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Assimil’s New Arabic Course | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| ericblair Senior Member United States Joined 4505 days ago 480 posts - 700 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 17 of 19 30 March 2015 at 3:23am | IP Logged |
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Has anyone ever used an Assimil "coffret conversation" course? I noticed on my invoice
today it lists variations of the course I could have purchased. I bought the Superpack with 1 book, 4 audio cds, and an mp3 cd (though I've still never figured out the difference here since I imagine most rip cd's to be mp3s anyway?), but it lists getting just the audio or just hte book, etc....but the last think on the list is: "Coffret Conversation: 1 phrasebook + 1mp3 CD (approx. 1 hr)" I am curious about this. I tried searching around on their website, but see no mention of this. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Rob_Austria Heptaglot Groupie Austria Joined 4796 days ago 84 posts - 293 votes Speaks: German*, Italian, Spanish, French, English, Portuguese, Japanese Studies: Croatian, Mandarin, Russian, Arabic (Written), Turkish | Message 18 of 19 30 June 2015 at 9:31pm | IP Logged |
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I haven't always been a fan of Assimil and I still am not when it comes to their Arabic courses. Some other courses are really great though. Generally speaking, the older versions seem to be much more thorough. They newer ones appear to be "dumbed down" (much less content and somewhat childish sounding text in some cases; but that is just my personal opinion, others might actually like it).
I got the two-volume course published in 1975 and the new version of 2006 (and the advanced level version which was launched in 2010). Personally, I find the two volumes published in 1975 much better and much more natural as for their content. The audio was also better in my opinion. The extremely unpleasant way of speaking in the audio (version 2006) was the main reason why I did not use the course for months. After I had done Mastering Arabic I and II, however, I went back to the Assimil course and found the content actually not too bad. As for the audio, I simply asked an Arab friend of mine to read it again, at fairly natural speed without most of the endings which even in a rather formal setting are rarely used (as far as I can tell). I've been teaching German as a volunteer to refugees in my hometown for some time now and the MSA I've learnt so far has been very useful. I've never had any problem whatsoever when talking to them in MSA and they usually also respond to me in MSA, with the odd dialectal expression. I've also used the old Linguaphone course (from the seventies). They used a much more natural intonation in their recordings. I have no idea what got into Assimil when they decided to go for this extremely unnatural and painfully exaggerated recording style. But, as I said, in combination with other courses I now find the content quite useful (still preferring the course published in 1975 though). I have never bought any "coffret version", but I guess it simply includes the phrasebook they promote on their site. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Arnaud25 Diglot Senior Member France Joined 3636 days ago 129 posts - 235 votes Speaks: French*, English Studies: Russian | Message 19 of 19 30 June 2015 at 10:15pm | IP Logged |
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It's their conversation guides sold with a MP3 CD. Nothing new, it's just a "repackaging".
Be carefull, there are two phrasebooks for arabic: tunisien and marocain (it's not classical arabic, it's the dialectal arabic spoken in these two countries. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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