Elexi Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5144 days ago 938 posts - 1839 votes     Speaks: English* Studies: French, German, Latin
| Message 9 of 40 26 January 2011 at 2:58pm | IP Logged |
I thought I would reprint the link to this, which has been around a few times:
http://www.llas.ac.uk/resources/paper/2715
On Milton's calculation Assimil's c.1500 word count With Ease series would fall between A2 and B1.
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guitarob Hexaglot Groupie CanadaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4666 days ago 95 posts - 138 votes  Speaks: Spanish*, French, English, Danish, Portuguese, Italian Studies: German
| Message 10 of 40 26 January 2011 at 8:49pm | IP Logged |
Hi there, I am also curious about this so I am doing my own experiment with Assimil Danish. I will finish the course as recommended without doing anything else to see what level I can achieve. I am doing this because if I really achieve a B2 level or close, I would probably use Assimil exclusively from now on.
I'll let you know when I'm finished
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HenryMW Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 4753 days ago 125 posts - 179 votes  Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, French Studies: Modern Hebrew
| Message 11 of 40 26 January 2011 at 10:04pm | IP Logged |
Do you feel the real limiting factor after having used Assimil is vocabulary and practice? I'm currently using Assimil for Italian, and I figured I would get all the tenses/subjunctive/etc out of it and then expand my vocabulary with native materials. Is that a good assumption?
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guitarob Hexaglot Groupie CanadaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4666 days ago 95 posts - 138 votes  Speaks: Spanish*, French, English, Danish, Portuguese, Italian Studies: German
| Message 12 of 40 27 May 2011 at 4:36pm | IP Logged |
I finished "Assmil - Le danois sans peine" approximately 3 weeks ago. Even though I don't think I am at a B2 level yet, I'm quite satisfied with the results I got from following the method.
I studied a lesson almost every day, only failing to do so 5 times during the 128 lessons(64 passive, 64 active). I would probably say I currently have a B1 level that allows me to continue my studies with native material(newspapers, radio, etc).
I created a danish log here towards the end of assimil(all in danish), which might serve as a measure of the level I achieved. I am planning on doing a recording soon, to evaluate my spoken danish after completing assimil.
It is important to note that "Assimil - Le danois sans peine" only has 64 lessons. Most other assimil courses have 100+ lessons, so those extra lessons could probably get one closer to a B2 level. Since 40 additional lessons x 2 waves equals 80 additional days of study I will probably see where I .am 80 days after finishing assimil to see if those 80 days make the difference
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jhwheeler Tetraglot Newbie England Joined 4580 days ago 7 posts - 7 votes Speaks: English*, French, Portuguese, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, Latin, Dutch, German
| Message 13 of 40 29 May 2011 at 1:13am | IP Logged |
guitarob wrote:
I finished "Assmil - Le danois sans peine" approximately 3 weeks ago.
Even though I don't think I am at a B2 level yet, I'm quite satisfied with the results
I got from following the method.
I studied a lesson almost every day, only failing to do so 5 times during the 128
lessons(64 passive, 64 active). I would probably say I currently have a B1 level that
allows me to continue my studies with native material(newspapers, radio, etc).
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Well, that's great news! I mean I've heard a lot of good stuff about Assimil,
especially from Professor Arguelles, and it seemed like the thing for me -- so I bought
the Assimil Dutch course and I'm liking it a lot (only downside is the voices, except
for one of the men and one of the women, are almost unbearable -- the French version is
much better with the audio).
It would be great if I could read native material after finishing it, although I think
I'm going to get La Pratique du Néerlandais to get it up there.
So here's my question which is a follow-up on the OP's question: where do the 2nd level
(usually titled "Perfectionnement ________") of Assimil get you? They claim C1 -- is it
more like B2? Thanks in advance for any replies.
Oh and guitarob, please do follow up like you said you would! I would like to know how
much farther you are after 80 days (I can't follow your Danish log, as I don't speak
Danish haha).
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jazzboy.bebop Senior Member Norway norwegianthroughnove Joined 4997 days ago 439 posts - 800 votes    Speaks: English* Studies: Norwegian
| Message 14 of 40 29 May 2011 at 3:00am | IP Logged |
I would actually expect a With Ease course to teach enough content to be be comfortably
at B1. There are more than 2000 words taught in New French With Ease course for example,
and I expect this is much the same in most of the With Ease courses.
As for the next stage, it is hard to tell as in the Using French book I have for example,
there is no vocabulary list at the end so it is difficult to tell how much vocab is
taught but it should at least get you comfortably to B2.
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tomsawyer Senior Member Aruba Joined 4866 days ago 103 posts - 141 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: GermanB1, French, Russian
| Message 15 of 40 29 May 2011 at 3:19am | IP Logged |
In my experience, the German with Ease got me to between level A2 and B1 - when I sat for
my Zertifikat Deutsch (B1 exam), I don't think I would have been comfortable with just
having the Assimil under my belt - a bit of real conversation and some light reading
(Harry Potter, for example) should get you there though.
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Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6049 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 16 of 40 30 May 2011 at 10:24am | IP Logged |
I used Assimil for Swahili and studied it very thoroughfully, using Anki to memorize
pesky vocabulary. As this was an experiment for me precisely to figure out how much
Assimil teaches you, I did NOT expose myself to Swahili in any other way.
After completing the passive wave, I was able to understand 90% of the words in the
“Little Prince” and 85% of a random Wikipedia article - definitely good enough to start
using native materials. Assimil Swahili contains 100 lessons and teaches approximately
1500 words. I think they go a longer way in Swahili than in other languages because the
total vocabulary of Swahili is less, and also the boundary between nouns / adjectives /
adverbs / verbs is quite fluid.
Edited by Sprachprofi on 30 May 2011 at 10:25am
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