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Your favorite language program?

 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes Post Reply
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fanatic
Octoglot
Senior Member
Australia
speedmathematics.com
Joined 6906 days ago

1152 posts - 1817 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, French, Afrikaans, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Dutch
Studies: Swedish, Norwegian, Polish, Modern Hebrew, Malay, Mandarin, Esperanto

 
 Message 113 of 376
18 April 2010 at 6:57am | IP Logged 
zorglub wrote:
pythonbyte wrote:
Linguaphone, although expensive is the best program I've used. You get what you pay for I assume. Most Teach youself courses are banal and Assimil is not the silver bullet many seem to think.

Harumph !
I had a try at teach yourself Icelandic. A bad course for ME akin to the host's "hair shirt way of learning languages". Some heavily brained learners may be successful with it, but I need light, not boring smart courses.

But when you say " Assimil is not the silver bullet many seem to think" I reply it IS to those who succeed with it the silver bullet that it actually IS for THEM.
I admit I can't understand how one cannot be successful with Assimil. Different mindsets maybe. But it is a very good tool for reaching a conversational level for somewhat lazy learners like me , and for those not lazy , it should prove very good. .



These posts have forced me to think again about the courses available.

First, I have several of the old Linguaphone courses and they are great at what they do.

I have a stack of Assimil and they have been a silver bullet for me, with a couple of exceptions.

I think you can make almost any course work for you.

The best course I have is Russian For Everybody.

It has plenty of audio - all recorded in Russian.

It has plenty of dialogue as well as narrative. It has plenty of humour. It is pleasant to work with. It has a lot of drills if you enjoy drills.

It comes with a library of books explaining grammar, a reader, a fun book with jokes and puzzles, a dictionary, the major textbook which explains grammar in context, as well as material to help with Russian pronunciation. There are written as well as oral drills.

Each recorded lesson begins with the narrative (about people you get to know through the course), short dialogues, and then drills. Because I am familiar with the material I still play through the entire audio sometimes when I have a long drive.

It is my idea of the perfect language course which seems to combine the best of FSI, Assimil and Linguaphone, as well as extra material. I bought it in East Berlin for a very low price that must have been subsidised by the Russian government.

I bought a cheap case to hold the entire program.

Edited by fanatic on 18 April 2010 at 7:02am

3 persons have voted this message useful



Khublei
Bilingual Triglot
Senior Member
Yugoslavia
homestayperu.net
Joined 5107 days ago

90 posts - 141 votes 
Speaks: English*, Irish*, Spanish
Studies: Russian, Khasi, French, Albanian

 
 Message 114 of 376
18 April 2010 at 10:27pm | IP Logged 
I just spent the day listening to the Advanced Michel Thomas Russian CD. I said before
that this method annoys me, but I have to say I learnt a lot today. Although, the two
students are incredibly slow. Does anyone know, are these classes scripted? I can't
imagine they're being paid to learn a language, and cannot remember something they
learned 10 seconds before.
Other than that I think it's great. I'm just about finished the Pimsleur series, now I'm
going to get a 'First 1000 words' type book to learn some more nouns.
1 person has voted this message useful



noriyuki_nomura
Bilingual Octoglot
Senior Member
Switzerland
Joined 5100 days ago

304 posts - 465 votes 
Speaks: English*, Mandarin*, Japanese, FrenchC2, GermanC2, ItalianC1, SpanishB2, DutchB1
Studies: TurkishA1, Korean

 
 Message 115 of 376
24 April 2010 at 11:36pm | IP Logged 
I have read alot that most people use the Assimil programs (and others such as Pimsleurs or Michel Thomas) to learn a foreign language...however, I am wondering, whether anyone uses textbooks (coupled with accompanying CDs) to learn the language too?
1 person has voted this message useful



tractor
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Norway
Joined 5213 days ago

1349 posts - 2292 votes 
Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, Catalan
Studies: French, German, Latin

 
 Message 116 of 376
24 April 2010 at 11:50pm | IP Logged 
noriyuki_nomura wrote:
I have read alot that most people use the Assimil programs (and others such as
Pimsleurs or Michel Thomas) to learn a foreign language...however, I am wondering, whether anyone uses
textbooks (coupled with accompanying CDs) to learn the language too?

What do you mean by "text books"? The kind of text books typically used in school (for instance when learning
French in high school)?
1 person has voted this message useful



noriyuki_nomura
Bilingual Octoglot
Senior Member
Switzerland
Joined 5100 days ago

304 posts - 465 votes 
Speaks: English*, Mandarin*, Japanese, FrenchC2, GermanC2, ItalianC1, SpanishB2, DutchB1
Studies: TurkishA1, Korean

 
 Message 117 of 376
25 April 2010 at 12:10am | IP Logged 
tractor wrote:
noriyuki_nomura wrote:
I have read alot that most people use the Assimil programs (and others such as
Pimsleurs or Michel Thomas) to learn a foreign language...however, I am wondering, whether anyone uses
textbooks (coupled with accompanying CDs) to learn the language too?

What do you mean by "text books"? The kind of text books typically used in school (for instance when learning
French in high school)?


What I meant by textbooks is: for example for French, there're textbooks such as "Taxi! Methode de Francais", ou "Panorama: methode de francais"...or for example for German, there're textbooks such as "em neu hauptkurs"...


2 persons have voted this message useful



tractor
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Norway
Joined 5213 days ago

1349 posts - 2292 votes 
Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, Catalan
Studies: French, German, Latin

 
 Message 118 of 376
25 April 2010 at 1:03am | IP Logged 
noriyuki_nomura wrote:
tractor wrote:
noriyuki_nomura wrote:
I have read alot that most people use the
Assimil programs (and others such as
Pimsleurs or Michel Thomas) to learn a foreign language...however, I am wondering, whether anyone uses
textbooks (coupled with accompanying CDs) to learn the language too?

What do you mean by "text books"? The kind of text books typically used in school (for instance when learning
French in high school)?


What I meant by textbooks is: for example for French, there're textbooks such as "Taxi! Methode de Francais", ou
"Panorama: methode de francais"...or for example for German, there're textbooks such as "em neu
hauptkurs"...

I don't know these books, but if they are primarily intended for class room teaching, they may not be suited for self
study.
1 person has voted this message useful



Elexi
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 5325 days ago

938 posts - 1839 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: French, German, Latin

 
 Message 119 of 376
25 April 2010 at 11:41am | IP Logged 
For learning French I went through a series of target language textbooks alongside English language textbooks - mainly because they force you to learn new words by immersion but also because they are structured around what a class would learn in passing the various DELF/DALF grades, which I appreciate as I want to know what I should be learning if I was in a classroom - they normally come with a CD and a book of exercises, so are perfectly good for self teaching.

Edited by Elexi on 25 April 2010 at 11:41am

2 persons have voted this message useful



noriyuki_nomura
Bilingual Octoglot
Senior Member
Switzerland
Joined 5100 days ago

304 posts - 465 votes 
Speaks: English*, Mandarin*, Japanese, FrenchC2, GermanC2, ItalianC1, SpanishB2, DutchB1
Studies: TurkishA1, Korean

 
 Message 120 of 376
25 April 2010 at 12:13pm | IP Logged 
Hi Elexi, that's how I go (or went) about learning languages too. I like using textbooks, since they are more structured around what a class would learn, and most important of all, I love listening to the dialogues recorded in the accompanying CD(s)..


1 person has voted this message useful



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