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Teach Yourself and Colloquial | ||
Tags: Colloquial (program) | Teach Yourself | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| blindsheep Triglot Senior Member Spain Joined 6365 days ago 503 posts - 507 votes  Speaks: English*, French, Spanish Studies: German | Message 1 of 10 01 February 2008 at 3:45pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Hey,
I was wondering how the Teach Yourself and Colloquial series compare to Assimil... I have access to the first 2, but not Assimil for Catalan from my local library... but haven't heard too much about those series of materials. Thanks! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6914 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 2 of 10 01 February 2008 at 5:37pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I would say that what differs mostly is the "method". TY/Colloquial work in the same way (around 20 chapters, one or two dialogues, vocabulary list, some exercises and grammar notes) while Assimil has the active/passive thing (use the search engine or Google). All three methods may teach about the same number of words and bring up the most important grammar points - it is hard to tell since no course is identical to another.
ProfArguelles once rated the Catalan course "the best Assimil ever" (scroll down to the post from 2005 20 January at 6:17am). Edited by jeff_lindqvist on 01 February 2008 at 5:41pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| ChristopherB Triglot Senior Member New Zealand Joined 6321 days ago 851 posts - 1074 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English*, German, French | Message 3 of 10 01 February 2008 at 10:01pm | IP Logged | |||||
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TY and Colloquial have far more grammatical explanations than does Assimil, and also contains English on the CDs which annoys me. I think they're generally quite good courses, and Colloquial offer them for some more obscure languages such as Latvian and Irish.
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| rob Diglot Senior Member Japan Joined 6170 days ago 287 posts - 288 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese, Norwegian, Mandarin | Message 4 of 10 02 February 2008 at 3:13am | IP Logged | |||||
Yes I remember reading that ProfArguelles wrote this, so if you agree that he is the best source of information we have (which I do believe), it's definitely worth the investment of buying the Assimil. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| ChristopherB Triglot Senior Member New Zealand Joined 6321 days ago 851 posts - 1074 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English*, German, French | Message 5 of 10 02 February 2008 at 3:15am | IP Logged | |||||
I agree, and it's part of the reason I've begun investing in Assimil myself, among other things. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 6156 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian | Message 6 of 10 06 February 2008 at 10:58am | IP Logged | |||||
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I've found the Colloquial series, especially Colloquial Latvian, to be generally inferior to the Teach Yourself series. The recording quality on the Colloquial series can be very poor, as if they've transferred dictaphone recordings to CD. That said, their publishers, Routledge, do very good Grammar books.
I've got all three for Hungarian, Teach Yourself, Assimil and Colloquial, and the Assimil is the most enjoyable, and also has the most audio, which is very important. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| ChristopherB Triglot Senior Member New Zealand Joined 6321 days ago 851 posts - 1074 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English*, German, French | Message 7 of 10 06 February 2008 at 5:59pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Yeah, the recording quality on some (not sure if all) the Colloquials does irritate me. I've often found I need to edit the audio itself to remove the muffled sound and fuzziness. Plus, having background sounds added in doesn't make it any easier.
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Raincrowlee Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 6707 days ago 621 posts - 808 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin, Korean, French Studies: Indonesian, Japanese | Message 8 of 10 06 February 2008 at 11:27pm | IP Logged | |||||
It varies from language to language. I have both Colloquial and TY for Japanese and Indonesian, and I think the Colloquial for both languages is superior, especially in terms of grammar explanations. And as for the English in the audio, well, that's what we have editing programs for, isn't it? 1 person has voted this message useful |
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