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Assimil v. Living Language | ||
Tags: Living Language | Assimil | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| dthf90210 Groupie United States Joined 6010 days ago 82 posts - 83 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 1 of 24 14 December 2007 at 12:14pm | IP Logged | ||
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Has anyone used both? How do they compare?
(I'm especially interested in Spanish.) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Gateway Newbie Australia Joined 5227 days ago 13 posts - 15 votes | Message 2 of 24 20 November 2010 at 12:40am | IP Logged | ||
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This thread is an old one.
I am having similar thoughts at the moment though. Does anyone know is Living Language and Assimil Chinese are similar? Gateway 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| noriyuki_nomura Bilingual Octoglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 5120 days ago 304 posts - 465 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin*, Japanese, FrenchC2, GermanC2, ItalianC1, SpanishB2, DutchB1 Studies: TurkishA1, Korean | Message 3 of 24 20 November 2010 at 7:59am | IP Logged | ||
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I have used both programs to study various languages, and I personally like both. Especially for Assimil programs, I enjoy their Using series more than the With Ease series. Take the Assimil Using Spanish series, the content is more on the discovery of various Spanish cities/regions, which allows us to take a peep at their regional cultures. As for Living Language, I have used their Beyond the Basics series, and I enjoyed them, since they offer much longer dialogues than Assimil, and they do come up with phrases that one can already use in daily conversation.
4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| dmg Diglot Senior Member Canada dgryski.blogspot.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6791 days ago 555 posts - 605 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Dutch, Esperanto | Message 4 of 24 20 November 2010 at 1:44pm | IP Logged | ||
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My biggest problem with Living Language is that I find the dialogs _really_ artificial and stupid. I much prefer the
dialog format of Assimil -- the content is much more interesting Here's a snippet I wrote on my blog a while ago when I was starting with Living Language: Spoken World Dutch:
The dialogs in "Ultimate French Advanced" have similar issues. However, I must admit to using both of these programs for French, and shadowing them did help me in the end. It was just a hard slough and I didn't particularly enjoy it. Edited by dmg on 20 November 2010 at 4:31pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Gateway Newbie Australia Joined 5227 days ago 13 posts - 15 votes | Message 5 of 24 20 November 2010 at 10:51pm | IP Logged | ||
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So, can anyone tell me if these are similar programs?
Gateway 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Random review Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5563 days ago 781 posts - 1310 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Yiddish, German | Message 6 of 24 21 November 2010 at 2:27am | IP Logged | ||
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For me talking about Spanish intermediate courses I can say:-
Assimil Using Spanish ; ; ; 5-star, an absolute hoot! The only drawback is that it is VERY peninsular, and no indication is given of what is and isn't acceptable in Latin America Living Language Ultimate Spanish Advanced Next best thing out there, probably the best you can get if your focus is Latin America, nicely designed dialogues but all very serious in tone; with Assimil you have FUN, which helps you learn . This is the only course I know of apart from FSI Spanish Basic Course/ Platiquemos that is complete enough to teach both vos and vosotros. Try watching a Spanish or Argentinian film if you think these verb forms are not important! The excercises are not bad, but the actual explanations unfortunately are very traditional. &nbs p; TY Spanish Extra (now called TY Improve Your Spanish) I found it a bit boring, and the excercises are rubbish, but its best feature is that its author is a Chilean who has lived for many years in Spain, so the book teaches quite a neutral language, and points out important differences such as cuadra v manzana Colloquial Spanish 2 Boring but covers the bases, only really good feature is lots of sentences for an srs program, but the excercises are rubbish. Best part is that there is a seperate vesion for Latin America, with a different author, which I liked rather better. Hugo Advanced Spanish A weird little book, which would be great except that the audio is utter rubbish, and that there are a few unusual sentence structures that lead me to think the author must be Mexican or Central American (such as "era de esperarse" instead of "era de esperar"). That said if you don't buy the audio (waste of money!) it is dead cheap and so can be a useful supplement to Living Language or Assimil. Edited by Random review on 21 November 2010 at 2:29am 9 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Elexi Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5345 days ago 938 posts - 1839 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 7 of 24 21 November 2010 at 2:42pm | IP Logged | ||
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Random Review wrote
'TY Spanish Extra (now called TY Improve Your Spanish)' As an interesting example of the publisher's endless quest for inflating the usefulness of their course, this is now called TY Perfect Your Spanish. Wereas TY Improve Your Spanish claimed to give you an intermediate level of Spanish on the blurb, TY Perfect Your Spanish (the same course with a few additional exercises) now claims to take you to CEFR C1! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| divexo Groupie Australia Joined 4971 days ago 70 posts - 74 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Latin | Message 8 of 24 21 November 2010 at 4:49pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have Living Language Ultimate Japanese and Assimil Japanese, using for a total beginner.
I find Assimil far better because it has shorter conversations and so introduces the new language at a slower more progressive pace. While LL does have more explanations, the audio is faster and far more natural (unlike the ridiculously slow Assimils) I feel it goes into too much depth with the technical aspects that are somewhat unneeded if you want to learn to speak the language with conversations far more difficult to digest. Also, the Assimil words learnt are very relevant to every-day conversation, whilst Living Language seems to go off on a bit on a tangent.. But yes, I like Assimil better due to it's simplicity and that the lessons are shorter and can be tackled individually with the certain words presented rather then being thrown too deep with LL. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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