Saturday 10 November 2012

Learning French



Happy Birthday to Me





Well for my birthday I got this French Course. Its called Assimil New French with Ease. I got it from Japan Amazon for just over 6000 yen. Thats about 70 bucks. Yes A little expensive but it includes 4 CDs of just about 4 hours of audio. The method is highly acclaimed as well so worth the effort.

Many people asked me why I want to learn French. To tell the truth I don't have any burning reasons to choose French over other languages. I am interested in language and the Assimil learning method. Assimil's French course is one of the most popular courses they have. Assimil is a French company so it is a language with which as a company they are most familiar.

I am waiting for the language itself to impress me and overtake me. This no doubt will happen after finishing Assimil!

I have had little time so I couldnt start the course until yesterday. Basically, each lesson contains a dialog of about 10 sentences. I listen to the French dialog a couple of times. Then I listen to it while reading the English translation.  After that I read out loud in French , line by line and check the meaning using the English translation. Then more listening to the dialouge and more repeats. There are some notes and exercises and the lesson is finished. One lesson takes 30 minutes to complete.

I completed the first two lessons. The method is quite enjoyable and the dialogs are funny. I did the first one in the car (my wife was driving). I did my lesson 2 this morning.  I plan to do most of my Assimil in the morning before work. 

 I will do the course at the rate of one lesson a day. That means 113 days of learning French for 30 minutes per day. I am going to stick mainly to the Assimil method and not be tempted to do more than that schedule. This is so I can test the Assimil method as it is presented. Also I am busy with work and want to focus on improving my Japanese as well.

I feel I have really hit a slump with Japanese and need to take in a new direction. That is another post though!