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Generations of Assimil | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| YnEoS Senior Member United States Joined 4042 days ago 472 posts - 893 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: German, Russian, Cantonese, Japanese, French, Hungarian, Czech, Swedish, Mandarin, Italian, Spanish | Message 17 of 55 05 February 2014 at 11:57pm | IP Logged | ||
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I added "La Guitare sans peine" and "Le Solfège sans peine" to the first post because they seem like really fun full courses that are no longer available, but I should state that I do not intend to include every single type of Assimil course that ever existed and we are getting into borderline territory. So I'm going to say up front that I don't plan on including any of their phrasebooks, or children's song books on the list, because I think it would start getting too cluttered and I'm mostly interested in cataloging the main line of full beginner and advanced courses.
But of course I'm always open to hearing reasonable arguments for courses people think should be included. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| akkadboy Triglot Senior Member France Joined 5196 days ago 264 posts - 497 votes Speaks: French*, English, Yiddish Studies: Latin, Ancient Egyptian, Welsh | Message 18 of 55 06 February 2014 at 8:42am | IP Logged | ||
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The Yiddish course is definitely a third generation one by your criteria.
The "initiation au Breton" should not, I think, be classified as a second but as a first generation course. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| YnEoS Senior Member United States Joined 4042 days ago 472 posts - 893 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Russian, Cantonese, Japanese, French, Hungarian, Czech, Swedish, Mandarin, Italian, Spanish | Message 19 of 55 06 February 2014 at 4:38pm | IP Logged | ||
On second look, I agree. I looked through my first post and realized I was inconsistent with labeling a lot of regional language courses, because many are very generic and don't have the extra supplements of the 1st generation nor the fill in the blanks of the 2nd generation. But many seem to have been from the 1st generation era. Another source of information I realize I wasn't utilizing enough is the catalog in the beginning of many courses. Not always 100% reliable because they seem to re-release old courses so some of them have courses from several generations listed in the front. But they are still informative, for seeing what courses were out at the same time, for example they list Initiation au Breton Sans Peine and Le Breton Sans Peine together meaning they were available at the same time and one wasn't considered a replacement of the others. I've used these to make a few corrections on the first post and I've also added "Le bridge sans peine" to the non-language section. There are some more series they list there that I haven't listed. I'll post more about them later when I've had time to look through some more. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| alang Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 7009 days ago 563 posts - 757 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish | Message 20 of 55 06 February 2014 at 5:42pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have a response from Assimil. The lady wrote down, there are no plans for Business German and Dutch in the near future. I was looking up "Le bridge sans peine" and read it might have a book + 6 cassettes + booklet. I am sceptical about the 6 cassettes, but wonder why a non language course would have so much? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| YnEoS Senior Member United States Joined 4042 days ago 472 posts - 893 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Russian, Cantonese, Japanese, French, Hungarian, Czech, Swedish, Mandarin, Italian, Spanish | Message 21 of 55 07 February 2014 at 2:01pm | IP Logged | ||
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In the front of the Assimil book where I saw the course listed, it also mentions 6 cassettes. Seems like Assimil was genuinely trying to apply their method to subjects other than language study.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| alang Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 7009 days ago 563 posts - 757 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish | Message 22 of 55 07 February 2014 at 6:31pm | IP Logged | ||
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That is interesting a lot of tapes for one subject. I did not think any course would have that much, but I would not complain if a person not only learns vocabulary, but a new skill. One person commented on the Assimil blog, he suggested many years ago about Assimil Math, but nothing came of it. I am curious about the other full non- language programs they produced. I have been able to find the book for sale in multiple places, but not the cassettes or booklet included. It is too bad the only programs for civilizations were to learn English on the United States. Many programs to learn English, but not equivalent for English speakers learning the other way around. It would have been nice to see one for the other big languages at the time. I found it odd, as the main four base languages are French, German, Italian and Spanish. Of what I am aware of, why did they not release any civilization programs for those? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| YnEoS Senior Member United States Joined 4042 days ago 472 posts - 893 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Russian, Cantonese, Japanese, French, Hungarian, Czech, Swedish, Mandarin, Italian, Spanish | Message 23 of 55 08 February 2014 at 1:18am | IP Logged | ||
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I would absolutely kill for the equivalent of English for the Sciences in any other language. I've considered just using the English course to go to French, but lack of audio is kind of disappointing.
Anyways I did a bit more digging and here are some other programs I found, some of these programs I'm not familiar with I won't be adding to the first post unless someone is able to provide some sort of description for them. Firstly I found out that "Pour mieux connaître l'Arabe" is part of a series called Bilingues which also includes "Pour mieux connaître le Chinois" and "Pour mieux connaître le Japonois". These I believe are just parallel texts + audio with info about the culture and possibly some native materials. No grammar explanations. Some older textbooks list a series called Histoires Anglaises and et Américains comprising "Dites-nous-en une autre" and "Un peu du tout" There's also a series called Expressions Idiomatique which as far as I'm aware only has an English and Spanish course, "Plus Anglais que ça" or "Plus Espangol que ça" Then there's "Series Direct" which includes "Let's Start" (english 1), "Let's get better" (english 2), "Let's Learn French", and "Auf Geht's" And lastly a For Travelling series with "French from the Word Go", "Dutch from the Word Go", and "German from the Word Go" Of course there's also lots of other stuff on the Assimil website that I haven't even begun sorting out, and probably won't unless someone brings up that they're worth of attention. Edited by YnEoS on 08 February 2014 at 1:27am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| YnEoS Senior Member United States Joined 4042 days ago 472 posts - 893 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Russian, Cantonese, Japanese, French, Hungarian, Czech, Swedish, Mandarin, Italian, Spanish | Message 24 of 55 12 February 2014 at 1:10am | IP Logged | ||
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So, I know there have been a lot of discussions about which Assimil courses are best, and which ones are everyone's favorites. But I'm wondering if anyone else prefers certain generations for certain purposes?
I still haven't try using all 3 generations of Assimil for a single language, but I have dabbled with them all in different languages, and while I do lean towards the 1st generation courses, I think the other ones might be more useful in certain instances. One thing I noticed is that some 2nd generation courses seems to start out with much longer and more challenging dialogs than the other two. While frustrating from a complete beginner, I think this kind of course might be more useful for someone trying to revive an old language that hadn't been used in a while, or if you already knew a closely related one to the one you're studying. The 3rd generation courses I think are very well made, though they often start out very easy. I'm not quite certain that this makes them ideal beginner courses, because sometimes I think there's not quite enough content to really get a strong feel for the language. But since they're pretty short and simple, I think they might make the ideal supplement used in conjunction with another learning method, if you didn't have quite enough time. Also ever since I started using Assimil for L2->L3 I've quite enjoyed the reading practice I get in L2 from the cultural note paragraphs in the Gen 3s. I think if I were to start a new language with all 3 generations, I would probably start with Generation 1 and 3, and then add in Generation 2 after finishing Generation 1. Has anyone else found different generations better at learning certain aspects of a language, or better for a certain phase of learning? Edited by YnEoS on 12 February 2014 at 1:10am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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