The bad news is that I'm dying to try them out! I feel like a kid who got a shiny new bicycle for Christmas, but has to leave it parked in the garage for several months before getting to ride it. It will probably take me another three months to reach the Assimil finish line, so I'm just going to try to stay positive and focused on the task at hand. After all, those other courses aren't going anywhere--they'll wait patiently on the bookshelf for their turn. Are we there yet? ;-) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Gerardparks Diglot Newbie United States Joined 4176 days ago 7 posts - 8 votes Speaks: Cantonese, English* Studies: Mandarin, French | Message 178 of 344 03 January 2013 at 3:21am | IP Logged | ||
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New French With Ease
So I haven't been posting any updates, so this will be my first log. Today I am on Lesson 47, so I'm not quite at the active phase yet, but I will be in a few days. I find that I am progressing really quickly each day and I can understand most of what I read without looking at the translation, but listening to the recordings is still hard for me. I spend about 30 minutes each day on a lesson. I don't go back to the previous lesson but I probably should start doing that. I think I am at the point where I have most of the basic grammar down and all I need is more vocabulary, which I am struggling to remember, but it's coming along. I haven't tried speaking with other people yet so I've mostly been passive. I can read a simple text and understand some of it, but since the vocabulary in the Assimil course is mostly simple, everyday words, I can't read children's books because I don't even know the words in French for "The Cat in the Hat" or anything like that. Like I said, listening to the Assimil recordings is hard for me, so listening to TV or a conversation is even harder. However, the recordings are beginning to sound a little less foreign with each lesson. I will probably update my log a week after I start the active phase. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Laurae Diglot Groupie Germany Joined 4825 days ago 51 posts - 67 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Dutch | Message 179 of 344 03 January 2013 at 5:09pm | IP Logged | ||
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I've completed Lesson 32 of Italian with Ease, and while I think it's a useful, if exasperating resource to use on it's own, I'm finding it very hard to quantify what I've learned so far, in terms of the course.
This is my error. Prior to the experiement I studied Italian for about 60 hours, between classes, assignments and home study, and while my class level was A1.1, my home study probably pushed me a lot further, especially with regard to grammar and vocabulary acquisition. I'm finding most of the vocabulary and constructions familiar, and have encountered no great grammar shocks. I feel that I've enforced and revised what I know. Thus, I'm obviously in a different position than somebody learning from scratch. Therefore I will add other resources to my learning, since I'm simply fed up of using one. I don't feel I'm progressing quick enough, and as the New Year comes, I'm keen to develop my Italian skills. I might try Assimil alone for a few weeks in the future, maybe for Arabic or Swedish, but I can't see myself using this resource alone to learn, especially since I'm so fond of audio-visual material and grammar exercises. Edited by Laurae on 03 January 2013 at 5:14pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4494 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 180 of 344 04 January 2013 at 12:11am | IP Logged | ||
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Le Breton sans peine - jusqu'à la 63ème leçon
J'ai surtout appris la mutation spirante (c'est une mutation qui transforme des consonnes fortes comme K, T, P et ajoute une aspiration; ils deviennent donc C'H, Z et F. T mutait originellement en TH, comme le "th" anglais du mot "thin", mais cette consonne n'existe plus en breton. Le temps a évolué et comme ça th devenait "z" (pensez aux français qui ne peuvent prononcer le "th" quand ils parlent anglais!). La mutation spirante n'est utilisé trop, mais il y a des pronoms possessifs qui demandent cette mutation (he, o et ma). J'ai aussi appris l'imparfait en breton, qui est quasi-regulière pour tous les verbes, pourvu qu'on sait la base verbale pour bezañ (et kaout, qui n'est qu'une forme speciale de bezañ) et gouzout. Mont et ober sont parfaitement regulières à l'imparfait, tout comme TOUS les autres verbes. Il suffit d'ajouter un "e" apres la base verbale et en plus on ajoute les terminaisons comme ils se produisent pour bezañ. Voici un exemple avec le mot skrivañ (écrire); (dec'h a) (hier) skriven skrives skrive skrivemp skrivec'h skrivent skriver (on écrivait). Je répète: TOUS les verbes se conjuguent comme ça. Et rappelez quand le sujet est exprimé, on n'a besoin de que la forme à la troisième personne du singulier; donc, me a skrive (et non skriven). La distinction entre les formes d'habitude (Glas eo an oabl) et de location (Emañ Erwan er gegin) n'existe à l'imparfait non plus; on peut les conjuguer en utilisant la même conjugaison (oan, oas, oa, oamp, oac'h, oant) (notez que c'est plus ou moins regulière, sauf qu'il y a pas de -e et la base verbale est oa-; les terminaisons sont les mêmes). Donc on dit: Erwan a oa er gegin et Glas a oa an oabl (on a besoin de la particule verbale a ici). De plus j'ai étudié des formes conjuguées des prépositions comme gant, a, da, evit. Les tableaux sont presque complétés. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| rahdonit Bilingual Tetraglot Groupie Ukraine Joined 6401 days ago 50 posts - 87 votes Speaks: Russian*, Ukrainian*, English, German | Message 181 of 344 04 January 2013 at 5:26pm | IP Logged | ||
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Le Grec Ancien Sans Peine
Lessons 1 - 19 Language impressions in general. I like the sound and the look of the language. The Greek alphabet looks very nice and is easy to learn. One of the most striking things is that despite having nothing in common with the languages I know (well, it is an Indo-European language, but not a Slavic, a Germanic or a Romance one), now and then there is a certain feeling of familiarity with the language due to all those words that were borrowed from Greek. In each lesson there is a nice étymologie sans peine section which explain the etymology of Greek borrowing in French. But even besides that, random words from the first lessons make you draw parallels. To name just a few: ΑΝΘΡΟΠΟΣ [anthropos] – human being - anthropology ΘΕΟΣ [theos] – god - theology ΨΥΧΗ [psukhe] – soul - psychology ΒΙΒΛΙΟΝ [biblion] – book - Bible ΑΣΚΗΣΕΙΣ [askeses] – exercises - ascesis ΠΟΛΕΜΟΣ [polemos] – war - polemics Most probably the vocabulary in the first lessons was specially selected to highlight these similarities and I anticipate that further on things will get more difficult, but am sure there will be a lot these aha moments as well. Grammar In theory nothing over-complicated so far, but in practice I don’t think I can recognize different noun cases, to say nothing of being able to put a noun in a right case myself. Hopefully, it comes with time Pronunciation As I mentioned before, I really like the sound of ancient Greek. It is not very difficult either. I am not sure if I can reproduce the musical stress always right, but I am sure it is just a matter of more practice and it certainly gives a very peculiar sound to the language. I should also mention that there is a difference in the pronunciation of the male and female speaker. The man speaks with a noticeable French “r”, and compared to the female speaker, his musical stress is much stronger as well as the expiration when pronouncing χ, φ and θ. In general I like the pronunciation the female speaker much more, it sounds much more … natural. As if I were able to judge it :) Texts of the lessons Frankly speaking, not very exiting so far. I hope, when we move further and more vocabulary and grammar patterns are introduced, the texts will also become more interesting. Edited by rahdonit on 04 January 2013 at 5:33pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| rahdonit Bilingual Tetraglot Groupie Ukraine Joined 6401 days ago 50 posts - 87 votes Speaks: Russian*, Ukrainian*, English, German | Message 182 of 344 04 January 2013 at 5:28pm | IP Logged | ||
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Türkisch ohne Mühe
Lessons 1 – 11 I don’t have a lot to say so far, I had done the first 7-8 lessons some two years ago. I am really surprised how much I retained. Until now it was more like remembering something that you had well known before, speaking both about the vocabulary and grammar. The texts are very nice and the explanations clear. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| melkior79 Newbie Japan Joined 4418 days ago 16 posts - 31 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Latin, French | Message 183 of 344 05 January 2013 at 7:55am | IP Logged | ||
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New French with Ease Lesson 44
Today I continue with Assimil. I am doing alot more reading out loud than I used too. I have started writing out the sentences in the exercises as well as reading them out loud and listening to the CD. Today I met a colleague at work, he is a French language professor, and he saw where I was in the book and started to talk to me in French. It was a surprise to him that I couldn't reply in French. I told him that by April I will be able to talk to him in French... I hope something magical happens in the next 3 months because right now I cant see it happening!!!! I hope Monsieur Duclos can pull me through this! Active Phase will start next week! 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| fireballtrouble Triglot Senior Member Turkey Joined 4311 days ago 129 posts - 203 votes Speaks: Turkish*, French, English Studies: German | Message 184 of 344 05 January 2013 at 9:54am | IP Logged | ||
Did you understand him clearly ? I'm asking it just to look into active/passive wave concepts. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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