Best Assimil courses for each language [continuation].

[pir]

Le Danois dans peine, 1992: only 65 lessons.

I reckon that you just got to the Danish numbers before writing that.

[Polyclod]

I'm currently doing six different Assimil courses every day, for six different languages: Danish, Norwegian, French, Portuguese, German and Italian.

Du bist ja verrückt. Viel Spaß! .

I was kind of afraid the newer German course would have less content. Schade. The most recent advanced course was pretty crappy, at least by Assimil standards.

[astromule]

I wanted to update the list, as we might have new members with new opinions. These are the recommended courses for each language. On the right you'll find the user who has recommended it. If you want your name on the list (because you also think X course is good), please let me know.

Originally the idea of this thread was to list the best Assimil courses. Now I have a simpler concept in mind: "I used this and it worked".

GERMAN
German German Without Toil 1957 (astromule)
Michel Thomas (astromule)
Assimil German With Ease (polyclod)
FSI German Basic Course (polyclod)
Paul Noble's German (astromule)

ITALIAN
Italian El nuevo italiano sin esfuerzo 1986. (astromule)
The Italian without Toil, 1957 (astromule)
Assimil Perfectionnement de l'Italien, by Federico Benedetti, 2013 (expugnator); (1e4e6)

RUSSIAN
Modern Russian vols. 1 (1977) and 2 (1986), by Clayton L. Dawson (ownerzeff)
Russe sans peine 1971 (astromule)
Michel Thomas (astromule)
Assimil Russe/Russian by Victoria Melnikova-Suchet 2008, 2011 (arnaud; polyclod)
The New Penguin Russian Course", by Nicholas J. Brown, 1996. (astromule)

FRENCH
"Bien-dire" French magazine+audio (petermollenburg)
Fluenz French (petermollenburg)
French in Action (petermollenburg)
El nuevo francés sin esfuerzo, 1983 (astromule)
Assimil New French With Ease (polyclod) (petermollenburg)
FSI French Basic Course (polyclod)
Linguaphone French (polyclod)
Assimil Business French (emk)
Assimil Using French (emk)

PORTUGUESE
El nuevo portugués sin esfuerzo, 2005 (astromule)

SPANISH
Destinos: An introduction to Spanish, 1991/1992 version (petermollenburg)
FSI Spanish Basic Course (polyclod)
Spanish with Ease (1987) (rniks)

SWEDISH
FSI Basic Course (astromule; Elenia; tarvos)
Le Suédois sans peine Vol. 1 & 2 (1985) (1e4e6)
Rivstart B1/B2 (astromule)

NORWEGIAN
Le norvégien sans peine, 1997 (astromule)

DANISH
Le danois sans peine, 1992 (astromule)
Pimsleur Danish

CATALÁN
El catalán sin esfuerzo (1979) (1e4e6)

MIDDLE EGYPTIAN
Assimil: L'Égyptien hiéroglyphique (emk)
Middle Egyptian: An Introduction to the Language and Culture of Hieroglyphs, James P. Allen (emk)
Ancient Egyptian: A Linguistic Introduction, Antonio Loprieno (emk)

DUTCH
Hugo Dutch in 3 months (petermollenburg)
Le Pratique du Néerlandais (1978) (1e4e6)

PAPIAMENTU
Papiamentu Textbook, by E. R. Goilo (expugnator)

[PeterMollenburg]

For me nothing beats "Destinos: An introduction to Spanish" (1991/1992 version). Since using it first in 1998 no course has proved better in any language. To clarify, I'm talking about all components of the course (1xtextbook, 2 workbooks, audio, video. but cd-rom not overly useful). Its very enjoyable, the story is interesting and its very comprehensive. Like FIA, it had such an impact on me i visited some of the actual filming locations in Seville in 2011 when I was there. It was also filmed in Madrid, Argentina, Mexico and Puerto Rico.

For French:
equal 1st: Assimil NFWE : pleasant bite sized lessons, good quality small course, grammar isn't overwhelming the way it's presented.
& French in Action (all components): comprehensive like Destinos.
2nd place: Fluenz French - great for drilling, lots of content, best computer based program for language learning i've come across yet (doesn't touch on advanced topics though)

Dutch: Hugo Dutch in 3 months is a great introduction to the language. It's straight-forward with a good amount of exercises.

Special mention:
Although not strictly a course, "Bien-dire" French magazine with audio is an excellent resource with graded articles covering all things French. Love it!

[astromule]

Thank you! I've added the courses that you have mentioned.

For me nothing beats "Destinos: An introduction to Spanish" (1991/1992 version). Since using it first in 1998 no course has proved better in any language. To clarify, I'm talking about all components of the course (1xtextbook, 2 workbooks, audio, video. but cd-rom not overly useful). Its very enjoyable, the story is interesting and its very comprehensive. Like FIA, it had such an impact on me i visited some of the actual filming locations in Seville in 2011 when I was there. It was also filmed in Madrid, Argentina, Mexico and Puerto Rico.

For French:
equal 1st: Assimil NFWE : pleasant bite sized lessons, good quality small course, grammar isn't overwhelming the way it's presented.
& French in Action (all components): comprehensive like Destinos.
2nd place: Fluenz French - great for drilling, lots of content, best computer based program for language learning i've come across yet (doesn't touch on advanced topics though)

Dutch: Hugo Dutch in 3 months is a great introduction to the language. It's straight-forward with a good amount of exercises.

Special mention:
Although not strictly a course, "Bien-dire" French magazine with audio is an excellent resource with graded articles covering all things French. Love it!

[astromule]

The previous Wikipedia article on Assimil listed a very useful table that compares base with target languages. As that table is now gone, here's the offline version (MHT): https://mega.nz/#!hgE0waDQ!13CXDeVIqANV ... tV5g1Dtn30

[Voxel]

The previous Wikipedia article on Assimil listed a very useful table that compares base with target languages. As that table is now gone, here's the offline version (MHT): https://mega.nz/#!hgE0waDQ!13CXDeVIqANV ... tV5g1Dtn30

In fact, you can still see the old version of this page here.

[haziz]

I actually prefer the latest Assimil Spanish (2014) over the 1987 with ease edition and over the 1954/1963 without toil. I am using English as the "base" language. Yes some of the early lessons are a little shorter, but overall the grammar explanations are better and the English translation and printing are significantly better.

[FyrsteSumarenINoreg]

I found Assimil Svedese better than Rivstart.

[Elexi]

I found the newer German to be superior in many ways to German With Ease - less errors, clearer grammar explanations, better recordings, funnier, more relevant and useful language, a better progression into the language, etc.