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Your favorite language program? | ||
Tags: TellMeMore | Fluenz | Living Language | Colloquial (program) | DLI | Linguaphone | Teach Yourself | Platiquemos | Rosetta Stone | Michel Thomas | Listening-Reading (L-R) | Pimsleur | Language Program | FSI | Assimil | Book | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| Mistermark21 Newbie United Kingdom Joined 4615 days ago 23 posts - 26 votes Studies: Swedish* Studies: French, German, Spanish, Polish | Message 305 of 376 15 March 2013 at 11:55am | IP Logged | ||
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If im starting a language thats entirely alien to me such as Hebrew or Russian i think Pimsleur holds the crown. Simply because you speak with a native accent.
Linguaphone is a favourite too but i tend to go to Linguaphone AFTER Pimsleur because by then i've aquired a nice accent and can build from that. Michel Thomas is very effective and builds confidence. Personally i dont like Assimil. I dont see why everyone raves about it but maybe im missing something everyone else is seeing. So for me its Linguaphone and Pimsleur. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| embici Triglot Senior Member CanadaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4613 days ago 263 posts - 370 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Greek | Message 306 of 376 15 March 2013 at 2:49pm | IP Logged | ||
I have never seen Assimil or Linguaphone on a library or bookstore shelf here in North America so I've never had a chance to look at them and compare before buying. For me, to buy either system on-line, sight unseen, based on the recommendations of strangers on the internet, I'm more likely to buy Assimil at $80 than Linguaphone at £200+. Maybe Linguaphone is worth the extra money, I don't know. I'd like to hear more about it and why it's better than Assimil. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4536 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 307 of 376 15 March 2013 at 4:53pm | IP Logged | ||
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All I have used to move from A1 to B2 German over the last 8 months is:
1. Short grammar book. 2. Anki (words; sentences; grammar tips). 3. TV/Movies - mostly dubbed (so far watched 120 films). 4. Kindle - with Collins German dictionary (moving through my fourth longish book now). I love the Kindle. It makes it possible to read both books and newspapers in a way that is much much faster/easier than having a paper book and dictionary side-by-side. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| ling Diglot Groupie Taiwan Joined 4589 days ago 61 posts - 94 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin Studies: Indonesian, Thai | Message 308 of 376 15 March 2013 at 6:13pm | IP Logged | ||
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If you wish to learn Thai, let me put a good word in for Routledge Colloquial. More
geared toward speaking and listening, but it also gives you the tools needed to learn to read. A solid course. Not without its weaknesses, but I found it superior to Teach Yourself Complete and Becker's Thai for Beginners. Pimsleur is a good way to build a working foundation in the language; Becker's book is excellent for learning to read and write; but Colloquial gets you up to a low- intermediate level quickly and enjoyably with very useful vocab and interesting dialogues. Assimil? For Thai, I think only French-medium instruction is available at this point. Not for me. Edited by ling on 15 March 2013 at 6:20pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Jeff_T Newbie United States Joined 4270 days ago 1 posts - 1 votes Speaks: English* | Message 309 of 376 31 March 2013 at 12:41am | IP Logged | ||
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Of course, no course compares to real life experience, but I've used Living Language to study Italian and German, and am now using it to study Russian and Japanese. I think their courses provide the student with a solid foundation in language learning. Equal emphasis is given to vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, and listening. The dialog scenarios are very helpful. If you master one of their courses, you should be able to handle most basic language situations you are likely to encounter when travelling to a country where that language is used.
Unfortunately, I have not used any of the other products, and so I can't compare Living Language to them. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Lee10 Newbie United States Joined 4576 days ago 6 posts - 8 votes Speaks: English* | Message 310 of 376 13 April 2013 at 5:27pm | IP Logged | ||
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Assimil, Remembering the Kanji, and Anki. I haven't gotten my hands on anything else.
Does anyone have recommendations for a Chinese book? I'm a beginner (I.e., I know nothing). I've heard the Assimil lacks content, and another user on this thread (excuse me for not going back and finding his name) said that he thought that the Teach Yourself was bad. Thoughts? I'm trying to keep the costs under 100$. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| JasonUK Triglot Newbie United Kingdom learnalanguagein1yea Joined 5259 days ago 29 posts - 38 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin, French Studies: Thai, Spanish | Message 311 of 376 13 April 2013 at 5:43pm | IP Logged | ||
I used both part one and part two of Assimil but you won't be able to afford them with less than $100. I really liked them. but you will also need to learn using other resources. Assimil alone is not going to teach you Chinese even past beginner level. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| AnnyDx Tetraglot Newbie Germany Joined 6332 days ago 2 posts - 3 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Spanish Studies: Russian, Esperanto | Message 312 of 376 15 April 2013 at 12:10am | IP Logged | ||
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I've just finished the Michel Thomas advanced Spanish course and I'm almost through with the 3rd Pimsleur course. I think these two are a pretty good combination. What I liked about Michel Thomas is that he gives you an overview in the very beginning of the similarities between Spanish and English. Even though English is not my native language I found this very useful to already have a certain "feeling" for the language (of course, if the language you learn is not as closely related to English you don't have this advantage I suppose) The only disadvantage of this method is that I could only listen to it for a while because after a short periode of time the two students drove me crazy when they make the same stupid mistakes over and over. But these things also happen if you took a "real" class. His accent was okay for me, but I think it's necessary to listen to native speakers at the same time.
I like Pimsleur too, but it doesn't give you this depth of understanding like MT does. Afterwards you really understand the structure behind it and don't feel like you've just memorized a certain number of sentences. To say how good this methode really is I would have to try a language that is totally different from everything I've learned so far like (Mandarin or Arabic) Only then can I tell how "effortlessly" it really is but someday when I start those languages I will try (they are both on my list ;) Spanish is the first language I've learned almost entirely through audio courses and I have to say that I've already spoken it quite well after a few month (not like French which I've learned in school for several years and when I went to France for the first time I wans't able to say an entire sentence) I've also noticed that it is much harder to read if you're not able to speak and know how the words are pronounced. In Spanish it is especially easy because all the vowels are always pronounced the same way. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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