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Assimil’s New Arabic Course | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| goosefrabbas Triglot Pro Member United States Joined 6162 days ago 393 posts - 475 votes  Speaks: English*, French, Spanish Studies: German, Italian Personal Language Map | Message 1 of 19 26 February 2010 at 4:43am | IP Logged | |||||
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In 2008, Assimil released a new Arabic course (not "With Ease" in two volumes) in one volume with 77 lessons in about 800 pages. It's available in French (L'Arabe), German (Arabisch Ohne Mühe), and Italian (L’Arabo). Does anyone know if the course in a certain base language is "better" than the others? I know that some courses are simply translated through base languages and the proper adjustments aren't made; since this course is relatively new, however, I can't find anything regarding this.
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| senor_smile Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6180 days ago 110 posts - 115 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Latin, Russian | Message 2 of 19 26 February 2010 at 8:19am | IP Logged | |||||
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I have this new Arabic course in French. I have only done 10 or so lessons. I have also seen the 1975 course. This newer course is MUCH better for the beginner, in my opinion. They assume nothing and explain each and every word. I don't know how thorough the course is, so supplementing would be essential, although many language materials is the only way to get the best introduction to a language.
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| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6264 days ago 2608 posts - 4866 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Esperanto, Greek, Mandarin, Latin, Dutch, Italian Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swahili, Indonesian, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Portuguese | Message 3 of 19 26 February 2010 at 9:43am | IP Logged | |||||
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If this is the same one I saw at the 2009 Expolingua, it's awful. The first 30 or so
lessons containing almost identical phrases over and over in several tenses... nothing like the witty dialogs Assimil usually proposes. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Breogan Bilingual Tetraglot Groupie Spain Joined 5710 days ago 42 posts - 48 votes Speaks: Spanish*, Galician*, French, English Studies: German, Russian, Arabic (classical) | Message 4 of 19 26 February 2010 at 10:54am | IP Logged | |||||
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I'm a great fan of Assimil, but I must say they have always failed here. The old version is not for beginners; it starts, unlike their other courses, with too long sentences and several things remain unexplained. The new one is boring and considers the learners to be a bit "retarded" with its repeated and unnecessary explanations...
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| goosefrabbas Triglot Pro Member United States Joined 6162 days ago 393 posts - 475 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish Studies: German, Italian Personal Language Map | Message 5 of 19 27 February 2010 at 9:12am | IP Logged | |||||
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Eek. Thanks all. I'd heard that the newer version was much better, but I guess these days "better" means not having to put forth as much effort.
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| Breogan Bilingual Tetraglot Groupie Spain Joined 5710 days ago 42 posts - 48 votes Speaks: Spanish*, Galician*, French, English Studies: German, Russian, Arabic (classical) | Message 6 of 19 27 February 2010 at 11:09am | IP Logged | |||||
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By the way, "Le Persan" (2003), for which there's no previous version unlike Arabic, has the same disappointing style than this "L'arabe". Really a pitty!
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| daristani Senior Member United States Joined 6938 days ago 752 posts - 1661 votes Studies: Uzbek | Message 7 of 19 27 February 2010 at 4:24pm | IP Logged | |||||
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While respectful of the above comments on the new Assimil Arabic course, I'd like to register a dissenting vote in FAVOR of it. I have both the French and German versions, and do think that the new course is a big improvement on the original Assimil Arabic course, in part just because of the supposed disadvantages alluded to above. Earlier remarks in the forum (many, many months ago) also evidenced some positive experiences by at least some others who used the new course. In any event, here are some comments from my own personal but admittedly non-expert vantage point:
The original course had an idiosyncratic and rather ugly hand-written style for the Arabic script, while the new one has standard printed script in an easily readable style. The 'haraka' signs showing the short vowels are included throughout all the lessons, although there are also unvowelled texts as well for practice in reading these (which are more typical for most printed Arabic). The language taught is modern standard Arabic; I haven't yet run across any instruction in any colloquial dialects. The audio is unnaturally slow, which some find a disadvantage. Personally, I don't see this as much of a drawback, since for most people, getting used to the Arabic alphabet and particularly the difficult phonology requires more attention from the outset, and more time spent on these aspects, than many other languages require. Slow, careful repetition to learn these aspects of the language is essential if you're learning on your own, and I like the fact that Assimil provides plenty of it. There is indeed a good deal of repetition, but remember that this is a key of the Assimil method, and again I think that, given the difficulties of Arabic script, phonology, and grammar, a "baby steps" approach with lots of repetition makes a lot of sense. A lot of the Assimil books, especially for European languages, get into colloquial conversations rather quickly. I think this works fine for European languages which may be closer to the source language than Arabic, but I suspect that for most people not already familiar with Semitic languages, a slower, gentler approach probably makes a lot of sense. Personally, I'm rather grammar-oriented, and learning the structure of a new language is, for me, a lot of the attraction of language study. A consistent story line in the lessons, witty anecdotes or dialogue, etc., don't really count as attractions for me, since I don't really expect to be entertained by a course; what I look for is clear exposition, and a "learning curve" that's just the right slope for my own capabilities. Comparing the French and German versions of the new Arabic course, there are a few differences. The French course is like a "normal" European book, while the German version, in what I see as a rather irritating "gimmick", is bound like an Arabic book, i.e., you start at what would be the back of a Western book, and before you open the book on the first page, the binding is on your right rather than on your left. Since most of the text, however, is in German rather than Arabic, I don't think this makes a great deal of sense, although you do get used to it. The French book has a sturdy, flexible plastic cover, while the German one has a thicker, sort of padded plasticine cover. Both seem sturdy, although I have the impression that the binding of the French book might in the end prove to be a bit more durable. Assimil is reportedly planning to release an English version of the course, but new editions of their courses are sometimes very long in coming, so whether it'll appear anytime soon is hard to say. In any event, Arabic is, for most of us, a pretty demanding language, and I think the new Assimil course offers a relatively painless way into it with short lessons and audio all in Arabic. Comments by others who've used it would obviously be welcome to people considering trying it out. 12 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| goosefrabbas Triglot Pro Member United States Joined 6162 days ago 393 posts - 475 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish Studies: German, Italian Personal Language Map | Message 8 of 19 27 February 2010 at 11:21pm | IP Logged | |||||
Wow, that's terrible. I'd heard that Le Persan was a good course. :/
Thanks for the detailed review (and the PM!). Being able to look at it before potentially buying the book is really useful. Hopefully the English course will be better... 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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