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New Assimil Spanish

  Tags: Assimil | Spanish
 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes Post Reply
9 messages over 2 pages: 1 2  Next >>
bryanpeabody
Groupie
United States
Joined 4783 days ago

48 posts - 79 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish

 
 Message 1 of 9
24 November 2014 at 4:00pm | IP Logged 
Hi all,

Does anyone know if there are any differences in content (text and audio) between
these
two Spanish Assimil editions?

1994: http://www.amazon.com/Spanish-Ease-Language-Learning-
Programs/dp/2700510704/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1416840656&sr= 8-
3&keywords=assimil+spanish

2014: http://www.amazon.com/Assimil-Spanish-Ease-SUPERPACK-
audio/dp/2700580486/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1416840656&sr=8-1
&keywords=assimil+spanish

Thanks!

Edited by bryanpeabody on 24 November 2014 at 4:15pm

3 persons have voted this message useful



Elexi
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 5363 days ago

938 posts - 1839 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: French, German, Latin

 
 Message 2 of 9
24 November 2014 at 5:28pm | IP Logged 
There are totally different courses - the first is the older Spanish With Ease and the
second is the newer course.
3 persons have voted this message useful



Random review
Diglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 5581 days ago

781 posts - 1310 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish
Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Yiddish, German

 
 Message 3 of 9
26 November 2014 at 12:21am | IP Logged 
I had a quick look at the new Spanish one and some of the notes seem, well, odd. For
instance it has "hace una diferencia" for "it makes a difference", which sounded really
odd to me. Aware that my own Spanish contains errors, I googled it to make sure and
from what I can see on Wordreference threads, this does indeed seem to be wrong. At the
very least it is not correct in many of the contexts where we use its English
equivalent and should be flagged as such.

I should stress that I'm only talking about the notes, I had previously listened to the
audio for the original French version of this course and really liked it.

Just a caution.

Edit: I just checked an online copy of the French original and that particular note
isn't in it. It must have been added by the translator of the English edition. I guess
that both answers the question in the other thread about whether the notes are new and
confirms my note of caution. Maybe a good rule of thumb for those who haven't time to
compare with the French edition would be that if a sentence has accompanying audio, it
will definitely have been in the French original and so can be trusted.

Edited by Random review on 26 November 2014 at 12:32am

2 persons have voted this message useful



mgr.graham
Diglot
Newbie
United States
Joined 5771 days ago

15 posts - 32 votes
Speaks: English*, Latin
Studies: Spanish, Ancient Greek, Indonesian, Malay

 
 Message 4 of 9
26 November 2014 at 12:26am | IP Logged 
I'm about a quarter of the way through the 2014 edition. I also own the previous edition.
It is a completely new course. The new dialogues are excellent and quite funny. The humor
definitely aids retention of the material. I find myself rehearsing the dialogues
spontaneously throughout the day without getting bored. I do not think the previous
edition was quite as interesting.
1 person has voted this message useful



Gomorritis
Tetraglot
Groupie
Netherlands
Joined 4076 days ago

91 posts - 157 votes 
Speaks: Spanish*, English, Catalan, French
Studies: Greek, German, Dutch

 
 Message 5 of 9
27 November 2014 at 9:53am | IP Logged 
Random review wrote:
I had a quick look at the new Spanish one and some of the notes seem, well, odd. For instance it has "hace una diferencia" for "it makes a difference", which sounded really odd to me. Aware that my own Spanish contains errors, I googled it to make sure and from what I can see on Wordreference threads, this does indeed seem to be wrong. At the very least it is not correct in many of the contexts where we use its English equivalent and should be flagged as such.

It does sound quite bad to me. I would rather say "marca la diferencia". It's a very disappointing mistake, I thought Assimil had higher quality standards.
2 persons have voted this message useful



Elexi
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 5363 days ago

938 posts - 1839 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: French, German, Latin

 
 Message 6 of 9
27 November 2014 at 10:54am | IP Logged 
Looking at Linguee 'it makes a difference' does seem to be a relatively common
translation of 'hace una diferencia':

http://www.linguee.com/english-spanish/search?source=spanish &query=hace+una+diferencia


1 person has voted this message useful



Gomorritis
Tetraglot
Groupie
Netherlands
Joined 4076 days ago

91 posts - 157 votes 
Speaks: Spanish*, English, Catalan, French
Studies: Greek, German, Dutch

 
 Message 7 of 9
27 November 2014 at 12:18pm | IP Logged 
Well, I am quite sure it is not common in Spain at all. Actually, if I saw the sentence "hace una diferencia" out of a context, I would rather understand it as "makes a distinction" (like in the 5th example in that link, which is the only one that doesn't sound so bad to me, even though it would sound better if it said "hace una distinción").

It might be used in other countries though.

Edited by Gomorritis on 27 November 2014 at 12:20pm

2 persons have voted this message useful



Random review
Diglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 5581 days ago

781 posts - 1310 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish
Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Yiddish, German

 
 Message 8 of 9
27 November 2014 at 1:06pm | IP Logged 
Elexi wrote:
Looking at Linguee 'it makes a difference' does seem to be a relatively
common
translation of 'hace una diferencia':

http://www.linguee.com/english-spanish/search?source=spanish
&query=hace+una+diferencia



As I said in my post, I checked on wordreference.com and there are several posts from
native speakers saying that "hacer una diferencia" is not correct. That doesn't
necessarily mean it is always wrong (though it might be); it does mean
that it definitely can't be used in many of the very common contexts that we use it in
in English and should be flagged as such.

I think it is telling that this note wasn't in the French original.



1 person has voted this message useful



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