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Assimill frustration...is it just me? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4643 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes  Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 17 of 19 05 September 2014 at 11:51am | IP Logged |
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I have used Assimil for Russian, and I found it good and useful, but as others have said, I would never study a language only on the basis of Assimil. I can also confirm that it depends on the course, I tried the Greek one and found it incredibly boring. I am not familiar with the Spanish one though.
You say that things don't seem to be explained very well, and that is one of my problems with Assimil as well. Personally I have an analytical approach and when e.g. I come acroess a new grammatical feature, like the subjunctive, I like to see a full explanation and the whole paradigm at once, but other people might prefer a more intuitive approach. I can't comment on the translations in general, but with regard to your example, the translation they give for "hay que celebrarlo" seems perfectly all right to me. Here, you could substitute "hay que" with "tenemos que" (using first person plural of "tener que" = to have to/must) to make it personal and clear that it is "we" who have to celebrate. That being said, since "hay que" is an impersonal construction, it does not always imply that the person speaking is directly concerned as a subject, so in other cases it would be more natural to translate it as "it is necessary". To give you an example: "Hay que evitar otra crisis econmómica" - It is necessary to avoid another financial crisis. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| epictetus Groupie Canada Joined 3886 days ago 54 posts - 87 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 18 of 19 24 September 2014 at 6:04pm | IP Logged |
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I highly recommend getting Hugo's Spanish (by DK Publishing). It's very cheap and if
you start Assimil and Hugo at the same time (doing 7 lessons per week of Assimil and going week by week in Hugo) you will find that grammar is explained as it is introduced in Hugo. This was a huge fluke for me over the summer having access to only these two books but I was continually surprised when even seemingly random grammar tended to be mentioned within only a few days of each other. This will satisfy your need for precise grammatical explanations while still letting Assimil walk you through the language, one dialogue at a time. I only finished the Spanish Assimil last week and concur that some of the English translations are clumsy or obtuse, but they are only a small inconvenience. Check out the Assimil Spanish Anki deck for a ready-made deck with audio for every line of dialogue and exercise - over 2000 cards. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Gemuse Senior Member Germany Joined 4086 days ago 818 posts - 1189 votes Speaks: English Studies: German | Message 19 of 19 24 September 2014 at 9:14pm | IP Logged |
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I also recommend having a second more rigorous book to go alongside Assimil.
As intended, Assimil German would not have worked for me. Similar to OP, I found the pace to really pick up around lesson 20. I like rigorous explanations, and assimil alone would not have sufficed. Assimil does however, complement very nicely other grammar based courses. Lots of tiny words, particles, and other flavor words which are not given proper attention in rigorous courses. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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