You will be Assimil-ated!

     I feel like I have accomplished 0 since my last post on learning French. I shouldn't say that, I feel that I've accomplished a lot with pronunciation, but haven't gotten far with actually understanding French. I am going through Assimil New French with Ease, but it's really slow going. I know Rome (or in this case Paris) wasn't built in a day and it's hard to know how far you've gone if you don't have anything to measure against. And no I haven't tried to speak to anyone yet. My new goalpost is to just finish the goddamn book. As of now I am in the passive wave of learning and am only on lesson 16. It has taken me 3 days to finish this lesson and it's hella frustrating for a couple of reason. I am currently using the method laid out by LanguageGeek:
1. Listen to dialogue with book closed.
2. Listen to dialogue again while reading English translation.
3. Read French aloud while looking at the translation to get the meaning.
4. Read the French again without looking at the English translation.
5. Listen to the recording twice. Once looking at English translation. Second time looking at French.
6. Listen to recording again without the book. Hopefully by now you should pretty much understand the dialogue (if not I usually start back at #2).
7. And this is the time consuming part. Listen to the recording, stopping it after each sentence to repeat back what is said. I try to get the pronunciation very close if not spot on. Complete mimicry.
8. Read the comments and notes several times as they provide some important grammar notes.
9. Do the exercises.
10. Examine sentence structures of the lessons.

     It's probably not cool, but I totally skip 9 and 10. I plan on getting a decent grammar book once I get to the active phase of the book. I also amend #7 by doing something called shadowing. Instead of stopping the recording after each sentence then repeating the phrase back, I try to say what the person in the dialogue is saying in real time. Basically, speaking on top of the speaker. It's really satisfying once you've nailed it. I can feel my pronunciation at least becoming tip-top. It's just getting there that will have you throwing the book across the room.

     The sentences are getting a bit longer and therefore I'm having to work harder at pronunciation. I swear if I have to hear this bitch say, 'Oh, monsieur, je suis desolee, je n'ai pas un modele assez grand!' (that's what he said haha) and it coming out of my mouth as, 'Oh, monsieur, je suis desolee, je je gurgle pas de lodel laisel a grand! one more time I am going to hit someone with a loaf of french bread.

     The voice actors they use of course have a different way of speaking. There's one who seems to add a slight unnecessary uh sound at the end of some of her words. I like it! She embodies how French people speaking English sound to my ears. I imagine her wearing a beret, sitting in some outdoor cafe smoking heavily, 'Je suis une femme francaiseuh'. Then there is another woman whose pronunciation is quite clear, but she speaks quickly. I have a love/hate relationship with her when shadowing. I often have to repeat what she says at least 20 to 50 times on one sentence for my pronunciation and speed to catch up. She really makes you work, but she is also why it's taken me 3 bloody days to get through lesson 16! The book states that you're supposed to devote 30 minutes a day, but honestly steps 1 - 6 take at least that amount of time. I was able zip right through these in 30 minutes until I hit lesson 9. Then the time went up exponentially. Now it's more like 2 hours.

     All in all I really like this book. The dialogues are short and you really feel a sense of real accomplishment when you finish a lesson. It's also kind of humorous which helps. I am not using anything else but Assimil at the moment as I feel I might get too bogged down if I add something else to the repetoire. I want to see how far this alone will take me. I've tried little practice tests to see how far along I am right now and am miraculously sitting at B1. Although I still feel if you plopped me in France right now, I still wouldn't be able to have a halfway decent conversation with anyone beyond, 'Hello, how are you doing? Where is the restaurant?'.

     The New Year is upon us and I hope 6 months from now I'll be having some decent conversations and ordering French bread like a boss! Happy New Year peeps and may all your travel and language plans come true!