Which is better? Assimil, Teach yourself, or Colloquial?

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Diomedes
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Re: Which is better? Assimil, Teach yourself, or Colloquial?

Postby Diomedes » Tue Sep 14, 2021 7:23 pm

You already got some really great answers. My point of view is similar to some of them.

First of all, I assume you are asking which one is better as a single resource, and you are referring to the current editions.

I would say they are very alike nowadays, since they are aligned with the current market demands. Assimil is perhaps the odd one, but its current approach seems to be a bit toned down. It would depend mostly of the quality of the courses in the specific target language you are studying. Searching for the course that contain more vocabulary and more audio would be a nice bet (and Assimil usually has more audio, and all in the target language).

Having said that, as for me, I would probably prefer a somewhat older Assimil book (the title would be "the new XXX with ease", or "le nouvel XXX sans peine") combined with a more old-fashioned grammar-focused book, like Schaum outline, an older generation TY, a Routledge grammar book or something similar. That's because current offerings seem too much superficial to my personal taste. Or you could complement a more recent course with any introductory grammar.

The best "all in one" book would probably be the first Assimil editions ("XXXX without toil"), but even so you would need to complement with something more recent, since they are very old and the language is somewhat outdated. They are still very good if you want to go deeper, but if your focus is just learn basic conversation, perhaps it's too much.
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Jean-Luc
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Re: Which is better? Assimil, Teach yourself, or Colloquial?

Postby Jean-Luc » Wed Oct 20, 2021 3:07 pm

I am using all kinds of methods. Assimil is a good tool amongst others (and I am a fan) but I use it only to review a language I have studied years ago or when I reach a level A2 of a new one in order to learn sentences with audio by myself. I use it too as a manual for Croatian with a teacher on line due to the lack of recent materials in this language.
For French speakers, you can download my "language learning tool box" sheet I made for gathering my choices and set up a learning program.
https://toutesleslangues.files.wordpress.com/2021/04/copie-de-language-box.pdf
Usually 6 or 8 tools (apps, books, travel, live course,...) are chosen and written with the weekly time dedicated.
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Le Baron
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Re: Which is better? Assimil, Teach yourself, or Colloquial?

Postby Le Baron » Wed Oct 20, 2021 4:06 pm

The one thing I'm not keen on with Colloquial is the audio (which they do offer for free at least) because it is very small snippets and is almost half or more in English as explanation/introductions. Some TY are also like that, though it's due to the way the courses are constructed around learning a grammar outline, accumulating vocabulary, translating sentences.

They all have something to offer and likely appeal to different learning tastes. For initial listening though it's probably better to look to Assimil and then beyond. Years ago I went through one of the BBC's German courses ad the best thing was the extensive amount of natural listening material with transcripts. The BBC courses from the mid-late 70s through the early-mid 80s are very good courses. Less so afterwards.
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thevagrant88
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Re: Which is better? Assimil, Teach yourself, or Colloquial?

Postby thevagrant88 » Sat Oct 23, 2021 3:08 pm

Deinonysus wrote:At least in the US, they have dirt-cheap Kindle editions available, and very often they will also have the audio for these courses available for free through their app.


Holy smokes, I may actually give Teach Yourself a try now. I recently accepted that using the Kindle App on my iPad is just such a smoother experience than on my actual kindle. Thanks for this little nugget of info.
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