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How effective is Assimil? | ||
Tags: Usefulness | Assimil | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| liddytime Pentaglot Senior Member United States mainlymagyar.wordpre Joined 6028 days ago 693 posts - 1328 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Galician Studies: Hungarian, Vietnamese, Modern Hebrew, Norwegian, Persian, Arabic (Written) | Message 9 of 13 03 May 2011 at 10:22pm | IP Logged |
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If you are curious how others feel about the different languages offered by Assimil I did a very amateurish survey
here to gauge which Assimils are good and which are a waste of time. The consensus is that Arabic is a waste of time!! If you want to see the results, go here : http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/6638WW9 then use login : howtolearn password : htlal then go to "analyze results" and you will get a breakdown of the responses to date. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Cabaire Senior Member Germany Joined 5398 days ago 725 posts - 1352 votes | Message 10 of 13 03 May 2011 at 10:54pm | IP Logged |
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The old course written by J.J. Schmidt is didactically confused and starts too complicated. Also it uses an ugly font, I think.
The newer edition by Dominique Halbout is much nicer, it explains everything thoroughly and progresses in a digestable pace. If you are not already a connoisseur of another semitic language, I would recomend this book. I found it to be fun. But it may not go as deep into grammar and morphology as the older edition and is certainly not sufficient to read real litterature. It is only a first step into the world of the arabic language. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Michael K. Senior Member United States Joined 5528 days ago 568 posts - 886 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Esperanto | Message 11 of 13 04 May 2011 at 8:12pm | IP Logged |
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Assimil is effective but you need to have a proper technique to get through it. Before I found these instructions the best instructions I heard were listen and read the text for about half an hour to an hour until you get it, and I only got to around lesson 30. Now that I know the these instructions I find getting through a lesson really isn't all that difficult and I'm confident I'll be able to finish the course, and what more, I'm excited & look forward to studying a lesson.
The instructions are from Dutch with Ease, and you don't need to follow them exactly. When I posted the instructions on my Spanish language log someone thought they were kind of convoluted. Its point is to give you an idea of how to go through a lesson. Book & Audio Instructions 1. Listen to the text with the book closed. It does not matter if you do not understand what is said. You will gain a general impression of the sounds, hearing the pronunciation without being influenced by the spelling. 2. Listen to the recording a second time while looking at the English translation. 3. Read the foreign text aloud (with the aid of the phonetic transcription if necessary). Be sure you understand the meaning of each sentence, comparing it with the translation as required. 4. Now read the foreign text again, but this time without looking at the translation. 5. Listen to the recording twice, once while looking at the English translation, and once while looking at the foreign text. 6. Listen to the recording again with the book closed. At this point you should understand what is being said. 7. Listen to the recording once more. Stop the machine after each sentence, and try to repeat it aloud. 8. Carefully read the comments several times. Examine the foreign sentences being explained. These notes are very important. 9. Read the exercises. Repeat each sentence several times. The exercises review material from the current lesson and from preceding lessons. If you have forgotten certain words, consult the English translation. 10. Examine the examples of sentence structure. They show how words and phrases are combined in the target language, which is not always the same as in English. Book Only Instructions 1. Read the first foreign sentence and compare it word for word with the phonetic transcription. 2. Examine the English translation. Then read the foreign sentence again. 3. Read the foreign sentence aloud several times. Then try to read it without consulting the book. 4. Follow the same procedure with each sentence. 5. When finished, read the entire foreign text again, and carefully examine the comments. 6. Read the foreign text once more. You should now be able to understand it without consulting the English translation. 7. Read the exercises. Repeat each sentence several times. The exercises review material from the current lesson and from preceding lessons. If you have forgotten certain words, consult the English translation. 8. Examine the examples of sentence structure. They show how words and phrases are combined in the target language, which is not always the same as in English. So far I've only used the audio & book instructions, and I change a few things here and there. For step 2, I basically follow the instructions for step 5. As far as step 3 goes, you probably won't need the help of the phonetic transcription for Spanish, but probably for German or other languages, at least until you get the hang of the pronounciation. As far as steps 8 & 9, I look at the comments while I'm reading and go through the exercises while I'm listening, so those steps are misplaced in my opinion. If you decide to go with Assimil, just use the steps in whatever way make sense to you, and find other ways of using the instructions if you want to. 8 persons have voted this message useful | |
| angakoq Newbie United States Joined 4753 days ago 6 posts - 6 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German Studies: Danish, Greenlandic | Message 12 of 13 05 May 2011 at 2:45am | IP Logged |
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Okay, so by reading these replies I've decided to hold off on Assimil for a while, and instead I'm going to get the Pimsleur courses for German and Eastern Arabic. Thank you to everyone here for helping me choose before I bought anything!
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| LatinoBoy84 Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5374 days ago 443 posts - 603 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish*, French Studies: Russian, Portuguese, Latvian | Message 13 of 13 05 May 2011 at 5:57am | IP Logged |
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If you are serious about Arabic do A LOT of research on the various materials available. Your going to need several courses. (fortunately most can be found second
hand) I presume you are planning to study Laventine Arabic then correct? Eastern Arabic is a must, as well a Formal Spoken Arabic FAST and Formal Spoken Arabic Basic. An excellent resource for MSA and Eastern Arabic is "Living Arabic". Teach Yourself, gives a good solid grounding in MSA. Assimil's course is actually not one but TWO volumes. Most people don't like the course because they've never seen the second volume (unfortunately the second volume is not available in English). The full Linguaphone Arabic course is also HIGHLY regarded (MSA). FSI and DLI have a ton of Material as well in Saudi, Syrian, MSA and Egyptian Arabic. After Pimsleur consider doing the Michel Thomas Arabic course, yes it's Egyptian but still useful the dialects are very intelligible. 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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