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Assimil Experiment Group Log | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| jeronz Diglot Newbie New Zealand Joined 4640 days ago 37 posts - 79 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Yiddish, Latin, German, Italian | Message 233 of 344 06 February 2013 at 11:03am | IP Logged | ||
This is the whole point of the experiment and this thread, to answer that question. It'll normally say on the front in a blue circle the level at which you should be at by the end of the course, at least with the new courses. For most full courses of ~100 lessons it'll claim a level of B2. For the shorter lessons it'll normally claim B1. However people have varying success, and so that is why this experiment was started. As to the level that Assimil Mandarin will take you, the french version of 105 lessons claims a B2 level. It appears that there is no claim on the English version. My flatmate has the first volume of the English version and it appears to progress extremely slowly (using my previous one year of Chinese study to asses that), so I'm not sure. Maybe A2 or low B1 would be more realistic? Edited by jeronz on 06 February 2013 at 11:12am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| JSBR_C Newbie United States Joined 4097 days ago 19 posts - 38 votes Studies: Spanish, Mandarin | Message 234 of 344 07 February 2013 at 3:29pm | IP Logged | ||
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Chinese With Ease
Passive Wave: 50-55 Active Wave: 1-6 I completed my first active week going from the beginning up to the review lesson. It was very easy for me, but I guess it should be given that I'd already done 4 months of Pimsleur prior to starting this. For the first several lessons of course the dialogues are very short. Right now based on the method I use with Assimil I need about 2.5 hours every day. I suppose as I move to the longer dialogues in the active phase I'll need a bit more time. This could be difficult because 2.5 hours is sometimes hard. And if I don't do all the things I set out to do with Assimil I get grumpy. I have to move to the next lesson the next day and I get nervous thinking I'm going to start getting lost if I don't get all my needed activities in. But I guess I expect I'll be able to get all the time I need. I have to credit Benny the Irish Polyglot for some advice on time management. The main thing is to just get up early. I get up at 5 no matter what time I go down. If I need a short nap the next day that's fine. I take that. Generally this means I sleep a little less. Being up early means I get a really good head start on my studying and then I just coast in for the finish in the evening after work. It will be interesting to see if these methods make the active phase pretty easy even as the dialogues get longer and harder. I'm hoping for that. I'm kind of viewing it like training for a marathon. The time you put into training is what will make the actual marathon less painful. I guess we shall see. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5163 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 235 of 344 07 February 2013 at 4:04pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm not actually part of this challenge as I didn't begin at the same time as the others, nor am I following the one-lesson-a-day guideline, but I'm still going through Assimil Romanian and perhaps I can participate as a member-at-large...
I've also spoken about this experience on my tandem log. Generally: I did Basic Pimsleur first, for about a week. I then started Assimil Roumain on January 24th. 2 weeks later, I'm on lesson 67 passive, 15 active. I zoomed through the first half, and obviously, the active wave has slowed me down. I often read lessons on the bus, so it's easier for me to read new lessons, than to do the active ones, where I need to sit down with a pen and paper. For the active wave, I read the Romanian dialogue before attempting the translation. I find that the lessons contain a lot of words that have not come up elsewhere in the book, words I wouldn't otherwise care to learn, and the translation doesn't always allow a clear and direct path to the actual dialogue. This way, I get to refresh my memory on certain concepts, and the translation lets me see what I still didn't get. New lessons don't take very long, maybe 15 minutes at most, but since the bus is not always the most conducive environment, I sometimes give the previous lesson a second read over. I generally focus more on how the language works rather than on specific words. The number of lessons I do in a day is not set and depends on the time I have. However, I always do at least one lesson a day, and usually 2 or 3. I only occasionally listen to the recordings though -- sometimes I'll sit down and listen to several previous dialogues in a row (at this point, I've only listened up to 35 or so). I consider that these recordinds are difficult to understand and add a lot of time to the process. Sometimes, I'll turn on a Romanian radio station and I can understand more than when I put on a dialogue. So long as I get the pronunciation in general, I don't much bother with these recordings. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 4948 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 236 of 344 07 February 2013 at 4:44pm | IP Logged | ||
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I also share the same feeling that writing down exercises slows us down. Actually just reading is pretty quick. Reading and looking words up takes longer, then audio is even longer, and a full Assimil lesson with audio and noted down exercises can take me more than a half. I'm glad I learned the Russian cursive to speed this up, otherwise, as in Georgian which I learn from a grammar book now, I'd spend a lot of time just drawing words.
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| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 4948 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 237 of 344 07 February 2013 at 5:41pm | IP Logged | ||
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I finished Il nuovo Italiano senza sforzo, apparently only active wave (I don't do passive waves). TIt was just an introduction to the language. I'm not sure I am at A2 now. I had a previous knowledge of Russian which helped me for the first 25 lessons, but then it really got overwhelming. Nevertheless, I do think that while doing Italian->Russian translations I internalized quite a few important verbs. I don't think all Russian words look alike anymore =D
Now I'm going for Russian Without Toil, 1951 edition. While Il nuovo russo senza sforzo had the steepest learning curve, this one also has a steep one. By the end of the book the language sounds a bit literary/archaic. Still, Le Russe (2008) seems to cover much less than the other two books, since the final lessons still consist of loose dialogues with short sentences. I'll keep logging my progress here until the Experiment is over. You can also check my Russian Read&Speak log for the TAC. It's all about Assimil so far and will remain as such for a few months yet. Edited by Expugnator on 07 February 2013 at 5:43pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4671 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 238 of 344 07 February 2013 at 8:23pm | IP Logged | ||
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I just pm'd some folks we haven't heard from in awhile; hopefully we'll get a lot of
new updates soon! A lot of people are having to adapt the program to their own needs, and I find it equally interesting to hear their experiences. There's a lot of variety out there. Edited by kanewai on 08 February 2013 at 8:28am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| oruixo13 Triglot Newbie Australia Joined 4201 days ago 33 posts - 35 votes Speaks: FrenchB2, Spanish*, EnglishC1 Studies: Mandarin | Message 239 of 344 08 February 2013 at 12:57am | IP Logged | ||
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I personally listen to the audio files on my daily commute. That's 2 hours everyday. I
plan to sit and pass the TOCFL test in a year. More specifically the third level. I also think that Japanese and Chinese learners have to approach Assimil differently due to the characters. The first book of Chinese introduces around 600 words. Book 2 should be that more or less too. In order to pass the TOCFL 3 it is mandatory to learn 1500 words. Let's see how it goes. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 4948 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 240 of 344 08 February 2013 at 5:31pm | IP Logged | ||
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So, today I started Russian Without Toil! Technically I can also say I'm doing a second wave for Il nuovo russo senza sforzo. I did the first 7 lessons in a row due to their ease, and when translating from English to Russian I was almost always right, so, it might be working for very simple sentences.
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