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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| Skims Diglot Newbie United Kingdom Joined 5102 days ago 18 posts - 20 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German | Message 1 of 12 16 May 2010 at 12:26pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hi, this is my first post! I have lots of questions about Assimil:
I have recently started to use the Advanced Assimil course for learning French, and intend to buy their Italian and German courses soon too. Do the 'With Ease' courses really give the learner a vocabulary of 2000-3000 words? That seems an awful lot for one course! What is the best way to learn this vocabulary? How many words do the 'Advanced' courses teach? What about their claim that completing the 'With Ease' courses takes you to level B2, and the 'Advanced' courses takes you to level C1? Does this have any truth in it? Also, does the active phase just consist of translating the dialogues? Should this be done in writing or spoken? Thanks! Skims 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| staf250 Pentaglot Senior Member Belgium emmerick.be Joined 5493 days ago 352 posts - 414 votes  Speaks: French, Dutch*, Italian, English, German Studies: Arabic (Written) | Message 2 of 12 16 May 2010 at 12:37pm | IP Logged | ||
Yes, but only following their advise and instructions Edited by staf250 on 16 May 2010 at 12:38pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| OlafP Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5231 days ago 261 posts - 667 votes Speaks: German*, French, English | Message 3 of 12 16 May 2010 at 2:05pm | IP Logged | ||
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Based on the index of the current Russian course (French base) it teaches about 1700 words. This has to be taken cum grano salis, because in a highly inflected and irregular language like Russian it is not entirely clear what one word is. I wouldn't recommend this course anyway. The texts are quite stupid and embarassing. I stopped using it at lesson 60 when I realised that I should repeat the lessons more often to absorb the words and expressions. At this point I had already delevopped a strong aversion against these stupid texts and the idea go through them again petrified me with horror. I switched to "Russian without Toil" from 1951 then.
The Swedish course (German base) is of a different kind. I have only 7 lessons left to go through, and I can say that this might well be the best course for any language and from any publisher you will find. Right at the beginning I had the impression that the vocabulary input was quite extensive, and since the book has no index I decided to count the new words when starting a new lesson every now and then. The average is 40 new words per lesson, so this sums up to 4000. The lowest number I counted was 35, the highest 52. As you would expect, the lesson texts are long, much longer that in all other Assimil courses I've seen. Apart from that, the texts are interesting and funny. So it is possible find courses which teach you 2000 or even many more words in 100 lessons, but it isn't like that for all of them. BTW, the active phase should be done in a way so that you get the most out of it. You learn for yourself, not for Assimil. I wrote all texts during the passive phase in order to digest the massive input of Swedish vocabulary, and in the active phase I'm only speaking. You should do some writing, otherwise you won't learn it, but it is up to you to find out when it suits you best. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Elexi Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5361 days ago 938 posts - 1839 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 4 of 12 16 May 2010 at 3:18pm | IP Logged | ||
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I would agree with the two posters above that the active wave of Assimil should involve pretty intensive studies of the text. The 5 minutes a day extra grammar translation exercise is, in my opinion, the bare minumum. The passive wave is to get you used to the language so that the initial boredom of grammar learning is assimilated gradually - follow the Assimil instructions on this wave.
However, I think that to really get the most out of the contents of an Assimil course you have to really put a hefty amount of work into the second wave (although this could be because my language learning abilities are really poor!). I realised this at about lesson 30 of the second wave of New French With Ease and from then on put each new word into SRS software and used a separate grammar book and a couple of grammar drill books to practice each new grammar point raised in the Assimil lesson. NFWE, Without Toil and Using French took me about one year and six months to complete but I think I really benefitted from the extra work. Of course, you do not have to do this - and you will still learn a good deal of the language using Assimil - but having started this intensive method during the second wave of New French With Ease I can whole heartedly recommend it, especially if you continue to the Using series or take on the old Without Toils. Edited by Elexi on 16 May 2010 at 4:10pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Skims Diglot Newbie United Kingdom Joined 5102 days ago 18 posts - 20 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German | Message 5 of 12 16 May 2010 at 6:24pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks very much! I think I'll write during the passive phase, and speak during the active phase.
Can anyone share how they went through the passive phase, such as how many times they listened to the dialogues/read? Is it good to listen and read at the same time in the target language? There are no clear instructions with the Assimil courses I've got as to how best to use them, but perhaps it is a personal thing. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Andy E Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6899 days ago 1651 posts - 1939 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French | Message 6 of 12 16 May 2010 at 8:42pm | IP Logged | ||
Certainly there is a fair amount of personal customisation here for the Assimil courses but if you want some clear instructions for the Passive Wave take a look at the post from josht on the thread below. He kindly typed these in from the Dutch With Ease course and as he says, they are the most explicit instructions I'ev seen to-date. Dutch with Ease As you go on, you will probably end up varying these to suit your personal taste. Andy. Edited by Andy E on 16 May 2010 at 8:43pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| maaku Senior Member United States Joined 5370 days ago 359 posts - 562 votes Speaks: English* | Message 7 of 12 17 May 2010 at 5:31am | IP Logged | ||
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I agree with the comments above about the Swedish course vs. the modern courses. The Swedish course (German base) is an example of the older Assimil courses (it hasn't been updated yet), which really do make good on Assimil's claims of fluency (IF you follow their instructions!). The modern courses are still good... by comparison with other courses out there. They pale in comparison to the old ones. Edited by maaku on 17 May 2010 at 5:32am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| noriyuki_nomura Bilingual Octoglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 5136 days ago 304 posts - 465 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin*, Japanese, FrenchC2, GermanC2, ItalianC1, SpanishB2, DutchB1 Studies: TurkishA1, Korean | Message 8 of 12 17 May 2010 at 9:40am | IP Logged | ||
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Before I joined this forum, I have never used Assimil products before. But after reading so many positive comments about Assimil, I bought myself a set of Assimil Russian, and I never regret it. I like the way how the lessons are more dialogue-based, with progressive difficulty, since I can always get a Russian grammar exercise book to practise grammar. To me, learning (real-life) dialogues is essential to understanding conversations, and even participating in them.
Well, I recently bought a copy of Assimil Italian (for C1 level), and while browsing through the book quickly, I find that the level is between B2 and C1 level (as I own a copy of Viaggio nell'Italiano B2+/C1+ - an Italian textbook), I compared both Viaggio nell'Italiano and Assimil Italian C1, and do find that Assimil Italian C1 is somewhere between B2/C1. Edited by noriyuki_nomura on 17 May 2010 at 4:00pm 7 persons have voted this message useful |
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