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Assimil versus US language programs | ||
Tags: Learner type | Platiquemos | Pimsleur | Reading | Language Program | FSI | Assimil | Accent | Book | Grammar | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| administrator Hexaglot Forum Admin Switzerland FXcuisine.com Joined 7188 days ago 3094 posts - 2987 votes  12 sounds Speaks: French*, EnglishC2, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian Personal Language Map | Message 17 of 184 04 May 2005 at 4:29am | IP Logged |
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Malcolm, my observations are based on 'Le Serbo-Croate sans peine' with audio CDs.
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| Alex Newbie Germany Joined 7000 days ago 29 posts - 31 votes | Message 18 of 184 04 May 2005 at 11:56am | IP Logged |
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I found a page with some interesting statements about Pimsleur and Assimil (recommending to use the latter in a way similar to what Ardaschir described in detail somewhere else in this forum):
http://www.ifrance.com/zzorglub/learnlanguagesitsfun.htm. Edited by Malcolm on 04 May 2005 at 3:54pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Seth Diglot Changed to RedKing’sDream Senior Member United States Joined 7036 days ago 240 posts - 252 votes Speaks: English*, Russian Studies: Persian | Message 19 of 184 04 May 2005 at 1:07pm | IP Logged |
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The addition of cultural information aside, I'm afraid my original question has still not been answered.
WHAT about the Assimil method is so different from any of the other one's out there?? I understand that the man Assimil himself may have been a great linguist, but that is beside the point. I have rerecorded all of the dialogs in a living language course, which turns out to be about two hours of solid material in the target language. How is that any different? There is also plenty of grammatical and cultural information to boot. I admit that I have never used an Assimil course, but so far the real "value" of it seems to lie in Aradaschir's method of shadowing dialogs, not anything in the Assimil dialogs per se. I stand ready to be corrected. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| administrator Hexaglot Forum Admin Switzerland FXcuisine.com Joined 7188 days ago 3094 posts - 2987 votes 12 sounds Speaks: French*, EnglishC2, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian Personal Language Map | Message 20 of 184 04 May 2005 at 1:49pm | IP Logged |
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Seth, I think there is quite a lot of material in this thread to answer your question. You can ask specific questions which you wish compared, such as "number for words in Assimil versus Pimsleur" to ensure a satisfying answer.
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| Seth Diglot Changed to RedKing’sDream Senior Member United States Joined 7036 days ago 240 posts - 252 votes Speaks: English*, Russian Studies: Persian | Message 21 of 184 04 May 2005 at 2:10pm | IP Logged |
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I'm sorry, but I must poitely disagree. The question has not been adequately answered--either that or I was misunderstood originally.
1.) Malcolm's criticism that there was not as much recorded material is wrong, as I have "cut out the gaps" and found that it is almost two hours of material--much like the Assimil course. 2.) The fact that it Assimil contains cultural information is beside the point--other courses do anyway. 3.) Aradaschir only said "they are not the same." Well....how? He then added Assimil himself went around picking up pieces of language. That says nothing about the way the Assimil program works. I am talking about methodology. For example, if some one asked "What is so different about Pimseleur?" I would respond by saying, "Whereas most other programs center around flat repetition, the Pimsleur programs are based are Integrated Recall and Antcipation Response." Once again, so far it seems the real discovery is the shadowing of dialogues in general. Besdies, if Assimil is unnaturally slow, then why would those be the best? Edited by Malcolm on 04 May 2005 at 4:14pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Malcolm Triglot Retired Moderator Senior Member Korea, South Joined 7127 days ago 500 posts - 515 votes 5 sounds Speaks: English*, Spanish, Korean Studies: Mandarin, Japanese, Latin | Message 22 of 184 04 May 2005 at 4:12pm | IP Logged |
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Seth, I'm also using Living Language Ultimate Japanese, and after editing out all the non-dialogue audio, there's only 40 minutes of audio (1 minute per lesson). The speakers talk at a much faster speed, so there's a lot packed into these 40 minutes. I have nothing negative to say about the Living Language Ultimate series, but if I had to make a choice, I'd choose Assimil. Assimil simply covers more vocabulary. Also, Assimil gives the option of learning the writing system from day 1 (for Chinese and Japanese). This doesn't mean that Assimil is any different fundamentally from the other dialogue-based courses, but rather that it goes further because of the vocabulary and total hours of audio.
Also, keep in mind that Ardaschir has already said that it's not necessarily Assimil that he's praising, but the method of shadowing bilingual books with recordings in the target language. Assimil and Linguaphone just happen to be his favourites for the reasons he's described. Edited by Malcolm on 04 May 2005 at 4:19pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| jradetzky Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom geocities.com/jradet Joined 7019 days ago 521 posts - 485 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2, GermanB1 | Message 23 of 184 04 May 2005 at 4:21pm | IP Logged |
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For those who have never seen an Assimil course, please take a look at this website for Assimil French for Russian Speakers. The texts for the lessons are on the left column while the MP3 are on the right. A Frenchman called Laurent made this page for teaching his language to Russians
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| Seth Diglot Changed to RedKing’sDream Senior Member United States Joined 7036 days ago 240 posts - 252 votes Speaks: English*, Russian Studies: Persian | Message 24 of 184 04 May 2005 at 5:30pm | IP Logged |
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Malcolm, they must really differ. The Russian version is between 1.5 and 2 hours of audio.
I should mention that the administrator's point of both word-for-word and standard translations is a good one. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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