An Assimil Experiment
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Forum Name: Language Learning Log
Forum Discription: Your personal language learning logbook: milestones, successes, brick walls & goals great and small. Document your progress and get support, tips and encouragement from other forum members.
URL: http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=23302
Printed Date: 15 May 2021 at 6:18am
Posted By: BartoG
Subject: An Assimil Experiment
Date Posted: 09 October 2010 at 7:07pm
The Experiment
On these forums, there are posts in support of Assimil and posts that are less supportive. But even the supportive posts often focus on the extra things you have to do to make use of Assimil, suggest more intensive study, recommend extensive use of outside materials, etc. However, for some languages there aren't a lot of great materials out there besides Assimil (Occitain, Alsatian, Breton, Catalan). My question then: Is it possible to learn a language with ease with Assimil?
I have here before me L'Alsacien sans peine. I purchased it some years ago when I found it for cheap on Amazon marketplace, but never actually opened it, so it gives me a program in which I can make a true fresh start. I don't have the CDs, nor a way to justify purchasing them, so I will make do with reading aloud and seeing if things things in Alsatian on the internet sound anything like what I'm coming up with.
My goal, and the heart of this experiment, is to learn with ease. Not quickly, not thoroughly, not with the dedication of someone who lives for all things Alsatian and for Alsatian alone. With ease.
Here is my daily program for the passive phase:
1) Read through the lesson aloud 2-3 times until I'm comfortable pronouncing it.
2) Work through the lesson with the translation and notes to be sure I understand.
3) Read through the lesson mentally to be sure I remember what I have understood.
4) Re-read the lesson 2-3 times while trying to feel the meaning.
5) Do the exercises.
6) Put the book down.
My terms:
1) I will put in at least 20 minutes a day. To fill the time I will if need be revise an earlier lesson or redo steps 3-5.
2) I will not put in more than 30 minutes a day.
3) If I miss a day, I will pick up where I left off, not double up.
4) While I am at liberty to look at other learning resources or at cultural material on the internet, I will not be doing so systematically. And I will not be using outside texts or professionally produced resources.
Because my core material will be written, I will use my understanding of written Alsatian to judge this experiment. Though it's a highly subjective metric, I think my ability to understand articles about familiar topics from the Alsatian version of
Wikipedia can serve as a useful indicator of whether I have learned anything at the end of the program.
I will update roughly once a week to note which lesson I am on and offer other observations should they come to mind. When I come to the active phase, I will update on my specific implementation to make sure I am still only studying 20-30 minutes a day.
Please note that I am not looking for advice on a better way to learn, better books for Alsatian, etc. This is not an effort to become fluent in Alsatian. It is a test to see whether by regular exposure with well organized material, one can really Assimilate a language with ease. Internet resources for passive cultural exposure would be of interest.
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Replies:
First update: 9 October 2010
Lesson 4 completed
When I took German at university, I did well enough but the professor always chided me for my French accent: I mumbled, reducing vowels, softening consonants and blending distinct German words into smoothly articulated phrases with only minimal stress. Now, looking at the phonetic transcriptions for Alsatian, I'm amused to see consonants softened and vowels reduced, though individual word stress is still there. Still, in a lot of places this feels like German with a French accent. Fun.
BartoG on 09 October 2010
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Fanatic went down a somewhat similar path with Assimil German, with success.
Good luck!
Volte on 09 October 2010
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Yes, good luck, I am trying with Assimil, but as always my two great enemies are lack of time (or a perceived lack of time) and a disorganized approach.
Old Chemist on 10 October 2010
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Volte,
Thanks for the encouragement.
Old Chemist,
You might try making that perceived lack of time your friend. If you are making flashcards, updating the computer lists, studying with other textbooks, etc, you may learn more and faster - or not - at the cost of having a disorganized approach that is hard to keep track of. If you decide that you only have time to follow Assimil's simple instructions and learn at Assimil's pace, slow and steady might just win the race for you.
BartoG on 11 October 2010
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Second update: 16 October 2010
Lesson 11 completed
I think a key feature of what I've laid out is not doubling up or making up lessons. Most days, I had to remind myself to lay aside my book after half an hour in which I first did the day's routine and then skimmed earlier lessons. But after a particularly irritating day at the office, it was good to know that if I used my brain for Alsatian for 20 minutes, I could count myself done and move on to the evening's vegetation. Had I not ruled out making up lessons, the temptation would have been to skip a night and do 40 minutes the next night. But that's how you wind up doing a week's worth of lessons every Saturday until you find yourself burned out.
With respect to the language, I'm enjoying seeing what happens when German collides with French. Most interesting to me is how "das" (that) reduces to "'s" which makes it phonetically identical to the reduced form of the French "ce" (that) as in the phrase "that is" - "'s esch" in Alsatian and "c'est" in French.
BartoG on 16 October 2010
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A lot of my family including my dad who live or used to live near strasbourg speak Alsacien. You will probably need
tapes because even the french words are pronounced in a German way. When he speaks Alsacien it sounds like he
is speaking German. There is more German then French then there are a few other languages included and then it
has some of its own words. The number of Speakers are becoming less and less every year there fore unless you
have a family tie i don't see the use of this. If you search for Alsacien in wiki there is a good article on it there.
JasonUK on 17 October 2010
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JasonUK,
Thanks for the note. I keep looking at the price of the CDs and how much I can realistically spend on this venture. One day, the CDs will win out! When I read aloud, however, it is more German than French so hopefully I'm on the right track.
I also study Breton and have dabbled with Occitan. Since I studied in Rennes (Brittany) and my sister in Strassbourg, I've had an interest in regional languages, especially because it's something we don't really see in the United States. It's not a particularly useful undertaking, I know, but the Assimil courses make getting the flavor of some of these languages (while we still have them) painless enough that it's hard to pass up the chance.
BartoG on 18 October 2010
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La Guingette did a series on Accents de France. In 2009, they covered Alsace, the articles plus audio are in the archive:
http://www.laguinguette.com/lejournal/archives/2009.php - Accents de France: L'Alsace
Also the following site has some more information:
http://accentsdefrance.free.fr/ - http://accentsdefrance.free.fr/
(as a long-time Assimil fan, I'm following your experiment with interest)
Andy E on 18 October 2010
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Third update: 23 October 2010
Lesson 18 completed
Friday I was on a plane, so I skimmed the earlier lessons. One interesting facet of Assimil: The points that were the hardest on the first go-through were the ones that came back the most quickly. The process of making sure to understand the text as part of the daily routine means that the harder something is to understand, the more time spent on it and there you go.
Most interesting item encountered so far: the idea of combining 3rd person pronouns with 2nd person verbs to make an utterance more formal. The more I work with this, the more that similar German vocabulary and structures come back. But what brings it back, in many cases, is the ways in which Alsatian differs. It's something to see what happens with a language when it is allowed to roam free, absent the careful reinforcement that a state supported language receives.
BartoG on 24 October 2010
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This thread is very interesting, thanks a lot.
I'm really looking forward to discovering whether you'll improve or not.
DesEsseintes on 26 October 2010
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Fourth Update: 30 October 2010
Lesson 25 completed
Moving from week three into week four, I've started having Alsatian phrases pop up in my thinking. It's mostly mindless - "It's cold out" or "What should I wear today?" but at least some of the phrases are different in Alsatian from standard German, which tells me that those turns of phrase that pop up often or feel right are starting to sink in. The most striking thing to me is how some phrases where the preposition from a separable verb goes to the end aren't totally baffling me. I never got the hang of this in German, so this is something new.
Thanks to Andy E and DesEsseintes for the comments. One thing I would note: Earlier I talked about being encouraged to study when I didn't feel like it since in twenty minutes I'd be done. I'd add that there's a value in not studying more than 30 minutes or so - the amount of material you can learn - consciously process - and the amount you can assimilate - just get flowing around in your brain - are different. In the past, when I've rushed the Assimil process, I've noticed that while the language comes in easily enough - I can understand what I've worked through later - it doesn't come out so easily - I get hung up on remembering word orders, endings, etc. Doing the one lesson a day thing, I've found that the bits that stick with me really stick with me because I'm taking it slowly enough that I don't have to make a conscious effort to understand. In the future, if I rushed an Assimil program, I would be careful to space out the lessons enough that the last one had at least a few hours to gel before I did another one.
BartoG on 30 October 2010
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Fifth update: 6 November 2010
Lesson 30 completed
It was a busy week at work and I missed two lessons. From the standpoint of learning Alsatian, a setback, of course. From the standpoint of the experiment, a useful data point and a good chance to approach a couple questions that go with a daily method like Assimil.
First thought: Missing a day does hurt. It is surprising how much more in your brain a language is if you just used it yesterday. As a result, I spent a full half-hour making sure I learned the lesson well, this because it required a little extra reading aloud to make the new sentences come out smoothly and such that I could feel the meaning as I said them.
Second thought: That first thought points, again, to why doubling up to catch up is a bad idea. Doing a lesson after a missed day, the last thing I needed was to double what I needed to work through. To the contrary, I think that if you want to do two lessons to make up for missing a day, you should revise the previous lesson to re-orient your brain to where you're picking up from. It may not speed your progress, but it might at least solidify the foundation you're gradually building. (Something to remember the next time this happens!)
I work in a language school, and I do occasionally venture a word or two with the German teachers. This week, both "esch" for "ist" and "hete" for "heute" slipped out. So my Alsatian is starting to interfere with my German, and not just my German with my Alsatian. A new sign that the Assimil Method really does let the language seep into your brain, because going to the Alsatian forms was certainly not a deliberate choice.
BartoG on 06 November 2010
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Sixth update: 13 November 2010
Lesson 37 completed
A lesson a day this week, just according to plan. I'm nearing the point where the Assimil Method gets tested: Two weeks from now the active phase begins. I'm finding that comprehension remains not too difficult, but that the fill-in-the-blank exercises are getting harder. The big challenge is keeping track of the numerous words for place and direction, as these are sort of like German but not exactly, and they can be enough of a hassle in German. An example:
Wu géhn-mer ane?
My memory tells me this is "Wohin gehen wir?" ("Wo gehen wir hin?"). Looking at the Alsatian, you can line up the elements with German easily enough, but as the words multiply that are similar to German but not the same, the opportunities for comprehension to far outpace production grow. It will be curious to see if in seven weeks I can produce that "ane" as readily as I today saw that it was "hin."
BartoG on 14 November 2010
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Seventh Update: 20 November 2010
Lesson 43 completed
At this time next week, I'll have started the Active Phase. Out of curiosity, I flipped back to the first week of lessons to remind myself what I would need to know actively. It's amazing how elementary it is, which gives real hope that the lesson I just finished will seem just as elementary in another 6 weeks.
I'm getting to a point where there are things I know or at least recognize in Alsatian that I have either forgotten or never knew in German. Among other things, I'm starting to get a sense of how the articles work in different cases, which always eluded me in proper German.
On a side note, if you're learning standard German and the articles give you trouble in the different cases, the post below - a series of "Michel Thomas" style explanations of how to remember them - is worth a look:
http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=23779&PN=1
BartoG on 20 November 2010
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Eighth Update, 27 November 2010
Lesson 50 Completed, Lesson 1 revised
Today starts the active phase. Because the first lesson was pretty elementary, even the first time out, revising it posed no particular challenges. On the other hand, pronouncing it in Alsatian, rather than German or French, came easily in a way it didn't the first time through.
What I will be curious to see is the relative ease or difficulty in the active phase as I start getting into article usage and past participle formation, two things where recognition is easy but production is harder. On the plus side, the review lessons have a pretty good summation of the articles and perhaps I will be able to make sense of it along the lines of the HTLAL thread I mentioned in my last date. I'm less sure of the past participles, which differ not only from German but also according to whether it's the Upper Rhine or Lower Rhine dialect in question - in Strassbourg, it's closer to German, but for the dialect in the Assimil book, where the ge- prefix has reduced universally to g-, the prefix goes away in a number of places, most commonly because it's too hard to say with the following consonant and no vowel in between. Time will tell.
BartoG on 27 November 2010
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Ninth Update: 4 December 2010
Lesson 55 completed, Lesson 6 revised
A busy week outside of language studies, so a few times, I did a passive lesson one day and an active the next. I don't recommend this as a matter of course. Nor would I discourage it, however. I think the main thing is to keep the pacing so you're learning with ease and don't burn out.
This evening I reviewed the first week of lessons and tried to actively create them by having my partner read the French while I translated. I got about 90% of the sentences correct. I've likewise found myself coming up with Alsatian comments about what's going on around me, things I'm working on, etc. I don't force this, first because this is supposed to be with ease, and second because I want to be sure that I'm assimilating Alsatian more than I'm creating my own personal version. But I don't fight it either, on the assumption that if it's a phrase or a thought my brain is volunteering, spontaneously, either I've picked up a bit of the language correctly or I've got it wrong already.
I am increasingly of the opinion that you learn a language by spending time with it. In this sense, over the long term the method that works best is the one you don't put down or give up on. In the past, I've tried things with content from Assimil, and other sources as well of course, to speed up my learning. Usually, I've found something that worked well for as long as my enthusiasm lasted. And then it died. The wonder of doing Assimil with a serious focus on the idea of learning with ease is that while my enthusiasm waxes and wanes, I'm putting in at least 20 minutes or so about 6 days in 7. To the hardcore language learners on this forum that's a pretty poor performance, I know. But if you're talking about someone learning a language he doesn't really need out of idle curiosity, that ain't half bad.
My thought so far: If you want to learn a language in 30 days and will devote your every waking moment to the effort, this probably isn't for you. But if you'd like to stumble through your studies as best you're able with some prospect of one day sitting up and discovering that you've picked up some skills in a language in spite of yourself, this is pretty great.
BartoG on 05 December 2010
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Tenth update: 11 December 2010
Lesson 59 completed, Lesson 10 revised
I am starting to lean toward making the one day passive/next day active sequence my official course, rather than something that happens when I've had a long day. My goal, after all, is not just to learn Alsatian, but to learn it with ease. And I've found it can be tempting to tell myself that I've done an active lesson well enough if I've already put a chunk of time into making sure I caught everything going on in a passive lesson.
A big driver in my decision to alternate active and passive days is the feel of the Alsatian course. When I did the Initiation course for Breton, it seemed to me that the the lessons remained relatively simple even as the course progressed. With the Alsatian course, I'm finding that the profusion of adverbs of motion and different case forms are keeping me pretty busy in the ongoing passive phase, and I don't want to skimp on my work in either phase. A second factor is the very real bump in workload from the passive-only phase to the passive-active phase:
Chapter - Number of points in the dialog
Passive Only
1 - 5
8 - 6
15 - 8
22 - 9
29 - 10
36 - 11
43 - 11
Active (+ Passive) ... Total points
50 - 13 (1 - 5) ... 18
58 - 11 (8 - 6) ... 17
64 - 12 (15 - 8) ... 20
71 - 11 (22 - 9) ... 20
78 - 13 (29 - 10) ... 33
Active Only
36 - 11
43 - 11
50 - 13
58 - 11
64 - 12
71 - 11
78 - 13
This shows how many lines you have to cover the first day of each week, assuming you do one lesson a day, and one passive plus one active lesson during the passive-active phase. It might make more sense if you worked your way up to 13 or 14 lines the final week of the passive-only phase, then dropped back to 10 or 11 lines during the time the passive and active waves overlap. I'll have a look later and see how the Breton Initiation course compared.
BartoG on 11 December 2010
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Eleventh update: 19 December 2010
63 lessons completed, 14 lessons revised
I don't know that there are any major revelations this week. Maybe that's the revelation. Understanding the language in the new lessons comes without too much trouble, and the language of the earlier lessons has a familiarity that makes reproducing it after a quick skim relatively easy. Even at my slower pace, alternating passive and active lessons, I'm only a few weeks from completing the passive phase, though I've still got a couple months to finish the active phase. The one thing I've noticed is that in the passive phase, I'm spending less and less time on the translation and notes. Enough Alsatian has sunk in that I can follow the gist of the dialogs fairly easily. However, I suspect I'll be spending more time on the notes in the Active Phase, since, for example, recognizing a past participle is easier than recalling which ones have the g-prefix and which ones don't.
BartoG on 19 December 2010
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Hi BartoG
As I said on an earlier post I have french family who speak Alsatian and some who only speak Alsatian. Out of
interest, in percentage wise how much of it is French and German. And how much of it is unique? My grand mother
told me when i saw her last there is also some Italian and even some English words in the mix.
Do you intend on visiting Alsace after you have got to a reasonable level?
JasonUK on 19 December 2010
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JasonUK, I intend to visit Alsace someday but don't have immediate plans, just an interest in the regional languages of France that have somehow survived.
It's hard to do the French-German-unique thing. It's an Alemannic German dialect, and very distinct from the standard German I learned at university. But I can't say how much it differs from, for example, the German of Basel Switzerland. I would say that 5-10% of the words I've learned so far are French-based, with the rest being Germanic but, as I said before, not standard German. Take these modals:
Alsatian - German - English
ech kan - ich kann - I can
mér kènne - wir können - we can
ech müess - ich müss - I must
mér mien - wir müssen - we must
If you speak German and you pronounce Alsatian aloud, you can hear the similarity and guess at the meaning a lot of the time, but if you were to hand in a German test written in Alsatian, there'd be a lot of red ink when you got it back.
With French, the influence is there, starting with the first word of L'Alsacien sans peine: Buschur (Bonjour). Often the influence is more subtle, like a tendency to insert "doch" where the French say "donc" but where there might be a better word in standard German.
I can't think of any Italian words in Alsatian right now, but there's an Italian construction...
In German, "sie" means both "she" and "they." It's the same with the word "se" in Alsatian. In German, you use "Sie" with a plural verb for the formal. In Italian, you use "Lei" (she) with a singular verb for the formal. In Alsatian, you use "se" with a plural verb for the formal for men - just like German. But you use "se" with a singular verb for the formal for women - just like Italian.
If you want to learn Alsatian, German is the language to already know. But Alsatian is not just a local dialect of German; it is the expression of a people living at the nexus of multiple cultures and their language reflects this.
BartoG on 20 December 2010
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BatroG your experiment is a good idea and very nicelly reported, it has been a source of pleasure to watch yoú aiming for learning in fact with ease, what we tend to forget.
Of course time spent (of contact with the language) is time invested, but what you talk about burning out, or not to replace a missed lession for a doubled one, is also true.
Hopping to see your sucess
IlPerugino
ilperugino on 23 December 2010
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Twelfth Update: 25 December 2010
66 lessons completed, 17 lessons revised
Thanks to IlPerugino for the kind words. The lessons continue more or less according to plan - the passive lessons, while challenging in places, are understandable, and the language for the revised lessons is immediately clear. With some lessons, I can open to the French, give the Alsatian and check myself at the first go. The lessons filled with little words (especially all those adverbs of motion equivalent to "over," "under," "behind" and the like take more work, particularly in terms of remembering to move them to the end when they're part of separable verbs. A sample sentence:
Z'Owe géht d'Sunne hénter de Vogése wéder unter.
Z'Owe - at evening; géht - goes; d'Sunne - the sun; hénter de Vogése - behind the Voges; wéder - again ; unter - under
The verb is actually "untergeh" - to go under, but the "unter" separates and goes to the end in the present tense. With a sentence like this, I can usually come up with the words, but remembering that "unter" comes at the very end and keeping straight the word order ("behind the Voges again under"?) can be tricky.
* * *
This week, some of the passive lessons have been about Christmas. Funny coincidence that this is the week I came to them.
Your greeting (with thanks to Omniglot.com) is:
E güeti Wïnâchte un e gleckichs Nej Johr.
(A good Christmas and a happy new year.)
Assimil spells it Wiehnà chte, however, presumably a question of dialect. Note that the German is Weihnachte (first vowel different). And the Christmas tree, Tannenbaum in German, is Tannebaim in Alsatian. The lights on the tree have a French name - "Büschi" from "bougies" - candles.
BartoG on 25 December 2010
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Thirteenth Update: 2 January 2011
70 Lessons completed, 20 lessons revised
The nice thing about Assimil is that it doesn't teach you a language so much as giving you an experience of it. The exception to this is the review lessons, which can be rather detailed about what's going on with the language. It's a nice balance: You stumble through the language somewhat on your own, and when you are ready to make sense of what you have been through, there is the review lesson for you.
I just finished the 70th lesson, which deals with articles and attributive adjectives, and with with the active and passive voices. It's a lot to cover - the book even warns of this in the intro to the chapter - yet with twelve or thirteen weeks at this, what the chapter offered most of all was revelations. I was of course prepared for the bit about articles and attributive adjectives by the excellent Michel Thomas style exercises found here for German -
http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=23779&PN=1
- for though Alsatian is somewhat different, they gave me a framework or a way of thinking about the matter to which I could make my own adjustments as needed. I may have more to say about this later when I've had a chance to make a broader comparison with Alsatian and Deutsch.
BartoG on 03 January 2011
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Fourteenth Update: 8 January 2011
73 lessons completed, 23 lessons revised
I've written in the past about similarities between German and Alsatian. Comes the question: How do you keep them straight? In the last few weeks, I've had a peak at a couple German textbooks, and have read a bit of German aloud. It seems to have done some good: The other day, in a German conversation, I tried to drop in an Alsatian phrase and was at pains to do so. It didn't fit. So it seems that German and Alsatian have separated in my mind. All I needed to do was to remind myself of German a little bit to feel how different it is.
While the L'Alsacien sans peine contains a lot of the humor that is characteristic of Assimil, it has a flavor all its own. There are lots of references to the regional culture and it presents, as well, an attitude of small-town life in the Alsace, that makes not just the Alsatian language distinct from German but the context for using it distinct from the context for using German. I've talked elsewhere about developing a slightly different personality for each language you speak, and L'Alsacien sans peine facilitates this. So I'm quite pleased with the program. My knowledge of Alsatian after 14 weeks remains limited, and my active production has a long way to go. However, even learning with ease and erring on the side of doing less, not more, than the Assimil Method prescribes, I've come to get a feel for the language and what it's there to talk about.
BartoG on 08 January 2011
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Fifteenth Update: 15 January 2011
76 lessons completed, 27 lessons revised
Two thoughts this week, both inspired by other threads here on the forum:
First off, Depression and Language Learning
The thread is here...
http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=24716&PN=1
My own two cents: My own mood has been at a low ebb, something brought about by conflict at work, winter's lack of sunshine and an innate tendency to pick up le cafard when it trots alongside. And it can be seen that while I've stayed fairly steadily around 6 lessons a week, I haven't exactly been charging forward.
I think that language learning, like any other activity you enjoy, can help when you're in a funk. But when the ability to enjoy is strained - the extreme is anhedonia, an inability to experience pleasure (hedonism evokes the opposite situation) - you can find that the hobbies are just as irritating as the prime irritants in your life, at least until you get into them a little ways. In my last entry, I mentioned the Alsatian flavor of L'Alsacien sans peine, and I think it's an ideal books in these circs, as it provides not just language but a bit of an escape to a slower, calmer place, the idyllic Alsace whose language the author was striving to preserve.
The primary thing I want to toss out here is that if the enthusiasm for study wanes, it is not one more thing to beat yourself up over; it's one more sign that you need to take care of yourself and to maybe seek some help. We get very invested in our language efforts here, but it was a little disconcerting to see the OP for the referenced thread so invested in something that was tangential to the life he leads. If your language learning is the all-consuming passion, best make sure you've got a job or a romantic prospect that relates to it!
The second thread I want to point to suggests that Germanophones cannot speak Swiss-German. Since Alsatian is close to the German spoken in Basel, I wanted to mention that yes, the different dialects of German can seem to be much more languages of their own than Hochdeutsch with a funny accent. I've talked about some differences in earlier posts. Here's that thread:
http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=21494&PN=1
BartoG on 16 January 2011
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Sixteenth Update: 24 January 2010
79 lessons completed, 31 lessons revised
A bit sidetracked by stomach flu, but I finished the first wave this weekend. I've also visited the Wikipedia in Alsatian, where I read about Les Voges (D'Vogese). I was able to follow the basic description of its location, its proximity to the Black Forest and the like. And I learned that there was a regional Celtic deity, Vogesus, associated with the mountain range.
I've still got a fair share of the second wave to go, which is good, because my active knowledge of Alsatian has a long way to go. But I'm pleased at how far my passive knowledge has come.
BartoG on 24 January 2011
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Seventeenth Update: 30 January 2010
35 lessons revised
Still a bit tired from the flu, but getting to a lesson most days.
Now that I'm in just the Active Phase, I'm beginning to see just how well put together this course is, but where it might fall a little short, at least for someone with my attention span. I'm surprised at not just how familiar the dialogs seem, but how familiar some of the themes are, and the structures that pop up.
On the other hand, when I hit a lesson whose themes weren't regularly addressed, the Active Phase effort to reconstruct it is a real challenge. There's quite a bit of talk about geography, about the Rhine and the Black Forest and the Voges, and whenever I hit a lesson where they come up, other elements just seem to fall into place.
On the other hand, in a lesson about the Strassbourg Cathedral, I found that I had not retained the words for "girder" and "sandstone." I probably don't need to, and don't fault the method for failing to teach me them. However, it bears noting that if you're learning "with ease" and not with an obsessive attention to detail, the Active Phase may mean piecing together certain texts by means of going between the original, the translation and the notes. You won't always be able to recreate the target from the translation on your own.
BartoG on 30 January 2011
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Wow mate good job :). I'm currently on lesson 18 right now. I didn't study at all today.
But like in your previous post once you have to go back to the front of the book after
50. How did you actually do that, like write the translations on a paper then check or
what? I worry about it myself when I come to this because I have too many issues with
like doch and other words that are pretty much hard to remember when to use them
correctly.
But good work on your German. You should try writing your entries in German and that
should help quite a bit. Though I probably won't be able to follow it all too well yet.
zekecoma on 01 February 2011
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Eighteenth Update: 6 February 2011
41 lessons revised
The Active Phase continues apace, with the same struggles with little words. And Alsatian has a host of these, including words like "halt" and "zwar". "Halt" indicates that things are such as they are, and gets translated "Que voulez-vous?" You might translate it "But what else could you expect?" in English. "Zwar" strengthens an assertion. It gets translated "A vrai dire" or "certes."
To answer zekecoma's question, for the Active Phase, my focus is actively producing the language. This consists of skimming the whole Alsatian passage, then turning to the French and translating line by line. I look at the French, translate aloud, then look at the Alsatian to confirm I got it right, or, rather, to see which little words I missed. I then say the Alsatian phrase aloud correctly if there was an error. When I'm done with the line by line, I do it again for the whole passage. It is not precisely according to Assimil and it's not a perfect method, but it serves to make sure I'm capturing the main of the language and can put together ideas in it without getting hung up in a project more on par with memorizing the book than picking up the language.
BartoG on 07 February 2011
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How do you feel you are progressing outside of Assimil? By this, I mean have you had the
opportunity to speak to anyone in Alsation or do you watch TV in the language. I am
interested as I am at about the same point of my Italian studies and outside of Assimil,
All I'm pretty much doing is watching Italian TV. I wonder if you have begun to 'think'
in the language etc.
Good luck with your continued studies.
magictom123 on 07 February 2011
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magictom123 wrote:
I wonder if you have begun to 'think'
in the language etc.. |
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Wow. you would have to be completely fluent before that happens at a guess. My french is starting to get good and
I've had a couple of dreams in french which was weird. But i imagine i would never start to think in french unless
this is something that normally happens.
JasonUK on 07 February 2011
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Well, that's why I asked - there are others that talk of
thinking in the language very early on. I have dreamt in
Italian and could force myself to think simple thoughts in
the language. So, have you managed to have
conversations or interact in the language in any way?
magictom123 on 07 February 2011
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In my experience, thinking in a language is more of a conscious choice than a natural phenomenon, at least
certainly before attaining an advanced ability in a given language. Once at this level, when conversing and writing in
the L2 it is often more natural and fluid to think in the L2 - sometimes you may not even realize you're doing it.
jtdotto on 10 February 2011
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I'll have the latest update tomorrow, but to respond to the questions about exposure and thinking in a language...
I haven't found much for exposure to Alsatian as far as audio goes. As I noted above, I do pick through the Alsatian wikipedia. And I've been around other web pages as well, of course. I find that comprehension is a lot easier than production - surprise, surprise - but that if I'm reading about something that I've read about in the Assimil, I can glean a fair amount. So what's in Assimil, I'm picking up.
With respect to thinking in a language, jtdotto is largely right about thinking in a language being a conscious choice at earlier stages. At the very least, if you want to start thinking in the language sooner rather than later, you have to make a conscious choice to do so. When presented with a situation where I would know what to say in Alsatian, I make a conscious choice to remind myself and mentally role play it. This associates Alsatian thoughts with real life experiences so the next time I encounter the situation that association is there and waiting to be strengthened. This is mostly small stuff: "I want to eat now"; "I have to work now" but can extend to things like "I have a headache" or "I saw [so and so] at [such and such place]". Over time, however, it has become less unusual for an Alsatian thought to pop into my head out of the blue in my internal narrative.
I think part of the reason why advanced speakers think in their language is not just because of what they know, but more because they have a longer experience of expressing themselves and relating to the world in that language. That is, it's a matter of habit. You can't add more hours in a day, but you can decide how to use the ones you have. A lot of people look at this, and look for ways (with flashcards) etc to squeeze in more study time. But sometimes what you need is not more learning but more living. That is, if you want to think in the language, you don't need the ability to recall thousands of words in a study context. What you need is fewer words, but at the ready when the situation calls for it. Playing little games with yourself so that you're used to having those words at ready won't make you good or proficient with the language, but it will give the illusion of living in the language until it starts to become a reality. And then, you can start to "think" in the language naturally, even if those thoughts aren't always very useful or exciting.
One final thought on the thinking in a second language when you're not advanced: You're not going to be able to think at the same level as in your first language or a language you know well. There's no need to try. If you monitor your internal dialog, you'll find that you think a lot of relatively uninteresting thoughts over the course of a day: "Is it 5:00 yet?" "I need to stop at the grocery store" Make your start thinking mundane thoughts. Accept that your Alsatian (or whatever language) personality just won't have your scintillating intellect and flair for expression that you have as a native speaker (yet) ;) and revert to a tongue you're surer with when you need to do high level thinking. Ease into living life in your new language and bit by bit it will become a part of you.
BartoG on 12 February 2011
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Nineteenth update: 15 February 2011
Lesson 47 revised
Running a little bit slow with nasty headaches a couple days. And so I redid a few lessons. In particular, lessons about street sweepers and kitchen remodeling gave trouble. I'm not in the habit of talking about these in English, nor French, so the Alsatian lessons didn't take me too far. And it's a reminder of one of the limitations with the method: Vocabulary sticks for the things that come up here and there. But for things that don't come up so commonly, you get the sense that you ought to be able to go from French to Alsatian well enough since this so often happens and it goes with the Active Wave, yet here it doesn't. And so you remind yourself that coming up with the word for a mechanical street sweeper is not so important and blip over it.
I'd toss out that with no method should you expect to master every last thing taught, particularly those things that only come up once or twice. A benefit of Assimil is that you can soak up a lot without getting bogged down so often in deciphering idiotic phrases put together to illustrate grammar points. But you do have to let go of those things that if they don't come up often enough to stick may not be so important. A good case, by the way, against memorizing every dialog or inputting every phrase from Assimil or any other program into your SRS. Live the language and over time what's important will come up often enough to stick.
BartoG on 16 February 2011
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Twentieth update: 21 February 2011
Lesson 52 revised
Last week, I wrote about living the language and letting it start to stick. It's good to remember this, because some of the Active Wave lessons have been pretty slow going. But as I noted, knowing every Assimil phrase by rote is silly because the variety is there to help you pick up the structure and become acquainted with the language. It's not like memorizing the 50 most useful sentences from some phrase guide. This last week, I put more focus on reviewing the lessons in Alsatian and far less on reconstituting them from the French. It wasn't a deliberate choice, just a reality to be addressed because some of the vocabulary eluded me.
Over the weekend, I listened to the first two discs of Michel Thomas German. My thought was actually to revise my German and Alsatian, which is its own thing, wasn't a real consideration. But later, as I found myself muttering one of those longer sentences Thomas loved to drill, I wondered where my Alsatian stood. So:
Können Sie es mir bringen, denn ich brauche es heute.
Kenne-Se 's mer brénge, denn éch brüche 's héte.
Can you bring it to me, because I need it today.
Es tut mir Leid aber ich weiss nicht wo es ist; ich kann es nicht finden.
Es tuët mer Laid awer éch waiss nét wu 's ésch; éch ka 's nét fénde.
I am sorry but I do not know where it is; I cannot find it.
No promises that the German or the Alsatian are tip-top correct, especially as regards the accents on the Alsatian which I mainly know from Assimil's transcription system.
On the one hand this is sad: These sentences are learned in hours with Michel Thomas German so you'd hope that months of study of Alsatian would permit one to learn them! On the other hand, Assimil has no exercises of this kind. To drop into Michel Thomas style sentence building requires that a) you've been doing it with Michel Thomas right along or b) you have some structures and vocabulary floating around in your mind that you're ready to make use of. The Alsatian I put up there might be part-German and part of my own devising, but it shows that something has stuck that can be made use of outside of the Assimil context.
I'll continue revising German with Michel Thomas while building my Alsatian with Assimil, but I think this intersection was not without its uses: It gave me a context for coming up with Alsatian other than recreating the Assimil dialogs in order to activate my learning, and it gave me a way of verifying that I am learning. This is why, when possible, it's good to learn with different resources: not just for different perspectives or to make reviewing concepts more interesting, but also as a way of judging whether you're learning the language, or just learning to play along with the method.
BartoG on 22 February 2011
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I enjoy this log and it has inspired me to start my own Assimil experiments. I'm currently working through Spanish
With Ease and German With Ease back to back, adding a lesson a day, in total doing exactly 9 lessons of review and
one new one. Using a methodology described by Alexander Arguelles, these 10 lessons are broken up as follows: 1-
4 reading only the L2 text when necessary, repeating as much from mental text; 5-7 reading back and forth
between English and L2 to really let the meaning sink in; and 8-10 I read only the English while repeating what I
hear.
And much like you're doing BartoG, I do not do extra lessons to make up for a lost day. I pick right up where I had
left off, and I do not engage with the Assimil material for longer than 30 minutes each day (for each L2), though I
went onto SharedTalk last night and made an interesting first conversation in German and a little more advanced
conversation in Spanish.
jtdotto on 23 February 2011
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Twenty-first update: 28 February 2011
Lesson 56
I slowed down a bit this week, reviewing a couple lessons twice and missing a day. I've been reading a bit about memory and association, and I came across a very nice idea: While the memory associations we make must be vivid, they must make sense to us. Some people, of course, can do amazing memory associations, but I forget both the association and the item when I try this, whereas if there is a real connection among words it's a different ballgame. So something I'm going to try going forward is to build associations with phrases that strike me as useful for illustrating either an idiom or a point of grammar. The main idea is that while memorizing Assimil's content strikes me as over the top, there are things I remember because the phrase in which they appeared caught my attention. The question, then, is how to get my attention caught if it's something I need to remember but its illustration is not so, er, illuminating for me.
BartoG on 01 March 2011
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Twenty-second update: 6 March 2011
Lesson 61 completed
I'm a little bit more on my stride, but perhaps because my attention to full accuracy in reproduction is a little looser. A couple dialogs of late have involved a young child talking with a grandmother or grandfather, and while the words don't always come easily, the sense of the piece does. As a result, reading through them and trying to recapture them for translation back I have a sense of what the sentences are supposed to feel like, even when little words go missing.
I have also continued, on the side, with building Michel Thomas style sentences which gives me something to think about and a chance to practice the modals. This doesn't help with some of the little words, especially the prepositions, but I find it activating my brain to think a bit more in Alsatian where careful attention to being able to reproduce the dialogs - more memorization than language production at times - doesn't.
BartoG on 07 March 2011
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Twenty-third update: 14 March 2011
Lesson 66 revised
Back off stride again - crazy times at work and much desire for sleep when I get home! However, I'm finding the Alsatian to come a bit more naturally. The little words can still be a problem and the vocabulary that doesn't come in for a lot of use doesn't spring to mind. And yet, somehow, the basic structure of Alsatian feels a little bit more like it's become a part of me. Some phrases and forms at least are popping into my head unbidden. And subordinate clauses are starting to come to me. I don't know that I'm putting them together correctly, but my brain is trying to put a bigger structure on the language.
I've been reading about memory, specifically the new book, Moonwalking with Einstein, by Joshua Foer and an older book, Memory Power, by Scott Hagwood. I don't know that they've taught me anything great about memorizing language. But there's a lot about how we take language in, and especially about loci - places - and how associating things with loci aids memory. In this regard, I notice that the Assimil scenes I can most readily visualize are the ones that stick with me. So it may be that when reading a dialog, the key is not to master the grammar and vocabulary, but to relive it in your mind as best you can so that it becomes something you've lived - another way of living language. Of course the memory people are always looking for something outrageous that you'll consciously remember. But maybe there's a way to unconsciously remember if you use your imagination not to make your language striking, but simply to make it something that feels at home in your brain.
BartoG on 15 March 2011
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Twenty-fourth update: 26 March 2011
Lesson 71 revised, Grammar lessons through 70 revised
I see I missed my last update. My studies have been a bit adrift as well. With the end of the book coming, I saw the goal of passive knowledge for reading in sight, but found it harder and harder to come up with active use of the language with respect to certain verbs and some of the little words like adverbs of motion. So instead of marching lesson by lesson to the end, some days I've taken a word or verb that was bothering me from the previous day's lesson, and skimmed all the places (per the index) where the item appeared. It's active, rather than passive, acquisition of knowledge. But even in Assimil, there is an active wave, so why not?
I've also given up and ordered the CDs. When they come, I'll first listen extensively, just to line up my ear with this language I've mostly only heard in my head. I'll decide what comes next after seeing how that goes. There are still a handful of lessons left, so the final verdict will wait. But I imagine it's going to be something to this effect: The Assimil books teaches mostly passively, with even its active phase focused on creating language you've received, not constructed on your own, and it is excellent for passive learning. But you have to activate that learning with effort and imagination of your own. That is, you can learn with a great deal of ease, but not with no effort. Not an astonishing revelation, but a useful one all the same.
BartoG on 26 March 2011
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Twenty-fifth Update: 10 April 2011
First Assimil Experiment finished.
Around a week ago, I finished the Assimil Experiment, with my revision of lesson 79. At about the same time, the CDs came in the mail. Rather than listening systematically, I have been using them to make myself an immersive environment, playing them on shuffle on my iPod. I've been surprised and pleased to find that I understand 80-100% depending on the track and its content. And I've been over to visit the Alsatian Wikipedia. My experience suggests that while L'Alsacien sans peine did not make me fluent, or even conversational, it has made the language a part of me. And, more importantly, it's given me the background to engage Alsatian resources to go further. I've done other beginning programs in the past where when I was done, I knew the content but was hard pressed to deal with real-life resources. By contrast, with this program (and using only the book) I learned enough to understand a fair bit of the language. I've also been able to enjoy some stuff on YouTube.
Do you want to be fluent in a new language? No one book, even Assimil, is going to get you there. But if you can only set aside a limited amount of time per day to study, my experience with Assimil L'Alsacien sans peine suggests that these are good for easing into a language so that when you're done with the course there is a way forward. Very nice. The next post is what's next.
BartoG on 10 April 2011
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The Next Assimil Experiment
While my journal entries have not been consistent, nor my studies entirely so, I've founded that keeping and updating this log has kept me on track. And then, the other day, I ran across this nice little thought:
Bernd Sebastian Kamps wrote:
on one of those birthdays
that are turning points in life, I offered myself an exclusive present most
of my busy colleagues can rarely afford: Time. I would dedicate two
consecutive years to learning my 7th language. |
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I'm not at one of those turning points, but doing the log with an Assimil program has given me the gift of time in another way - Assimil limits the time I have to find while keeping the log reminds me to give myself that little bit of time that Assimil requires.
I had initially intended to follow Alsatian with either German (to solidify the Germanic) or Breton (to delve into another minority language in France). But having finished the Alsatian experiment, I've realized that it afforded me an opportunity I didn't know I had, the chance to learn a language just because it's there. And so I'm going with a language I've been interested in but never seriously pursued: Turkish.
I do have some background: I did the Pimsleur Conversation course a few years ago. And I've studied a bit with Teach Yourself and Colloquial, mostly looking for explanations of what was going on in Uzbek via resources for a more widely studied Turkic language. That said, my Turkish is close to nil. If at the end of this experiment, I can pick through entries in the Turkish Wikipedia too, I'll be impressed.
This time, I have the audio. I'll be following the same program as before, starting with lesson one today.
BartoG on 10 April 2011
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Turkish
Update 2: 17 April 2010
Lesson 8 completed
I'd looked at this course some years ago when I first got it. I'd skimmed a few lessons, and not got too far with it. This time, I'm learning with ease, one lesson at a time, and surprise, it's going pretty well. Of course I do have some background. And I've noticed a fair number of Uzbek words popping out at me. Funny, as I've studied Uzbek for years and been fascinated by it but never quite able to learn it. And yet, it's there, now, in words like the Turkish balik (fish), bashliyor (begin) and kiz (girl). There's even Karadeniz (Black Sea), matching up with Uzbek qara dengiz. Structures are similar as well, with -iyor- doing the same thing as the Uzbek -yap- (present progressive) and deg'il (negator) working just like the Uzbek emas (iyi deg'ilim = yakshi emasman = I am not well). Some of this I knew, some of it I've even written about on the forum. But it's fun to see it all coming back.
I have also lessoned to lesson 1 of Pismleur Turkish, and will continue listening through lesson 15. Beyond that, however, like the experiment with Alsatian, I don't intend to go much beyond the course. We'll see how it comes together.
BartoG on 18 April 2011
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Turkish
Update 3: 30 April 2010
Lesson 19 completed
I see I missed a week again. Naturally, Turkish is more of a challenge than Alsatian in a passive phase - my German background helped a lot. But I'm finding that my experience with Uzbek is helping in terms of recognizing words and patterns.
Lesson 14 was dense - it covered more than the typical review lesson and I spent a couple days going through it and checking earlier readings. I've also been looking up the Uzbek equivalent when I see Turkish words that seem faintly familiar.
Main thought so far: Assimil is much smoother if you've got something to hook onto. So an excellent method for a language that isn't altogether foreign. We'll see as experiment 2 progresses how things are for a more unusual language.
BartoG on 30 April 2011
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Turkish
Update 4: 22 May 2011
Lesson 21 completed
I've made a mention or two of depression here and there. And indeed, I've had a general weariness with life for the past several months which appears to relate to a severe deficiency of Vitamin D (Vit D levels in the bloodstream at about 9, vs a minimum level of 32 recommended out of 100). Therapeutic doses have improved the numbers, but I'm still not at the minimum levels yet. Pushing through this to finish the Assimil Alsatian course was a challenge, but I had a fair amount of momentum. It's been harder to find the energy to charge into Turkish.
For the last few weeks, I've listened to and skimmed the first 21 lessons to make sure what I've learned doesn't go away, but haven't really pushed forward. When I'm a bit more back in sorts, I'll pick up again.
BartoG on 23 May 2011
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Glad to see you are getting better, I did not know that about depression.
I always read your log since I am really interested in Assimil logs.
Good luck and hope to hear from you soon
guitarob on 23 May 2011
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BartoG, found this log on a random google search looking up some things about Assimil. I
hope your health is better! Did you ever get back into your 2nd Assimil experiment?
ericblair on 20 January 2012
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I came across you on accident, too.
Well, not by accident. I am starting the Assimil Turkish course, and I was looking for opinions on it.
Depression is a really scary thing...
I hope life is looking better for you.
Kerrie on 10 September 2012
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BartoG, How did your experiment work out for you.
Krbtv on 21 September 2017
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