Assimil Japanese

[Karavinka]

I'd like to know if anyone has used Assimil's 2-vol Japanese With Ease / Le Japonais Sans Peine (or whatever other language version there be). I didn't use Assimil in my learning of Japanese and I wouldn't have bothered to look at this at this point of the learning curve... All 100 lessons look pretty basic.

But I may give it an honest try after all these years, mostly because of the comment that my gf made about the recordings. Her Japanese is near-native. She was trained as an interpreter in Japan, and she nonetheless got herself a copy of the mp3 files, saying the recording has one of the best accents and she may use the material herself. The speed is quite slow even at the very end, but according to her, that's exactly what makes Assimil a great accent trainer. (The last thing that many learners grasp completely is the pitch accent and mora length in Japanese, and the lack of proper accent is pretty much what betrays the otherwise good command of the language and reveals the speaker as foreign.)

So, if I were to shadow Assimil, it'd be mostly for the accent improvement and have a better chance of passing, but I just got curious whether anyone else used the material before.

[Śrāmaṇera]

I only used the third book three years ago maybe. It contains about 900 kanji and their common readings. I decided to learn my first kanji with it because I was, and still am, not in favor of using the Heisig book.
I don't think the book was particularly useful though, it's more me who was very committed at that time and studied diligently with it. I think I never forgot any of the 900 kanji I first learnt with it. But the order they use is a bit strange, they even teach some non joyo kanji to beginners, which is quite unusual.

[cumberbatch]

I agree with Karavinka on the "Assimil effect" on the learner's accent and pronunciation. I use Assimil (but not for Japanese) and the audio starts out reallllllly slow so it is easy for the learner to copy the pronunciation. The tracks speed up a bit as you go further along the lessons. I like this method compared to other audio I used (which were in normal speaking speed).