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On the generations of Assimil: some stats | ||
Tags: Assimil | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| dekaglossai Newbie United States youtube.com/user/dek Joined 4398 days ago 19 posts - 59 votes  | Message 1 of 3 17 November 2012 at 11:36pm | IP Logged |
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Everyone knows that the quality of the content of the Assimil books has decreased through the generations. If you want to know how much it has changed, I have some numbers for you. I made a video about it, which you can find here (in Italian with subtitles... check out my other language videos too!):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwH7hO5DeBI But here are the results: I took two books: Italienisch Ohne Muhe Heute from the 80s and the new Italian book (Russian base). I chose six mid-level lessons (64-69), or one week's cycle, and typed up the Italian text of the dialogues and the exercises. I found that these six lessons contained 1462 words in the older book, 902 in the newer. The old book has 62% more words; the new book has 38% fewer. Then I looked at the entire audio for both books. I used Audacity to truncate the silence with identical settings, and found that the audio for the old book totals 132 minutes, and for the new book 92 minutes. The old book has 43% more audio; the new book has 30% less audio. I hope this information is helpful or interesting for you all! I've always wondered how much more material and exposure you got in the older books, and now I have some idea. I wish I had another, older generation of the book to fill out the picture, but maybe someone else can provide the information (at least the word count, if not audio). Edited by dekaglossai on 18 November 2012 at 3:34am 7 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Betjeman Groupie Germany Joined 6142 days ago 85 posts - 204 votes Speaks: German* | Message 2 of 3 21 November 2012 at 9:13am | IP Logged |
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Interesting facts, yet I'm wondering ... Is teaching really about the sheer number of words? A dictionary
contains more of them than any given course ... As for Assimil, I find some of the new courses more user-friendly than their predecessors. However, with a couple of courses they took simplification too far and the older ones are preferable. On the whole, I just wish their courses were more streamlined. Many of them, both old and new, suffer from errors and uneven progression and seem - at times - to assume that you know more about the language than the course has taught you so far. Still, they are among the best there is. Edited by Betjeman on 21 November 2012 at 5:09pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| dekaglossai Newbie United States youtube.com/user/dek Joined 4398 days ago 19 posts - 59 votes | Message 3 of 3 23 November 2012 at 7:21pm | IP Logged |
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I agree that some of the new courses are more user-friendly than the older ones. But despite that I think it is more important to have a bigger chunck of the language. You read and listen to a substantially greater quantity of sentences in the older methods, and I personally think that the more of the language you listen to, the better. Edited by dekaglossai on 23 November 2012 at 8:34pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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