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A question about the Teach Yourself Books

  Tags: Teach Yourself
 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes Post Reply
14 messages over 2 pages: 1 2  Next >>
blindfire1
Newbie
United States
Joined 3973 days ago

2 posts - 2 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish, Russian

 
 Message 1 of 14
22 January 2014 at 5:19pm | IP Logged 
So, I have a couple of books in this series. I did dabble a bit into one of them and all I
can say is... how exactly do you use them? Every time I see someone open a copy of their TY
book or see a used copy. I see that the 'exercises' are left completely blank. Do people just
not write in the given spaces or do you really even need to do them? I never understood that.
So, I am using Assimil for Russian and I am having very good luck with it. Perhaps the
bilingual text method works for me best or should I give TY another chance? And is there
solid set of instructions to go by when studying with TY, like with Assimil?
1 person has voted this message useful



ElComadreja
Senior Member
Philippines
bibletranslatio
Joined 7250 days ago

683 posts - 757 votes 
2 sounds
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish, Portuguese, Latin, Ancient Greek, Biblical Hebrew, Cebuano, French, Tagalog

 
 Message 2 of 14
22 January 2014 at 5:58pm | IP Logged 
Well, everyone has their pet methods. I've never written down the exercises in those
things, I just thought of what the answer should be. I try to understand the written
dialog first and then to understand the recordings. The fact that you say you're having
good luck with Assimil means you should probably just keep doing that unless you hit a
wall.

If you're still looking for Spanish material, let me nudge you toward
FSI
Spanish

2 persons have voted this message useful



Hungringo
Triglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 4000 days ago

168 posts - 329 votes 
Speaks: Hungarian*, English, Spanish
Studies: French

 
 Message 3 of 14
22 January 2014 at 6:13pm | IP Logged 
It is really up to you. Of course the more you practice something the better results you will have. I normally don't write down exercises just do it mentally.

Nevertheless, with certain languages (e.g. French) that have a non-phonemic writing system I write down the exercises and also do scriptorium. It would do a lot of good to your Russian as well.
2 persons have voted this message useful



Chung
Diglot
Senior Member
Joined 7168 days ago

4228 posts - 8259 votes 
20 sounds
Speaks: English*, French
Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish

 
 Message 4 of 14
22 January 2014 at 6:19pm | IP Logged 
With every TY course that I've used, I just follow the instructions to the best of my ability. However I dislike writing in textbooks since I like to keep the contents clean and so put down my answers to the exercises on lined paper.
5 persons have voted this message useful



Cavesa
Triglot
Senior Member
Czech Republic
Joined 5021 days ago

3277 posts - 6779 votes 
Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1
Studies: Spanish, German, Italian

 
 Message 5 of 14
22 January 2014 at 6:39pm | IP Logged 
It depends. I like to write in the exercises or write the whole sentences in a notebook. Or to do them orally. It helps to say the answers out loud even when you choose to write in my opinion.

There are exercises which aren't worth doing (such as repeating something you know 100% or exercises having you practice the knowledge of the text about grammar instead of the grammar itself), there are exercises that need an upgrade (heh, most listening exercises are too easy the way the questions are asked). But most exercises are a valuable part of the learning process, in my opinion, and it is a mistake to just skip them. So, I'd advise you to do the exercises until you find out another approach works better for you.

p.s. some people leave the exercises intentionally blank and use a separate notebook (or just think the answers) to resell the book for a better price later. Yeah, it's a weird thought for many language nerds that you could just resell your beloved books ;-)
2 persons have voted this message useful



Indíritheach
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4057 days ago

108 posts - 146 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish, Irish, French

 
 Message 6 of 14
23 January 2014 at 12:49am | IP Logged 
I write out all the excercises in a separate notebook. Keep in mind, my experience with Teach Yourself is limited to Teach Yourself Irish Grammar, but in the book itself the author recommends that you do NOT write the exercises in the book so that later on, when you want to review previous lessons and re-do the exercises you don't have the answers staring you in the face. Since I'm probably going to run through Teach Yourself Irish Grammar many times before I have mastered the concepts within, I think this is good advice.


3 persons have voted this message useful



anamsc2
Tetraglot
Groupie
United States
Joined 4571 days ago

85 posts - 186 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, Catalan, German
Studies: French

 
 Message 7 of 14
23 January 2014 at 5:18am | IP Logged 
I usually either do the exercises orally or write them in a separate notebook (so that I can sell the book back on Amazon when I'm done -- I guess I'm weird like Cavesa said!).
1 person has voted this message useful



1e4e6
Octoglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 4302 days ago

1013 posts - 1588 votes 
Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, Dutch, Swedish, Italian
Studies: German, Danish, Russian, Catalan

 
 Message 8 of 14
23 January 2014 at 5:48am | IP Logged 
I was always taught that books were never to be therein written--I was never allowed to
write in books in primary school, and I was scolded sa a child 20 years ago, when I once
wrote in one of the 1974 encyclopaedia books. Probably it is better to simply have a
notebook with at least 30 lines per page and write therein instead of the answer spaces
for the book. The answer spaces are usually quite small anyway. If I remember correctly,
the Teqch Yourself books are usually something like 16 or 17 cm in length and 10 in
width, so one would probably have to write quite small.

Edited by 1e4e6 on 23 January 2014 at 6:04am



1 person has voted this message useful



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