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Thoughts on assimil advance? | ||
Tags: Assimil | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| michaelmichael Senior Member Canada Joined 5285 days ago 167 posts - 202 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 1 of 20 31 July 2010 at 8:02am | IP Logged | |||||
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I've been reading a lot about assimil ,the beginners series, on these forums, but have yet to stumble across anything about the advance series. I just watched a review of the beginner series and found out for example that you end up with a vocabulary of 1600. I was wondering if anyone knew how much further the advance series takes you.
Also, after reading all the very very positive reviews of assimil (I got the impression it is the favorite) I was a little disappointed to find out that the older series were better. ProfASAr on youtube shows all 4 versions, and i didn't realize that the content had decreased. While he still said it was his favorite method, he expressed his growing concern about the decreasing quality of the subsequent series. I already bought the beginners and advance, the new version, before knowing about this, and have already started using the beginners. I wanted to know how the new advance series compares to the older assimil series, peoples experience with advance, and possibly their opinions of the older series. Thanks. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| johntm93 Senior Member United States Joined 5355 days ago 587 posts - 746 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish | Message 2 of 20 31 July 2010 at 8:12am | IP Logged | |||||
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Basic should bring you up to a B1 level, advanced to C1. Advanced teaches you about the culture of places where you language is spoken.
The Using X series (advanced) doesn't have many courses, at least with an English base. And according to Prof. A most courses seems to be declining in quality. I don't think it's bad enough to buy the older course, but if you can find it cheap and want to, by all means buy it. I'm not exactly sure on what the new versions are like, I'm working through the Assimil German without Toil at the moment. Just for reference, X without Toil is the old version and X with ease or New X with Ease is the newer version. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| magictom123 Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5621 days ago 272 posts - 365 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French | Message 3 of 20 31 July 2010 at 8:14am | IP Logged | |||||
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I think part of the reason for the dilution of the matieral in Assimil courses is due to
marketing. Why sell you everything in one book if they can sell you two. From my experiences with the new Assimil courses, I don't see a problem with them. I don't think there is much doubt though that older courses are better but since you have already bought the new ones, don't worry, I'm sure they'll be just fine for you. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| michaelmichael Senior Member Canada Joined 5285 days ago 167 posts - 202 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 4 of 20 31 July 2010 at 8:49am | IP Logged | |||||
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Thanks john and magic. If we assume for a moment that the reason for the decrease in material was to market 2 books, could we say advance + beginner = older series ? My gut (sometimes more reliable than my brain) is telling me that advance + beginner probably has a bit more content than the older series.
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| tractor Tetraglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5481 days ago 1349 posts - 2292 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, Catalan Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 5 of 20 31 July 2010 at 9:18am | IP Logged | |||||
I think this assumption is wrong because they used to have some advanced courses that were called "Assimil La pratique du X". 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| michaelmichael Senior Member Canada Joined 5285 days ago 167 posts - 202 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 6 of 20 31 July 2010 at 9:22am | IP Logged | |||||
Zut, alors! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| magictom123 Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5621 days ago 272 posts - 365 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French | Message 7 of 20 31 July 2010 at 2:22pm | IP Logged | |||||
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contrary to the above, it has been mentioned here by others who own both old and new
assimil courses that sections of grammar, maybe for example the past subjunctive is mentioned in the without toil books but only in the 'using' of the new versions, and not the with ease books. Does anyone else have a reason for why they think that the quality level has dropped in the new books. Only having a limited experience of studying with assimil, it seems that the drop in quality is really a drop in quantity, as the new courses pad out pages with exercises and virtually blank pages. The content itself may not be as 'full' as the without toil books, but they are useful nonetheless 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| jplain Newbie United States Joined 5325 days ago 23 posts - 34 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 8 of 20 31 July 2010 at 3:11pm | IP Logged | |||||
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If you're interested in Assimil's Using Spanish (the advanced Spanish program), it might be a good idea to read this thread before buying.
http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=2959 (Remove the extra space between T and I to find the thread. I can't seem to remove it myself. Part of spam prevention for new members, perhaps?) Edited by jplain on 31 July 2010 at 3:15pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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