Al-Malik Bilingual Heptaglot Senior Member United Kingdom arabicgenie.com Joined 7120 days ago 221 posts - 294 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German*, Spanish, Arabic (Written), Dutch, French, Arabic (classical) Studies: Mandarin, Persian
| Message 9 of 99 24 May 2005 at 12:43pm | IP Logged |
I would argue that there is much more material on those 4 cassettes you get with Assimil than there is on the 16 that come with Pimsleur. The reason for this is simply that there are a lot of spaces in Pimsleur cassettes, whereas there are none in the Assimil material(at least with L'Arabe sans peine: tome 2; though I gather that Ardaschir edits the Assimil material?).
Edited by Al-Malik on 24 May 2005 at 1:42pm
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jradetzky Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom geocities.com/jradet Joined 7193 days ago 521 posts - 485 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2, GermanB1
| Message 10 of 99 24 May 2005 at 1:07pm | IP Logged |
True. And the level of difficulty is considerably higher in Assimil, right from the beginning. And there's no English commentary at all.
Edited by jradetzky on 27 May 2005 at 1:49pm
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braveb Senior Member United States languageprograms.blo Joined 7183 days ago 264 posts - 263 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, French
| Message 11 of 99 24 May 2005 at 1:33pm | IP Logged |
"I would say it is indeed very expensive. I have done both Assimil (German, French, and Polish) and Pimsleur (90-lesson French, 30-lesson Greek, and 10-lesson Polish) courses and they're different. If your priority is conversation in a few days then go for Pimsleur. If you want in-depth knowledge, a lot of vocabulary and grammar then go for Assimil. Assimil lessons are short (2-3 minutes) and should be repeated many times. If you consider that there are 100 lessons in the course and that mastering one lesson might take you more than one day, the 4 cassettes (2 hours) will last more than 100 days.
If I were you I would buy the book only (it should be around $20 or less) and get the recordings via trade or Ebay (I can't see why you can't find the Assimil courses on Ebay France and Germany, as there were recently at least 3 Assimil German courses on sale I was bidding on). PM me and I might help you get the recordings."
The problem is finding a program with the base language in English. I don't know German/French.
Edited by braveb on 24 May 2005 at 1:33pm
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jradetzky Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom geocities.com/jradet Joined 7193 days ago 521 posts - 485 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2, GermanB1
| Message 12 of 99 24 May 2005 at 1:51pm | IP Logged |
I've just done a mock purchase of the Assimil book "German with Ease" (English base) at www.assimil.com and it costs EUR 15. Shippment to the USA is EUR 16. Total price EUR 31. Then you can PM me for the audio.
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braveb Senior Member United States languageprograms.blo Joined 7183 days ago 264 posts - 263 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, French
| Message 13 of 99 25 May 2005 at 7:42am | IP Logged |
Very interesting. Thanks, jradetzky, for pointing out that assimil.com ships to the USA. I remember them not having a shipment option for Americans.
Edited by braveb on 25 May 2005 at 7:43am
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omicron Senior Member United States Joined 7107 days ago 125 posts - 132 votes Speaks: English*
| Message 14 of 99 27 May 2005 at 12:14pm | IP Logged |
Try Powells books in Portland OR.
Great bookstore, good service, new and used books.
Their shipping costs to US and Canada are good, but fairly steep for other destinations.
http://www.powells.com/
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jradetzky Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom geocities.com/jradet Joined 7193 days ago 521 posts - 485 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2, GermanB1
| Message 15 of 99 27 May 2005 at 1:45pm | IP Logged |
Last year I bought a used book from Powells via Amazon.com and I was satisfied. You can also try at www.alibris.com and www.abbebooks.com
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zack Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 7195 days ago 122 posts - 127 votes Speaks: German*, English, Spanish, French Studies: Mandarin
| Message 16 of 99 31 May 2005 at 11:26am | IP Logged |
Check out www.ecampus.com. They have lots of Assimil programs at very reasonable prices. I just ordered advanced French (CD version, English-based) for less than US$53.
[EDIT: Over a month later the course has still not shipped. They sent an email apologizing. So I cannot recommend that seller after all as they advertise products not in stock.]
www.bn.com also has a few reasonably prices Assimil-programs. They have a version of `Using French' (w/CD) listed for US$29, but checking the ISBN it appears that this is just the book. It would be a great price for the CD-program.
Although ebay.de has a lot of Assimil-material, they aren't exactly cheap. A problem seems to be that in Germany, Assimil programs (both CD and PC) sell for 99 Euro a set (compared to 67.5 Euro on assimil.fr or assimil.com) which drives the prices up. [Edit: Looking over the German Assimil-site I realized that this is not true for all languages; some sell for $75 a set] Maybe if you watch for long enough you can get a good deal, but I found buying new (from ecampus, amazon or assimil.fr) tends to be cheaper. Hm, maybe ebay.de used to be a great deal for Assimil until our forum-members started to create high demand!
Edited by zack on 05 July 2005 at 7:12am
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