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Confused by reviews | ||
Tags: Usefulness | Assimil | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| lase Diglot Newbie United States pluble.netRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6092 days ago 31 posts - 31 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Danish, Italian, French | Message 1 of 52 26 November 2008 at 5:35pm | IP Logged | ||
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I was looking at http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/e/faq/programs-assimil. html when I became confused, if so many people are using Assimil, then why is it given such a bad review on this site? I'd also like to know why every method I looked at on there under the guide is given a review as "insufficient" to learn a language...?
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| Ham Newbie United Kingdom Joined 5995 days ago 21 posts - 21 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish | Message 2 of 52 26 November 2008 at 6:34pm | IP Logged | ||
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well I suppose it depends, for example professer Argulles uses mostly assimil and is profficient in many languages, though he does use it diffrently. Any one course is probably insufficient to learn a language though, on its own, it must be combined with actual native input and what not. Edited by Ham on 26 November 2008 at 6:36pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Kathis Diglot Newbie Poland Joined 5926 days ago 6 posts - 6 votes Speaks: Polish*, English Studies: French, Spanish | Message 3 of 52 26 November 2008 at 7:12pm | IP Logged | ||
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I was also suprised by those reviews of Assimil on the site and on the forum. This topic explained it a bit - http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=22&PN=1.
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| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6017 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes  Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 4 of 52 27 November 2008 at 4:51am | IP Logged | ||
Vitally, Arguelles has learned so many languages that he no longer needs to be taught languages. If I ever learn as many languages as him, I'm sure I'll have no problem picking up any language from such material too, but us mere mortals still need to have concepts explained and need to be given an opportunity to play with the concept like we would play with a ball of plasticine. Arguelles can learn easily from methods that don't teach, because he already knows it all. We don't, so we can't. Edited by Cainntear on 27 November 2008 at 4:52am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| JonB Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6271 days ago 209 posts - 220 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Italian, Dutch, Greek | Message 5 of 52 27 November 2008 at 6:47am | IP Logged | ||
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Prof Arguelles does seem to change his tune ever so slightly on this. In one of his Youtube-reviews (the review of the Linguaphone courses, I think) he states that one actually needs to use about four different approaches to get a good grounding in a language.
He then suggests using both Assimil AND Linguaphone together - just as the first stage towards this goal! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| JonB Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6271 days ago 209 posts - 220 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Italian, Dutch, Greek | Message 6 of 52 27 November 2008 at 6:52am | IP Logged | ||
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I might add: I personally just can't believe that Assimil would be enough on its own! (It would be a darned good start, I guess...)
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| Othar Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6215 days ago 185 posts - 205 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: Norwegian, Turkish | Message 7 of 52 27 November 2008 at 7:57am | IP Logged | ||
It depends. I use it for Norwegian and Turkish. I don't believe I'll ever have to look into another Norwegian course. Of course my background (German with a good knowledge of English) helps here a lot. The Turkish course looks good too and it could be enough for me since I only want to understand the language. But I'm not sure here. On the other hand I have listened to more than 50 lessons of English and I don't think they would have helped me much. Most of them were boring and the vocabulary was minimal. It is hard to believe that you can learn English this way. Edited by tja on 27 November 2008 at 3:03pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| fanatic Octoglot Senior Member Australia speedmathematics.com Joined 7152 days ago 1152 posts - 1818 votes Speaks: English*, German, French, Afrikaans, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Dutch Studies: Swedish, Norwegian, Polish, Modern Hebrew, Malay, Mandarin, Esperanto | Message 8 of 52 28 November 2008 at 2:48am | IP Logged | ||
Why not? Really, it depends on what you mean by "enough on its own". I learnt German with Assimil before travelling to Germany and I was disappointed to discover there were words in common usage that weren't included in my Assimil course. No big deal. I knew enough to ask the meaning or to work it out for myself. So, do you mean that no course will teach you every word in the language? Then, no course is sufficient. But, Assimil is sufficient to enable you to take part in conversations, listen to lectures and to read books. My German was enough to get by on arriving in Germany but it certainly improved with time in the country. I believe that Assimil taught me the language. I was surprised when my brother came to visit and spoke no German, how quickly he learnt the language just using Assimil. So, it depends on what you mean. No course is sufficient by itself to speak like a native. It won't cover every nuance and all of the vocabulary. You will need to converse with native speakers of the language, read plenty of books, watch television and movies, and ask plenty of questions about the language. I would say that Assimil is one of the most complete courses I know. It will take you closer to fluency than most courses I know. One reason why I especially like Assimil is that the audio is entirely in the target language. That goes for all of my favourite courses. That enables you to develop the ability to think in the language and not translate what you hear or what you want to say. You are thinking in the language from the beginning if you use the course correctly. This also means that you accomplish far more with half an hour of revision listening to the lessons. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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