Old (1980s) vs. New Assimil With Ease?

[Texan]

Howdy,

I completed most of German With Ease about 10 years ago (the 1980s version) and learned a lot by mostly following the Assimil passive/active method.

However, now I'm about half-way through the latest Assimil Spanish (the 2014 English base, which I believe originally came out in 2004 as a French base) and I don't feel like I'm learning as much even though this time I'm using the Luca method. It doesn't feel like it's clicking like German With Ease.

I also have the 1987 version of Spanish With Ease although I haven't used it.

Could it be that the latest Assimil version is more watered down compared to the 1980s versions? It feels like it based on my experience with German With Ease and flipping through the 1987 Spanish With Ease. I could be wrong but I get a feeling the new Spanish course is dumbed down.

Doe anyone have any insight or suggestions? Thanks!

[n_j_f]

Howdy,

I completed most of German With Ease about 10 years ago (the 1980s version) and learned a lot by mostly following the Assimil passive/active method.

However, now I'm about half-way through the latest Assimil Spanish (the 2014 English base, which I believe originally came out in 2004 as a French base) and I don't feel like I'm learning as much even though this time I'm using the Luca method. It doesn't feel like it's clicking like German With Ease.

I also have the 1987 version of Spanish With Ease although I haven't used it.

Could it be that the latest Assimil version is more watered down compared to the 1980s versions? It feels like it based on my experience with German With Ease and flipping through the 1987 Spanish With Ease. I could be wrong but I get a feeling the new Spanish course is dumbed down.

Doe anyone have any insight or suggestions? Thanks!

I have both the 3rd and 4th Generations of the Assimil German. My impressions are that both are somewhat simplified compared to German Without Toil, but I don't feel that the 4th Generation is a dumb-downed version of the 3rd Generation. This is somewhat subjective, but I actually find the 4th Generation courses to be an improvement on the 3rd.The grammar reviews and the explanatory notes in each lesson are more detailed. I would be hesitant to take a position on how advanced the German texts are, but a comparison of the English texts would indicate that the 4th Generation has better dialogues. In addition, the 4th edition has more usable material as the 3rd Edition just seems too haphazard in its organisation and dialogues are too contrived to appear "amusing" rather than actually serving the purpose of teaching the language. The 4th Generation courses that I have also feature a dialogue as part of the review lesson which is another good feature, and this does give more recorded material overall even though the first few lessons are shorter.

The 1st and 2nd Generation courses that I have seen are of course more in-depth than the later generations, but this is arguably outweighed by the steep-learning curve which has probably discouraged far too many people in the past. For this reason, I feel that French With Ease is a better course than French Without Toil. It kind of pains me to say this, as I love my German Without Toil and Le russe sans peine (1971) books, but I think I would have given up in frustration early on if these were my first and only texts I was using. They are excellent in tandem with the later editions or with other courses.

Having said all of that, I have come across several negative reviews of the Spanish course which I am assuming is the most recent edition, and this is from people who have used other 3rd and 4th Generation courses.

[Marah]

From the few Assimils I've had a chance to compare (Russian, Danish, Swedish, Dutch, Serbocroatian) I would say they may be indeed slightly "watered down" as you put it. Except maybe for Serbocroatian which was simpler than their Croatian book and in my opinion better as well.

[Tomás]

I have "Spanish without Toil" and the 80s "with Ease", but I haven't seen the latest. I can say that SWT is much richer and more engaging than SWE. I would tend to pick SWT over SWE. Although the language in SWT may be ever so slightly dated in places, I don't think that should drive the choice.

Because you don't have to pick; you can do them both. I am doing both right now, along with the 1960s Linguaphone course. I am enjoying this three-pronged approach.

I got about halfway through SWT before I started the other two. That makes them quite easy for me now, more like review/listening practice. It gives me confidence to be able to listen to the earlier lessons in the other two courses and to be able to understand 70-90% of it without referring to the book.

[ShawnP]

I too prefer the old Spanish without Toil. I completed SwE 1987 version up to about lesson 55 and just couldn't take it anymore. I find SwT much more interesting an engaging although I just completed lesson 17 today. However, I do plan to return to SwE after completing SwT. No sense in wasting my money on the program just to set it aside.

[garyb]

I've compared a couple of 1980s editions to modern ones and the 80s ones did seem a bit more "beginner-friendly", especially the early dialogues. In the 80s Italian one I have, there's a "lesson zero" that focuses on pronunciation and intonation. Then the first seven lessons are less natural and more textbook-like and repetitive, and there are slow and and normal-speed recordings of them. The modern ones go straight into more natural dialogues. Whether that's a good or a bad thing is subjective. I personally like Assimil as a second course after learning the very basics, so the modern style suits me fine, but the 80s style seems more complete and more suitable for someone doing it as a first course.

I've never tried the "without toil" ones, as I feel that even if they're more complete courses, it's not worth it for the more old-fashioned language. The 80s one didn't feel out of date at all apart from a few references to old currency and political parties.

Overall I'll take what I can get. I just chose that 80s one because I found it cheaply, but I would have been just as happy with the modern one, both are high-quality courses. At the end of the day it's just a course, it's not going to cover everything and you'll eventually fill in the gaps anyway.

[Texan]

This is somewhat subjective, but I actually find the 4th Generation courses to be an improvement on the 3rd.The grammar reviews and the explanatory notes in each lesson are more detailed. I would be hesitant to take a position on how advanced the German texts are, but a comparison of the English texts would indicate that the 4th Generation has better dialogues.

I can't comment on the fourth generation German, but I will say I think the "improved" grammar in each lesson of the fourth generation Spanish with Ease is actually too much; to me it reads like a grammar book with too many examples separate from the lesson dialog.

I much prefer the grammar of the third generation German With Ease and my 1987 Spanish With Ease because it's simple enough to get the immediate point across.

I expect to learn more about Spanish grammar outside of Assimil anyway.

In addition, the 4th edition has more usable material as the 3rd Edition just seems too haphazard in its organisation and dialogues are too contrived to appear "amusing" rather than actually serving the purpose of teaching the language.

Ironically, this is actually a complaint I have with the fourth generation of Assimil Spanish IN COMPARISON to the third generation of German With Ease! The lessons in the new Spanish just seem too repetitive and, like you said, too contrived. I say this because I noticed I wasn't picking up the language as fast as with my German With Ease book.

I actually thought the third gen German With Ease had a good mixture of literature and non "amusing" lessons in comparison, especially in the later lessons.

I appreciate the comments!

[Texan]

I have "Spanish without Toil" and the 80s "with Ease", but I haven't seen the latest. I can say that SWT is much richer and more engaging than SWE. I would tend to pick SWT over SWE. Although the language in SWT may be ever so slightly dated in places, I don't think that should drive the choice.

Because you don't have to pick; you can do them both. I am doing both right now, along with the 1960s Linguaphone course. I am enjoying this three-pronged approach.

I got about halfway through SWT before I started the other two. That makes them quite easy for me now, more like review/listening practice. It gives me confidence to be able to listen to the earlier lessons in the other two courses and to be able to understand 70-90% of it without referring to the book.

I agree and in fact I do have SWT and an older Linguaphone course. Right now I'm doing a two-pronged approach with SWT and the 1987 SWE and leaving the newest Spanish book on the shelf for now.

I was doing the Luca method, but it is really time consuming (Luca even says he spends a year on an Assimil course.) So instead I'm going to do a passive, 100 wave lesson (the entire book) of each book, then around lesson 90, I'll start reviewing the first lessons and at the end of the passive, I'll start retranslating via the Luca method.

That way I'll have time each day for sure.

[Texan]

I've compared a couple of 1980s editions to modern ones and the 80s ones did seem a bit more "beginner-friendly", especially the early dialogues. In the 80s Italian one I have, there's a "lesson zero" that focuses on pronunciation and intonation. Then the first seven lessons are less natural and more textbook-like and repetitive, and there are slow and and normal-speed recordings of them. The modern ones go straight into more natural dialogues. Whether that's a good or a bad thing is subjective. I personally like Assimil as a second course after learning the very basics, so the modern style suits me fine, but the 80s style seems more complete and more suitable for someone doing it as a first course.

I've never tried the "without toil" ones, as I feel that even if they're more complete courses, it's not worth it for the more old-fashioned language. The 80s one didn't feel out of date at all apart from a few references to old currency and political parties.

Overall I'll take what I can get. I just chose that 80s one because I found it cheaply, but I would have been just as happy with the modern one, both are high-quality courses. At the end of the day it's just a course, it's not going to cover everything and you'll eventually fill in the gaps anyway.

Not to be rude by any means, but I think you're painting with a tad too broad of a brush, i.e. what you said may be true from some languages but not all of them.

I have the SWT, and although there are likely phrases in it that are "old fashioned," overall Spanish has not changed much in over 50 years and I'm using Assimil to learn the structure of the language, not so much phrases.

Plus if you're using it alongside a newer Assimil version, they compliment each other very well.

Once I get to the point of learning how to speak, I'll be well-versed in native material beyond Assimil.

SWT has this old school Spanish literature vibe to it that I think is very appealing compared to later books.

[Texan]

From the few Assimils I've had a chance to compare (Russian, Danish, Swedish, Dutch, Serbocroatian) I would say they may be indeed slightly "watered down" as you put it. Except maybe for Serbocroatian which was simpler than their Croatian book and in my opinion better as well.

Yes, and I think n_j_f articulated my problem very well: I think the lessons are written to be so "amusing" that the actual core of the language learning somehow gets lost... I feel like I learn words useful for the context of the lesson but not as useful outside of it.