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B2 realistic with Assimil? | ||
Tags: CEFR Language Levels | Assimil | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6378 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 9 of 13 14 June 2013 at 5:10pm | IP Logged | ||
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Yeah, B1.
I don't think it's fair to compare the numbers between independent study and the classroom. When you are the sole person responsible for your learning, you have your full attention and no time is wasted on what you already know/understand. OP, see this wiki article. It's both about shadowing (repeating simultaneously with the speaker) and mastering Assimil with the help of it. Tailor it to your needs and feel free to skip some steps. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4488 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 10 of 13 14 June 2013 at 5:53pm | IP Logged | ||
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I rarely ever shadow Assimil except in the beginning to master the pronunciation.
2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5313 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 11 of 13 14 June 2013 at 6:12pm | IP Logged | ||
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I agree that Assimil New French with Ease will get most people to A2, and a few rare people to B1, especially if supplemented with easy native media and Skype exchanges.
Assimil's Using French is useful in the B1–B2 range. But realistically, it's just not enough on its own. The DELF B2 exam, for example, requires lots of things you can't really get from a course: you need enough vocabulary to muddle through some pretty random subjects, and you need to be able to speak fairly comfortably. To build these skills, it helps to read the newspaper, watch TV, carry on real conversations with people, and practice writing. The most advanced Assimil course is probably Business French. There are lots of very fast conversations and plenty of writing exercises. If you actually did the whole course, got the writing exercises corrected on lang-8, and did some regular conversation sessions, you could probably come pretty close to B2. You maybe wouldn't have the range needed for B2, but as long as you were dealing with business topics, you'd be able to fake it. And there's actually a special, business-only DELF exam, the DELF B2 Pro. Still, the real purpose of Assimil is to act as a booster rocket. The goal is to carry you past the initial incomprehension, to give you a basic intuition for the language, and to get you conversational. When you're done, you should actually be able to communicate in French and muddle through written materials. The linguist John H. McWhorter wrote an amusing review of Assimil's beginner courses which matches my personal experience pretty closely:
Good luck with your project! 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| tastyonions Triglot Senior Member United States goo.gl/UIdChYRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4446 days ago 1044 posts - 1823 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish Studies: Italian | Message 12 of 13 14 June 2013 at 8:19pm | IP Logged | ||
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I would say it can get you to a B1 passive. When I was done with it, I had a pretty good level of understanding, enough to watch a lot of native YouTube videos and listen to a good number of radio shows while getting the broad strokes of everything, but certainly not every last detail. I'd also recommend you use native media alongside at the same time you are working through it.
As far as active skill goes, that will be more up to you. I'd recommend looking on Verbling and SharedTalk for native conversation partners. There are lots of francophones out there who want to learn English. :-) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| nonneb Pentaglot Groupie SpainRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4532 days ago 80 posts - 173 votes Speaks: English*, Ancient Greek, Latin, German, Spanish Studies: Mandarin, Hungarian, French | Message 13 of 13 15 June 2013 at 5:17pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm sure it differs by language, but I know Assimil Chinese backwards and forwards, and
when I got to that point, there's no way my level was higher than A2. My listening level is up around the B1 level now, but I've been working with another course and have started some subs2srs work since then. It was a great course, and gave me a good foundation for moving on, but there were still a few holes, especially in vocab, that needed to be filled for a passive B1 level. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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