Linguaphone?

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Shounenbat
Posts: 2
Joined: Sat Dec 21, 2024 4:28 am
Languages: English (N), Norwegian (B1ish), Russian (A1), Japanese (JLPT 3-2ish)

Linguaphone?

Postby Shounenbat » Sat Dec 21, 2024 4:33 am

I've decided to begin studying Russian next while still improving my Japanese and Norwegian. My Norwegian will mostly improve through practical use (I hope) while I continue using various Japanese resources.

Here's my problem: Assimil seems to have gone purely digital. For whatever reason, I can't seem to retain information from an app, so the loss of the physical books is an issue for me. Linguaphone seems similar and still uses the physical product, but I've never used it before.

What can I expect from Linguaphone? Has anyone used it before? I was considering using Olly's Storylearning method, but I've heard it's mad boring, which is why I started gravitating towards Linguaphone as an alternative to Assimil to begin with.
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wallflower
Yellow Belt
Posts: 50
Joined: Sun Oct 03, 2021 1:23 am
Languages: English (N)
Swedish (Int.)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=20207
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Re: Linguaphone?

Postby wallflower » Sun Dec 22, 2024 9:35 am

I’ve used both Linguaphone and Assimil courses before. I prefer Linguaphone.

Their approaches/presentations are similar: each lesson is a dialogue with brief explanations of selected, relevant grammar; however, IIRC, where Assimil has a full translation into English, Linguaphone instead has a vocabulary list within each lesson. The lessons get progressively more difficult as one progresses through the course. Both courses offer oral and written exercises, but I found Linguaphone’s more engaging. Linguaphone spreads out dialogues, lesson notes/grammar/vocab, speaking exercises, and written exercises across four separate books. Assimil has them all in one short, fat book (or, online now I guess, assuming their web courses are structured the same as their print courses).

The Linguaphone course I used was from the 1970s; I have no idea if they have any updated courses, whereas Assimil does.

I liked the size of the books better for Linguaphone; Assimil’s book is too short/fat imo, and their presentation of the text with notes and markings in the dialogue itself, as well as most lessons being spread out over multiple pages, felt distracting to me. Since you’re learning Russian, it’s possible Linguaphone will also have markings to show stress in the Russian dialogues since that seems to be a popular way of teaching the language.

Assimil has review lessons every 7th lesson, Linguaphone does not do this that I can recall.

Was there anything specific you were wondering about? I mentioned what came off the top of my head, but I can browse through my course books if more details are desired.
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SophiaLe
Posts: 8
Joined: Wed Jan 01, 2025 6:02 pm
Languages: Spanish, Portuguese
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Re: Linguaphone?

Postby SophiaLe » Sat Jan 04, 2025 1:23 pm

Shounenbat wrote:I've decided to begin studying Russian next while still improving my Japanese and Norwegian. My Norwegian will mostly improve through practical use (I hope) while I continue using various Japanese resources.

Here's my problem: Assimil seems to have gone purely digital. For whatever reason, I can't seem to retain information from an app, so the loss of the physical books is an issue for me. Linguaphone seems similar and still uses the physical product, but I've never used it before.

What can I expect from Linguaphone? Has anyone used it before? I was considering using Olly's Storylearning method, but I've heard it's mad boring, which is why I started gravitating towards Linguaphone as an alternative to Assimil to begin with.


I would recommend Linguaphone over Assimil, particularly the first generation Linguaphone - I find Assimil hard to digest- the older Linguaphone will have a course book, handbook and exercise guide too. You could try eBay.co.uk as quite good selection of older linguaphone courses regularly come up for sale
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Shounenbat
Posts: 2
Joined: Sat Dec 21, 2024 4:28 am
Languages: English (N), Norwegian (B1ish), Russian (A1), Japanese (JLPT 3-2ish)

Re: Linguaphone?

Postby Shounenbat » Mon Jan 13, 2025 8:49 pm

Thanks for all the help. It also looks like there are a lot more language for native English speakers with Linguaphone as compared to Assmil.

About how much vocabulary do you think this covers? For example, Assimil boasts B2, although from my own experience, B1 is probably closer to where you'll actually be when done with an Assimil course.
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