neumanc wrote:Speakeasy wrote:Dutch Courses
Assimil Dutch (level 1)
The current generation of Assimil’s beginner-intermediate Dutch course, by Paupert Christina, is available in several languages, including: English, French, German, and Italian directly from the publisher, via numerous online booksellers’ websites, and in innumerable bookshops.
The previous edition of Assimil’s beginner-intermediate Dutch course, by Leon Verlee, is out-of-print, but used copies are still available via the large online booksellers’ websites. Rumour has it that the audio recordings are privately available.
As always a very informative posting, Speakeasy. However, I would like to correct the information about the current generation of Assimil's beginner-intermediate Dutch course "Le Néerlandais" published in 2011. As far as I know, this course is only available from a French or an Italian base (in Italian it's called "Il Neerlandese"), whereas the current offerings in English ("Dutch with ease") and German ("Niederländisch ohne Mühe heute") still correspond to the course "Le Nouvel Néerlandais sans peine" by Leon Verlee, published in 1984.
A short note on the quality of the courses: The 1984 course seems to be a little bit more comprehensive than the 2011 course, but the latter is more up to date. The language in the 2011 course is exactly what you will hear in the streets in the Netherlands. The best you can achieve with the 2011 course, however, is A2 or maybe very low B1, because there's simply not enough information in it. The oldest course from A. Chérel "Néerlandais sans peine" / "Dutch without toil" / "Niederländisch ohne Mühe" is (much) more comprehensive, but unfortunately quite outdated, more so than the other "without toil" courses in my opinion. But you could still use it for vocabulary acquisition. I have the impression that it contains at least double the amount of vocabulary (if not thrice as many) in comparison to the 1984 and 2011 courses.
Is the audio for Dutch Without Toil spoken by Dutch or Flemish speakers? I've read Dutch with Ease is Dutch pronunciation. If without toil is as well, it would seem one might be well served to do without toil to learn more vocab and grammar thoroughly, and then use Dutch with Ease to brush up on more modern and colloquial Dutch. Though, if with Ease could get one to a strong A2 or weak B1, maybe that's all they might really need from the course to take the next step.