Assimil Icelandic

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Assimil Icelandic

Postby Speakeasy » Sun Aug 13, 2017 1:53 am

From a quick search of this forum, and of its predecessor, it is clear that many members are interested in the Icelandic language. Therefore, for their benefit and for that of others, I have copied/pasted below the integral text of HTLAL member alang's latest post concerning Assimil Icelandic and have attached the LINK to original discussion thread.

Assimil Icelandic: we got to bring it up, 11 August 2017, page 6

Well I contacted Assimil France. My question was if they again will be making the Icelandic course and I stated if it will be like the "Sans Peine" series.

This was the response I received.

"Thank you for your interest in our courses.

This is to inform you that we are preparing a course to learn Icelandic but we do not have any publication date at the present time. We will send you a message as we market it.

Best regards.
Nathalie Froehly
Assimil - Service Particuliers"


It has been over 9 years since we started the petition. It seems like Assimil has finally taken the course seriously. All this time though I have been learning other languages of interest. I did contact the person in Assimil Germany before as well. After contacting so many organizations and people. Maybe just maybe Assimil Icelandic Without Effort is coming into reality. I already have the Pimsleur Icelandic which did not take even half as long for Pimsleur to take seriously.

All we can do now is wait.

Assimil Icelandic: we got to bring it up! 15 March 2008, page 1
http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=9566&PN=1&TPN=1

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Last edited by Speakeasy on Sun Aug 13, 2017 7:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Assimil Icelandic

Postby lavengro » Sun Aug 13, 2017 5:34 pm

Icelandic is less a language to be learned by second language learners than a solid, unyielding wall against which reckless second language learners crash and stagger away bruised and bloodied.

For masochists, pending release of Assimil's materials, in addition to the Pimsleur Icelandic materials there are a bunch of Memrise Icelandic language courses, and a really good course created and distributed by Prof. Alaric Hall, patterned on the Michel Thomas model (the second edition is considerably improved over his initial edition), plus the icelandiconline.is course.
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Re: Assimil Icelandic

Postby Speakeasy » Tue Aug 29, 2017 12:13 pm

Here is the latest post from alang on this subject from HTLAL.

Assimil Icelandic we got to bring it up! - HTLAL, 29 August, 2017, page 7
alang wrote:


Latest update:

Customer Service has sent me another message and it looks like the Icelandic program from Assimil soon to be released will NOT be a "Sans Peine" type of course. The book with one cd and is suppose to reach A2 level.

In the message customer service stated to have informed me, that she said it may not be a "Sans Peine" course. That was not the case, as she stated they were preparing an Icelandic course and did not know the date of release. This was after I asked specifically if it was going to be a "Sans Peine" type of course. In the future they might or might not create a "Sans Peine". In other words they don't know. I am still hopeful though.

=======================================================================

The description, above, caused me to recall ClaireB's announcement on this forum under the following discussion thread, a portion of which I have quoted.

New Assimil Series online, streaming audio - 26 July, 2017
ClaireB wrote


Assimil is starting a new series next month, which is supposed to take you to A2 level, with the audio available free online

http://blog.assimil.com/objectif-langues-une-nouvelle-collection-de-methodes/

They are releasing French-based English, German, Spanish and Italian in August, and Icelandic in October (which is great, since Icelandic ressources for french learners are few and far between. A "real" Assimil book for Icelandic would be better, but this is a start).

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Re: Assimil Icelandic

Postby emk » Tue Aug 29, 2017 12:29 pm

Speakeasy wrote:This was after I asked specifically if it was going to be a "Sans Peine" type of course. In the future they might or might not create a "Sans Peine". In other words they don't know. I am still hopeful though.

I've noticed that even their traditional "Sans Peine" courses are sometimes no longer labelled as such—they just have the language name on them. I'd say that "Sans Peine" (with or without the label) will usually get people to about A2, maybe a wobbly B1. But Assimil markets the Sans Peine courses as B2. So if Assimil actually claims the new course will only get you to A2, either they've changed their marketing to better match the DELF exam requirements, or it's really more of an A1 course.

(Good Icelandic courses are not always easy to find. I have a copy of "Learning Icelandic" (Einarsdóttir, et al.) that I picked up in Iceland 10 years ago, which everybody said was very popular among students at the local university. It's a very traditional language textbook, with a single CD and tons of fill-in-the-blank exercises. Not my cup of tea.)
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Re: Assimil Icelandic

Postby DaveBee » Tue Aug 29, 2017 1:25 pm

emk wrote:I've noticed that even their traditional "Sans Peine" courses are sometimes no longer labelled as such—they just have the language name on them.
It's still there, it just seems to have moved to the bottom. e.g. English>French, French>Romanian.
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Re: Assimil Icelandic

Postby jeff_lindqvist » Tue Aug 29, 2017 8:23 pm

If/when they release the Icelandic course with streaming audio (like the other A2 courses) I'll have some shadowing material. :D
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Re: Assimil Icelandic

Postby Xmmm » Tue Aug 29, 2017 10:17 pm

I really hate Icelandic:

1. Probably has less speakers than Esperanto
2. Probably has more people outside the country studying Icelandic than inside the country speaking Icelandic.
3. Going extinct! Teachers are telling kids it's okay to curse in class as long as they curse in Icelandic, that's how desperate they are
4. If you learned Icelandic to a B2 level and went to Iceland, none of the young people would understand you and none of the old people would speak to you because you had a foreign accent.
5. Limited materials and they make you pay through the nose for hard copies of anything.
6. But of course when it's time for wanderlust or thinking about the next language, I turn up my nose at anything useful and start planning how to tackle Icelandic.
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Re: Assimil Icelandic

Postby Xmmm » Tue Oct 24, 2017 2:43 am

For anyone fighting the self-destructive urge to study this language, there's a nice little jazz album that came a few years ago which is sung almost entirely in Icelandic: Gling-Gló.

Here's one of the songs performed on TV: Kata Rokkar
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Re: Assimil Icelandic

Postby ilmari » Tue Oct 24, 2017 11:25 am

Assimil Icelandic is out. It is not a full fledged Assimil, but an addition to their new introductory collection, with audio available online.
http://fr.assimil.com/methodes/4877-a-definir
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Re: Assimil Icelandic

Postby Stefan » Tue Oct 24, 2017 5:17 pm

Xmmm wrote:1. Probably has less speakers than Esperanto



I'm sorry.
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