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Criticised Assimil programs

  Tags: Assimil
 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes Post Reply
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1e4e6
Octoglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 4280 days ago

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

 
 Message 33 of 67
16 March 2014 at 9:02pm | IP Logged 
I have also heard "breakfast", "dinner", and "tea", whilst in Australia. My mother has a
Melbournian friend with whom she has travelled, who asks about where to "have tea" (i.e.
eat dinner) around 21h00 or 22h00.

Edited by 1e4e6 on 16 March 2014 at 10:16pm

1 person has voted this message useful



alang
Diglot
Senior Member
Canada
Joined 7211 days ago

563 posts - 757 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish

 
 Message 34 of 67
16 March 2014 at 9:41pm | IP Logged 

I know these recent posts are off topic, but I will participate.

I personally have used the term dinner interchangeably with lunch and supper. At first
growing up it was for lunch, as my classmates and teachers asked during the afternoon
if I had dinner. Afterwards, I heard others asking if I wanted to have dinner in the
late afternoon or early evening. I have asked do you mean supper and the reply was,
that it means the same thing. I have heard Canadians use both, but Americans only for
supper. By context a person actually is used to it and I think both are correct usage.
More now for supper, than lunch for some reason.



Odd note, as for Spanish el desayuno, el almuerzo and la cena were the standard. Last
year a woman from Mexico asked if I wanted to have lunchar with her. I informed her,
"Oh you mean almorzar." She said that was wrong, and el almuerzo is brunch at 10:00
a.m.
I did bring this up with other people from Chile and Columbia and they were confused.
Plausible explanation, she lives close to the border between the U.S.A. and Mexico. She
is exposed to English, so the specific Mexicans in that area made the verb lunchar mean
to lunch and almorzar as to brunch exclusively for that region.


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Lykeio
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 4234 days ago

120 posts - 357 votes 

 
 Message 35 of 67
16 March 2014 at 10:32pm | IP Logged 
You know this kind of quarrelling just shows how meaningless the debate is for
classical languages for those without training. I've never got the sense of entitlement
people feel based solely on their own aesthetics! "I DISLIKE THIS THEREFORE IT IS NOT
ACCURATE" meanwhile they have little Latin and less Greek and think apophany is the hip
new drug the kids are trying...

Say you dislike something. Say you're disinterested in learning. No big deal. But don't
pretend your taste amounts to anything more than that.

The ancient Greek everyone online is complaining about having a French accent is
largely voiced by a...German. Stefan Hagel, an absolutely phenomenal scholar and
charming gent. Is it perfect? No, it is quite evidently Germanophonic (so much for the
ears of detractors) and doesn't sound very Mediterranean to my ears but it attempts
things like pitch accentuation. Would I use it as a model? no, it is better than most
commercial things I've heard though. Note how nobody has enough Greek to critique the
oddities in idiom etc that occasionally appear in the book. Magically experts on
phonology, however. Wherever did they learn in such a manner?

Sanskrit is another one I've heard people complain about it. I've limited exposure to
the book/CD but from what I've seen/heard the audio is pretty good. Whoever the
speakers are they're able to hit some of the difficult phonemes for European speakers,
however some of the assimilations sound more Dravidian than Aryan but ok. The text
samples I've seen are idiomatic Sanskrit however and whoever wrote it has a fantastic
grasp of the tongue. I've seen words than must have been good Sanskrit but only appear
in commentaries on texts and in later Indo-Aryan languages so I'd bet £50 there's a
Sanskrit scholar behind it.

This thread would be more valuable if people stuck to critiquing text for languages
they know well I think.
7 persons have voted this message useful



oldearth
Groupie
United States
Joined 4885 days ago

72 posts - 173 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish, Esperanto

 
 Message 36 of 67
16 March 2014 at 10:48pm | IP Logged 
I compiled the responses so far into one list because I was having trouble keeping all the similar
courses discussed straight in my mind. Maybe it'll be helpful to some of you.

STRANGE OR BORING DIALOGS

Name: Le nouveau Grec sans peine
Base: English
Generation: 2 nd ed
Criticism: Stilted and strange dialogues.
Reviewer: Solfrid Cristin

Name: Le grec ancien
Base: French
Generation: newest
Criticism:
(1) Ancient Greek has 9236 different ways to conjugate or decline any word (give or take 1500); this
might be too much to "assimilate" naturally, much less without pain. Or lots of pain.
(2) The dialogues follow a spunky school boy through his day. Greek, the language of gods and heroes,
is reduced to telling wacky tales from the gymnasium.
Good parts: I like the way the Greek sounds, though others have said the accent is "too
French"
Reviewer: kanewai

Name: Le coreen
Base: French
Criticsm: boring dialogues, relies too much on romanization rather than hangul, I think.
Reviewer: sillygoose1


POOR AUDIO

Name: Arabic with Ease
Base: English
Criticism: boring dialogues and extremely slow audio
Reviewer: sillygoose1

Name: L'arabe
Base: French
Generation: 2006
Criticism: Speakers on the CD sound like cats being tortured.
Good parts: Nothing that makes up for the horror of listening to those recordings.
Reviewer: kanewai

Name: L'Esperanto Sans Peine
Base: French
Generation: 2nd?
Criticism: Heavy French accent
Reviewer: alang

Name: Hungarian with Ease
Base: English
Generation: 2nd?
Criticism: Poor quality audio at parts. Speaker mumbles.
Reviewer: DaraghM

Name: Le Latin Sans Peine
Base: French
Generation: 2nd
Criticism: Heavy French accent on audio
Reviewer: alang


SERIOUS TYPOGRAPHIC ERRORS

Name: Inglés perfeccionamiento
Base: Spanish
Generation: 3rd
Criticism: Lack of proof-reading and copy-editing. Chunks of FRENCH texts left untranslated, Spanish
words in the middle of English text, exercises messed up. Spanish adaptor absolute incompetent. DO
NOT BUY IT. TOTAL RUBBISH!
Reviewer: Hungringo
.... reply: sluicideo has used a different edition this course (2nd?) and did not remember these
problems.

Name: Italian With Ease
Base: English
Generation: newest
Criticism: More typos than it seems like there should be. Even having no prior
experience with Italian, I was able to notice most. Not a deal-breaker and still a fun
enough course!
Reviewer: ericblair

Name: Latina senza sforzo
Base: Italian
Generation 2nd?
Criticism: Many typographical errors in the book, errata sheet available, instead of
printing corrections in the book
Reviewer: alang

Name: Schwedisch ohne Mühe
Base: German
Generation: 2nd (2003 "corrected" version)
Criticism: Lots of typos, like mixing a/ä/å up, especially in the explanations and
grammar lessons, or cutting the last few characters of a sentence in many of the
translation exercises. Additionally, no glossary at the end (afaik the French base has
one?). Explanations sometimes on the wrong page.
Reviewer: daegga


TRANSLATION ERRORS

Name: Dänisch ohne Mühe
Base: German
Generation: 2nd
Criticism: Many grammar errors in the glossary (like getting gender or plural of nouns
wrong), unnaturally clear audio (more so than in your average Assimil course). Some
typos and errors during the course, I don't remember what exactly.
Reviewer: daegga

Name: El Nuevo Italiano Sin Esfuerzo
Base: Spanish
Generation: 2nd
Criticism: Bad translations
Reviewer: alang

Name: Norwegisch ohne Mühe
Base: German
Generation: 2nd?
Criticism: Many translation and grammar errors
Reviewer: alang

Name: Using Spanish
Base: English
Generation: 2nd?
Criticism: Many translation errors
Reviewer: alang

Name: Le turc
Base: French
Generation: newest
Criticism: The French seems more of an interpretation than a translation of the Turkish
dialogues. Assimil might not be a great fit for an agglutinative language. It's hard to
match up the Turkish dialogues with the idiomatic French, and you spend a lot of your
time with the dictionary to figure out which words mean what.
Good parts: Recordings are nice, and you get a sense of how the complete language
works. This might be a good course for those who are already approaching a B-1 level in Turkish.
Reviewer: kanewai
11 persons have voted this message useful



alang
Diglot
Senior Member
Canada
Joined 7211 days ago

563 posts - 757 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish

 
 Message 37 of 67
16 March 2014 at 11:58pm | IP Logged 
Lykeio wrote:

This thread would be more valuable if people stuck to critiquing text for languages
they know well I think.


Not always the case, as this thread is to relay critiques about Assimil programs from
other sources who have heard, used or know about all types of errors. (Be it written or
spoken.) I look for reviews from others and relay it here.

Concerning the Ancient Greek, the audio was noticeably odd to some people, but you
wrote about oddities in idiom etc. in the book. Why did you not list and write these
down on your post? Can you list them please?

This is what the thread is about. It would help the other people who would be
considering using the program.
1 person has voted this message useful



tastyonions
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
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Joined 4655 days ago

1044 posts - 1823 votes 
Speaks: English*, French, Spanish
Studies: Italian

 
 Message 38 of 67
17 March 2014 at 12:32am | IP Logged 
As far as the "dinner / supper" question, a majority of Americans either use the words synonymously (for the evening meal, I'm assuming) or do not use the word "supper." Interestingly, there doesn't seem to be a clear regional pattern to the usage.
1 person has voted this message useful



Emme
Triglot
Senior Member
Italy
Joined 5337 days ago

980 posts - 1594 votes 
Speaks: Italian*, English, German
Studies: Russian, Swedish, French

 
 Message 39 of 67
17 March 2014 at 9:59am | IP Logged 
I’ve looked up “dinner” in the Collins Cobuild English Language Dictionary (1987; 1993) and there seems to be a social/class aspect to the difference in usage, at least in British English. Unfortunately, in this instance they don’t delve into American usage as well.

Quote:
dinner […] 1 Dinner is the main meal of the day. In Britain, many working-class people use the word dinner to refer to the meal that they have at midday, and many middle-class people use the word dinner to refer to the meal that they eat in the evening. […]


Now I wish that sillygoose1 or someone else could tell us the context where “colazione” and “pranzo” occur in Italian With Ease so that we can go back at criticizing Assimil as necessary.

Sorry if my post no. 29 has derailed the thread leading it into a debate about “dinner” in English.

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Solfrid Cristin
Heptaglot
Winner TAC 2011 & 2012
Senior Member
Norway
Joined 5324 days ago

4143 posts - 8864 votes 
Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian
Studies: Russian

 
 Message 40 of 67
17 March 2014 at 10:07am | IP Logged 
@emme - I have learned that 'colazione' is lunch, and 'prima colazione' is breakfast. Is that wrong?


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