Assimil?

[Luís]

Has anyone used this French method?

Is it any good? Experiences with it?

[jururu]

what is it?

[Emandir]

I don't know how good is Assimil "Français sans peine", but I can assure you I could learn Spanish in 6 month with their method!
The only important thing is to be regular: if you study a little every day, it will work!

Jean-Luc

[Saaropean]

I have "Le chinois sans peine" from Assimil, and I found it quite good. You learn quickly (though of course you need the discipline to do the lessons regularly), and it doesn't bother about those horrible characters.

The only problem is one that can be found in every phrasebook: At least in the book I have, the Chinese pronunciation is explained for French speakers and without IPA...

[Zoroa]

The Assimil method is quite good thuough a bit expensive. But you need time because you learn very slowly with it. But the results are very god.

Zoroa

[Emandir]

Yuunli a écrit :

the Chinese pronunciation is explained for French speakers and without IPA...

Yeah, that's the main problem with Assimil: even if you're French, you can't figure how to pronounce some sounds (I have Le Chinois sans peine too, but I couldn't understand all their explanations about phonetics... )
However, it's entended for "normal" people , that is those who, being not necessarily interested in linguistics, don't even know what's IPA (API in French)!

Zoroa a écrit :

The Assimil method is quite good thuough a bit expensive.

It is, indeed!
And, if you've got the audio-tapes (or CDs), which are, if not necessary, very usefull, it's even more expensive!

Nevertheless, it's a good method, the best, I think, we can find in France...

Jean-Luc

[Car]

I learned Norwegian with it and liked it a lot (I even had a thread about it). You can learn a language extremely well with it. Usually, I need to look up a lot of words, in Norwegian I usually don't. Ok, in English they sticked better in my head than the words in Romance languages, too, but it works very well! But it's expensive and this is a course where you really need the CDs. Watch out for the prices. E.g. the same course in German costs 100 € here and 50 € in France (e.g. at Amazon), amazon.fr or assimil.com are much better when buying it then compared to local shops.
I never felt those 20-40 minutes a day where much, far from it. You really don't notice it too much.
But as others have said, the pronunciation is for speakers of L1, not IPA or something like that. That's another reason why CDs are a must.

[Luís]

I don't know how good is Assimil "Français sans peine", but I can assure you I could learn Spanish in 6 month with their method!

Well, I'm not interested on the Portuguese version of the book to learn French but rather on the French versions of books for other languages. It's always good to have an option other than English
And I feel the French approach works better for me (being a romance speaker as well).

I bought "Le polonais sans peine" to add to my collection of Polish books
No CD's, because they were too expensive...
It was 12€... cheap... but with CD's = 68€
Anyway, I have worked on the Polish pronunciation already and I'm rather comfortable with it. I was more interested to know if the method actually works
Because I can say I haven't got much success with Teach Yourself

[Car]

No CD's, because they were too expensive...

Well, maybe you'll be successful without them, but I doubt it. They're a very important part of it.

[Saaropean]

But it's expensive and [...] Watch out for the prices. E.g. the same course in German costs 100 € here and 50 € in France (e.g. at Amazon), amazon.fr or assimil.com are much better when buying it then compared to local shops.

I paid $19.25 Canadian for "Le chinois sans peine". Now that would be €11.96, at that time it was about €13.50. The same book costs €17.58 at amazon.fr and €18.50 at assimil.com.

I also have the phrasebook "Le hongrois de poche". That costs €8.00 at assimil.com, €7.60 at amazon.fr, and I got it from a bookstore in Luxembourg City for €7.83.

[Axystos]

I used Assimil to learn Spanish (although it wasn't French->Spanish, but Dutch-Spanish, obviously) but I must say that I got really irritated with their constant 'oh we won't make it too hard for you' and things like that. <i>I'll</i> be the judge of whether it's too hard for me or not. And besides, I like grammar, so I want a lot of it in a short time.
Summarizing, the Assimil way of teaching a language isn't compatible with me.

Axystos.

[Car]

But it's expensive and [...] Watch out for the prices. E.g. the same course in German costs 100 € here and 50 € in France (e.g. at Amazon), amazon.fr or assimil.com are much better when buying it then compared to local shops.

I paid $19.25 Canadian for "Le chinois sans peine". Now that would be €11.96, at that time it was about €13.50. The same book costs €17.58 at amazon.fr and €18.50 at assimil.com.

I also have the phrasebook "Le hongrois de poche". That costs €8.00 at assimil.com, €7.60 at amazon.fr, and I got it from a bookstore in Luxembourg City for €7.83.

But compared to local stores here (or websites), it's much cheaper.

[Luís]

I used Assimil to learn Spanish (although it wasn't French->Spanish, but Dutch-Spanish, obviously) but I must say that I got really irritated with their constant 'oh we won't make it too hard for you' and things like that.

Oh, I've came across that already too
Either they don't mention it at all or they could explain it. Just saying "This is that, but it's too hard for you" sucks indeed

[Car]

Luís, what do you think about the level of the French? How hard is it?

[Luís]

Hmm... seems pretty much accessible to me...
And even the words I don't know I can easily guess (thank God for Latin ) ....
You need a passive understanding of French, i.e., you need to understand it, not necessarily know how to write/speak it properly yourself.

And I'm doing my translation exercises from Polish to French (instead of Portuguese) and French to Polish (well, no choice here...) This way it's easier to correct and I can practice my French in the way (2 in 1)

[Car]

Sounds good. Because they have courses they don't have in German or only very old versions (e.g. from 1983 ). So checking foreign versions is an option for me. Only for one language, there's so far a problem. The Dutch course for Germans looks quite old (I saw it in a bookstore in Hannover) while the versions in English or French are from this year, but Dutch is a language where I really want to have something in German (for obvious reasons), so I'll have to wait for that one.
I think my passive understanding is quite good, better than my Spanish one.

[Rémy LeBeau]

Epic seven-year bump.

I love love love Assimil! I've been using Assimil's New French With Ease to brush up on my dormant French skills recently and it is absolutely brilliant. I've never had so much fun doing a language course before. Now that I'm starting to get back on top of my French I have ordered the new version of L'allemand which should hopefully arrive tomorrow and I can't wait to start that either.

So, to the posters who were starting Assimil courses seven years ago (or have started using an Assimil course since then), how have you found/are you finding the courses?

[Bubulus]

Epic seven-year bump.

Necrophileee...

[justberta]

It has been talked about a lot, (specially on that other language learning website with the professor who charges you to ''upgrade'' your account for a few dollars) I have never used Assimil because I have never found it in a shop in Norway or as a free download online..

[Rémy LeBeau]

It has been talked about a lot, (specially on that other language learning website with the professor who charges you to ''upgrade'' your account for a few dollars) I have never used Assimil because I have never found it in a shop in Norway or as a free download online..

As I've mentioned elsewhere, if you find the audio online (and it is incredibly easy to do so for the more popular courses), the books themselves are actually pretty cheap (I just got the new 2009 edition of L'Allemand for £15) to buy brand new, and no doubt even cheaper if you pick them up second hand from somewhere like abebooks.

I have to say that I agree with all the hype from the other place. This method is a godsend, especially for people who either lead busy lives or would like to start learning another language 'on the side'.