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Assimil

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luke
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6964 days ago

3133 posts - 4351 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish
Studies: Esperanto, French

 
 Message 153 of 278
05 August 2008 at 6:01pm | IP Logged 
Kugel wrote:
Anyone have a problem with the Assmil texts mixing up the tenses(time and aspect) of verbs when translating English into the target language? I've noticed that sometimes the grammar on the English translation was incorrect. I don't think Assimil does a good job taking care of these nuances.

The Using Spanish course is a good example of bad translations. What other Assimil courses should we be cautious of?
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josht
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6205 days ago

635 posts - 857 votes 
Speaks: English*, German
Studies: French, Spanish, Russian, Dutch

 
 Message 154 of 278
06 August 2008 at 8:02am | IP Logged 
I believe it's mentioned earlier in this thread (I've read it all once before, but didn't do so before posting this): Assimil's German with Ease has some really confusing translations to work with. I'm fairly advanced with my German, but I picked up the Assimil German simply because I love the French version so much. Skimming through the lessons, a lot of the English translations don't correspond at *all* to what the German is. It's also tricky because, in the interest of seeming natural, the Assimil lessons are chock full of particle words - which are often extremely difficult to translate.

There are some other negatives to the German course. I've found a couple of bits of French in the text, left over from translation to English. The grammar "appendix" at the end of the book, in comparison to the one in the French course, is practically nonexistant, something I find to be rather baffling; at least in my opinion, German grammar is more troublesome than French grammar, so a smaller appendix on the issue doesn't make much sense. Finally, the French course has an index of all of the words used, coupled with translations. The German course doesn't have this.

Still a good course, but it's not nearly as good as the French.
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ficticius
Pro Member
United States
Joined 5866 days ago

23 posts - 24 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: German
Personal Language Map

 
 Message 155 of 278
06 August 2008 at 9:20am | IP Logged 
Does a list exist of all the words used in Assimil German? Is there a Using German or is that a myth?
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Volte
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Switzerland
Joined 6198 days ago

4474 posts - 6726 votes 
Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian
Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese

 
 Message 156 of 278
06 August 2008 at 9:46am | IP Logged 
ficticius wrote:
Is there a Using German or is that a myth?


It's a myth - the course was never made. There is the equivalent for French speakers, including the recordings, but Assimil is not the publisher of an English book of that name.

I spent a lot of time trying to track it down.

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josht
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6205 days ago

635 posts - 857 votes 
Speaks: English*, German
Studies: French, Spanish, Russian, Dutch

 
 Message 157 of 278
06 August 2008 at 12:48pm | IP Logged 
ficticius wrote:
Does a list exist of all the words used in Assimil German? Is there a Using German or is that a myth?


Not unless someone has made one up, no; I've not seen one.

As Volte points out, there is Perfectionnement Allemand, but not Using German.
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9xKx9-9xKx9
Newbie
United Kingdom
Joined 5712 days ago

13 posts - 13 votes
Speaks: Spanish

 
 Message 158 of 278
10 August 2008 at 7:40pm | IP Logged 
Sorry to bump this up.

Would mastering a "with ease" assimil course take a learner to at least B1? Assuming they drilled the content home, so to speak.

If someone were to complete the course, would they be able to go to the country of the language they learnt and get by comfortably?

(P.S - If someone were to complete the "French with ease" course, would this give them the skills to learn other assimil taught languages through using the French editions?)


ThankYou

Edited by 9xKx9-9xKx9 on 10 August 2008 at 7:46pm

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Kugel
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6297 days ago

497 posts - 555 votes 
Speaks: English*

 
 Message 159 of 278
10 August 2008 at 8:37pm | IP Logged 
That would probably be a no. It depends on how well you can master the lessons. If by mastering the course you mean understanding and parroting the lessons, then no, you wouldn't be able to speak it comfortably. The course does little in helping you construct your own thoughts and sentence structures. I suppose if you parsed the course like some text from ancient Rome, you could construe some kind of method on creating your own thoughts and sentences; but then you might as well just get a grammar and a text with accompanying audio, and do the same thing, parsing till the cows come home.

Assimil is still worthwhile; but when it's proclaimed to be some kind of miracle program, it seems gimmicky.      
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fanatic
Octoglot
Senior Member
Australia
speedmathematics.com
Joined 6905 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 160 of 278
10 August 2008 at 8:47pm | IP Logged 
9xKx9-9xKx9 wrote:
Sorry to bump this up.

Would mastering a "with ease" assimil course take a learner to at least B1? Assuming they drilled the content home, so to speak.

If someone were to complete the course, would they be able to go to the country of the language they learnt and get by comfortably?

(P.S - If someone were to complete the "French with ease" course, would this give them the skills to learn other assimil taught languages through using the French editions?)


ThankYou


Yes, I learnt German with Assimil German Without Toil and travelled to Germany and worked there for six years. I got by quite well with my Assimil German. As I have written elsewhere, I lectured in German, did some simultaneous translating and wrote reports in German.

My brother is currently in Germany (been there for two weeks) and gets by without difficulty in German, having only learnt from Assimil. My brother and I both had to learn technical German but, using what we had learnt with Assimil, this was not difficult.

I use German and French based Assimil courses to learn other languages without difficulty.


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