|
 |
Quality of Spanish based Assimil courses? | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| plaidchuck Diglot Groupie United States facebook.com/plaidchRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5115 days ago 71 posts - 93 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish | Message 1 of 4 23 June 2010 at 4:39pm | IP Logged |
|
Hello all. Being fairly adavnced in Spanish (at reading anyways) I was thinking of getting the Assimil Spanish based courses such as the New Russian with Ease or maybe the Portuguese one. I think it would be a great way to further increase vocabulary in Spanish while studying another language in which they don't have an English based course. I was wondering, however, how high is the quality of the translations? Are they mostly unnatural/too literal like the Using Spanish course for example? If that would be the case I think using them would be detrimental to my learning in Both Spanish and the other language.
So I was wondering if anyone who is a native speaker/extremely fluent in Spanish that has used them could give me a quick review of any of the Spanish based courses. I only found one review of the course on Amazon and it was 3 out 5 stars. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Juаn Senior Member Colombia Joined 5155 days ago 727 posts - 1830 votes Speaks: Spanish* | Message 2 of 4 23 June 2010 at 5:01pm | IP Logged |
|
I am using El nuevo ruso sin esfuerzo. It is neither bad nor great. In some cases translations are not literal, so one must sometimes look up words in a dictionary to decipher what's what. It is also riddled with typos. An average course.
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Andy E Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6913 days ago 1651 posts - 1939 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French | Message 3 of 4 23 June 2010 at 7:01pm | IP Logged |
|
I've got the following:
El neuvo Francés sin esfuerzo Francés Perfeccionamento El Catalán sin esfuerzo El nuevo Alemán sin esfuerzo El nuevo Italiano sin esfuerzo The two French courses are good - I rate them as highly as I do their English counterparts. The Catalan course is showing its age somewhat (IMHO) although Prof. Arguelles really rated it - I'd be intrigued to know how the French-based course compares. The latter two I only have in Spanish, so can't compare with the English-based ones. My overall opinion is that they aren't as good as the El neuvo Francés sin esfuerzo. I used them to maintain rather than enhance my Spanish - I'm not sure it's beneficial to be continually looking up items in the source language. You'll need to understand and be comfortable with some of the subtleties put forward in the notes for the benefit of and from the perspective of the Spanish speaker. Hope that helps. Edit: Off the top of my head (unlike Using Spanish) I can't remember particular instances where the usual Assimil markers indicating literal translations and missing words - i.e. rounded and square brackets - were an issue. Edited by Andy E on 23 June 2010 at 7:08pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| plaidchuck Diglot Groupie United States facebook.com/plaidchRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5115 days ago 71 posts - 93 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish | Message 4 of 4 23 June 2010 at 11:27pm | IP Logged |
|
Thanks to everyone for the prompt replies. As I said I was mainly interested in the courses unavailable in English like the Russian or Portuguese ones. It is good the French ones are high quality but I don't think I'll be checking them out soon because I don't want to mix two Romance languages right now and become confused. I however did order El Catalán sin esfuerzo as I may be studying in Barcelona next year. Hopefully I'll enjoy it as much as Prof. Arguelles.
1 person has voted this message useful |
If you wish to post a reply to this topic you must first login. If you are not already registered you must first register
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
