Luk Triglot Groupie Argentina Joined 5133 days ago 91 posts - 127 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English, French Studies: Italian, German, Mandarin, Greek
| Message 1 of 23 27 February 2012 at 11:12pm | IP Logged |
I am currently considering buying an Assimil course of Latin. I already own a copy of Lingua Latina per se illustrata but haven't used it yet. My plan is to start with Assimil and then move on into that one.
To my knowledge, there are to edition of this book:
Le Latin san peine par C. Desessard (1966)
and
Le Latin par Isabelle Ducos-Filippi (2007)
On the site of Assimil one can buy the new edition in French or the old edition in Italian. I have no problem with those two languages so is a matter of quality of the edition.
I'm not sure which one to buy.
Does anybody own the new version?
Edited by Luk on 29 February 2012 at 6:14pm
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Hampie Diglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 6457 days ago 625 posts - 1009 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: Latin, German, Mandarin
| Message 2 of 23 28 February 2012 at 1:47pm | IP Logged |
I'd say do the other way arround: LL first, Assimil then. I've heard the new edition has bad Latin - albeit the old one
has the most awful pronunciation of Latin I've yet to hear. But there sure are interesting words therein, you don't
learn fork or week, hotel or "Your grandmother want to se Lyon" in regular courses :P
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aloysius Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6038 days ago 226 posts - 291 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, German Studies: French, Greek, Italian, Russian
| Message 3 of 23 28 February 2012 at 9:46pm | IP Logged |
SCHOLA LATINA UNIVERSALIS is in favour of the older version:
"After almost half a century of service, Assimil withdrew Desessard's wonderful Latin
method Lingua Latina sine molestia (Le latin sans peine 1966) from circulation at the
end of 2007 and substituted it with another one by Isabelle Ducos-Filippi called just
Le latin. We remind our prospective students that only Desessard's method is valid to
follow this course with us".
I did about a third of the old Assimil a couple of years ago (from an Italian base) and
found it useful, I intend to finish it but I don't know when. The pronunciation is
truly awful but it has a certain entertainment value. I haven't tried Le Latin.
Starting with LL, as Hampie suggests, sounds like a good idea.
//aloysius
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Elexi Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5363 days ago 938 posts - 1839 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, German, Latin
| Message 4 of 23 29 February 2012 at 12:12pm | IP Logged |
There seems to be a bit of a whispering campaign against the new Le Latin - but there are
rarely any good reasons given why it is allegedly so bad. The main criticisms I have
seen are of the 'language courses have got worse by becoming more user friendly' type of
review and one Amazon.fr reviewer said it was 'emblematic of the decadence of Assimil'
driven by the 'pitiful Anglo-Saxon method of learning 'fast'.
I have both versions of the Assimil course and like them both. The new version builds on
the story of a mistress and servant in 1st century Rome - it moves at a relatively gentle
pace but gets challenging by the end. It has quite nice recorded restored classical
Latin on the audio. It doesn't compete with Orberg's LL but it is a nice introduction
to Latin.
Edited by Elexi on 29 February 2012 at 12:13pm
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Hampie Diglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 6457 days ago 625 posts - 1009 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: Latin, German, Mandarin
| Message 5 of 23 29 February 2012 at 5:52pm | IP Logged |
I've understood it as people who take Latin "seriously" have issues with the grammar and unidiomatic expressions.
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Luk Triglot Groupie Argentina Joined 5133 days ago 91 posts - 127 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English, French Studies: Italian, German, Mandarin, Greek
| Message 6 of 23 29 February 2012 at 6:16pm | IP Logged |
Thanks for all the answers.
Elexi: With which one would you recommend to start? Assimil or Lingua Latina?
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jondesousa Tetraglot Senior Member United States goo.gl/Zgg3nRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6062 days ago 227 posts - 297 votes Speaks: English*, Portuguese, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Latin, Mandarin, Spanish
| Message 7 of 23 29 February 2012 at 7:19pm | IP Logged |
I can't say anything about Assimil as I haven't seen it; however, I can most definitely recommend Lingua Latina as a great starting point for someone serious about learning Latin. It is a fabulously written series and the audio isn't too bad either.
I was able to work through the first book at a pace of about 2 lessons a day and then was able to start on the second book with good confidence.
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Elexi Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5363 days ago 938 posts - 1839 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, German, Latin
| Message 8 of 23 29 February 2012 at 7:32pm | IP Logged |
Hampie wrote:
I've understood it as people who take Latin "seriously" have issues with
the grammar and unidiomatic expressions. |
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That may be true and you may certainly be more in the know than me - its just that the
reviews I have seen never give substantial reasons as to why Le Latin is 'bad' they just
say 'inferior' 'not very good' without saying why - do you have any examples from Le
Latin that show it to have grammatical errors?
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