Assimil: Am I doing it wrong?

Discussion in 'Learning Techniques and Advice' started by BAnna, Apr 29, 2014.

  1. Peregrinus

    Peregrinus Active Member

    Joined:
    May 27, 2014
    Messages:
    613
    Native Language:
    English
    Intermediate Languages:
    German
    Basic Languages:
    Spanish
    I have only gone partially through one Assimil course, the old Spanish Without Toil, so I don't have a lot of experience with the method, though I did do Deutsche Welle's Deutch Warum Nicht in an Assimil style after editing out the English. However from reading HTLAL over the years, it is clear, at least for Romance languages, that a great many learners find Assimil to be effective. Some common themes among those not finding it effective:

    1) Not following the official instructions and taking 20-30 minutes + per day with it. This means a quick review of the previous few lessons, doing all the directions including looking back and forth from L1 to L2 while listening to L2, etc.
    2) Not constantly reviewing the audio alone away from the book throughout the day.
    3) Not doing the active wave or starting it before half way through the passive wave.
    4) Studying a non-Romance language apart from German or the old Russian, i.e. the languages the descendants of Alphonse Chérel added after his death, both L1 and L2.

    There are also some common themes among criticisms of more recent offerings from Assimil over the past 30 years:

    1) Bad translations into L1. This is indicative that the writers Assimil hires for a given language don't know the base language as well as Alphonse Chérel knew the ones he wrote courses for, and for some languages are not native speakers of L2.
    2) Grammar not sticking. This is indicative that the course writers of newer courses don't understand the grammar nearly as well as Alphonse Chérel did, in not being able to identify the most important grammatical concepts and teaching them in understandable bite-size chunks, and providing examples of such structures in the exercises in the traditional form (i.e. no fill-in the blank junk). Non-sticking of grammar is also perhaps indicative that languages with more complicated inflection than German's relatively mild case system are not as easily taught via the Assimil method. If more people had both used and completed the old Russian Without Toil, perhaps more people would have criticized that course as well regarding teaching declension and verbal aspect.
    3) Repeated revisions of newer courses for more than just stuff like current prices and terms. This is indicative that Assimil's current owners realize that they don't understand all the underlying concepts that their ancestor used in designing a course, along with dumbing down to compete with CEFR targeted courses.

    What Assimil does provide, imperfectly or not with its courses, is a progressive and graded (n+1) series of written and aural input, which is hard to find for many languages, and even for some of the languages with the most material available. Taking Cainntear's criticism above that Assimil is not a complete method, one would then be advised to use other materials, as Linguamor advised to do if necessary to fill in those gaps, including doing a different company's course in parallel. An easy and cheap grammar supplement for Assimil is the Practice Makes Perfect series of workbooks. For languages that PMP does not cover though, it might be tougher going finding such supplements. Also I think one even then would do well to follow the exact official Assimil instructions.

    Bottom line: follow the official instructions, listen to the audio over and over and over while doing other things throughout the day, do a different author's course in parallel, and use grammar supplements.

    Oh and: quit your whining. Language learning isn't supposed to be fun and easy. It's supposed to be the intellectual equivalent of doing an hour of stadium steps exercises every day, followed by eating dry oatmeal, and finished off with a couple spoonfuls of cod liver oil. ( :) )
    Last edited: Aug 21, 2014
  2. Cainntear

    Cainntear Active Member VIP member

    Joined:
    Apr 29, 2014
    Messages:
    343
    Native Language:
    English
    Advanced Languages:
    Catalan, French, Italian, Scottish_Gaelic, Spanish
    Intermediate Languages:
    Corsican
    Basic Languages:
    Dutch, German, Irish, Polish, Russian, Welsh, Sicilian
    I shall repeat my mantra:

    What is "fun"?
    Fun is the pleasant feeling generated by mental stimulation.
    What is the purest form of mental stimulation?
    Learning.
    Therefore learning is the purest form of fun.
    Any frustration or dissatisfaction in education is the opposite of learning.
    The student can do very little about this, though - it is up to the teachers to strip out the difficulties and the obstacles and leave only the bits that actually teach.
  3. t123

    t123 New Member VIP member

    Joined:
    Jun 15, 2014
    Messages:
    25
    Native Language:
    English
    Advanced Languages:
    Afrikaans
    Intermediate Languages:
    German
    Basic Languages:
    Polish, Turkish
    Actually if everyone is discussing Assimil and HTLAL the Admin thought Assimil was a ripoff.

    It was on the site for a long time but the IA only goes back to 2004. I think the popularity of Assimil seems to stem from the fact the Prof. Arguelles is seen as an authority figure and if he says it works it does (something like this). And secondly people like to believe so even if the method doesn't work but everyone else says it does they'll also say it does (they won't contradict authority or look like a fool for not being able to easily learn a language like everyone else is claiming). Over time it's just become "common knowledge" that Assimil is great but with very little factual backing.

    A convenient graded reader with audio is about all it's got going for it. The number of things wrong with it far outnumber that.
  4. Peregrinus

    Peregrinus Active Member

    Joined:
    May 27, 2014
    Messages:
    613
    Native Language:
    English
    Intermediate Languages:
    German
    Basic Languages:
    Spanish
    I think you are right that Assimil's popularity on HTLAL stems from Dr. Arguelles' vigorous backing of it and taking umbrage at those who criticized it. And while you are also probably right that there is a years long bandwagon effect going on, there are still a great many learners, including accomplished polyglots, who not only maintain it was effective for one language, but for several. I suspect the bandwagon effect accounts for small percentage of those who both recommend it, have used it to completion in a language, and then gone on to continue studying that language.

    I see German as one of your intermediate langs. Have read/listened to many German graded readers with audio, of which there are many examples from A1 to B2? They are only mildly engaging to me, lack much/any explicit grammar instruction, and have a lot more non-dialogue material. Assimil is in my opinion far better than them, and the same goes for the older Living Language Ultimate series and Deutsche Welle's Deutsch Warum Nicht, once the English is cut out. I don't even care as much about conversation vs. reading and listening in general, but dialogue based courses have to be superior for learning conversation compared to plain vanilla graded readers. I do think however that graded readers can be an excellent supplement to Assimil or other courses.

    The real issue is what is the purpose of Assimil or similar beginner courses. It is to get a foundation in the language, which includes decent pronunciation, ability to distinguish sound boundaries, basic grammar and a small stock of the most frequent vocabulary in the range of 1500-2500 words. For under US$100 for most Assimil courses you get that, compared to hundreds of dollars for Pimsleur, Rosetta Stone, etc., which don't teach as much grammar or nearly as many words. And the progression in each lesson is not too steep until later in the course.

    FWIW, I don't necessarily think Assimil better than LL Ultimate or DWN, but I do think there is something to the methodology even if it has not been scientifically validated. Most people who report being disappointed with Assimil seem to think it is a complete method. Personally I think doing multiple beginner courses is helpful as recommended by Linguamor. There are too many polyglots who are both genuine and knowledgeable (as opposed to the 3K word 3 month grifters) who validate the effectiveness of Assimil to dismiss it, and despite the fact they view the modern offerings as dumbed down.
  5. MikeT

    MikeT New Member

    Joined:
    Aug 20, 2014
    Messages:
    2
    Native Language:
    English
    I actually got interested in it because of the enthusiastic recommendation I read by John McWhorter, a linguist. He wrote
    I've read articles he's written for the popular press and have been impressed by him, so figured it was worth a try.
  6. Peregrinus

    Peregrinus Active Member

    Joined:
    May 27, 2014
    Messages:
    613
    Native Language:
    English
    Intermediate Languages:
    German
    Basic Languages:
    Spanish
    Welcome to the forum and thanks for that link. An additional quote of his shows what a basic Assimil course realistically can accomplish rather than the company's inflated claims of B2/C1:

    That is, a sound grounding in the language from which to build on.
  7. Cainntear

    Cainntear Active Member VIP member

    Joined:
    Apr 29, 2014
    Messages:
    343
    Native Language:
    English
    Advanced Languages:
    Catalan, French, Italian, Scottish_Gaelic, Spanish
    Intermediate Languages:
    Corsican
    Basic Languages:
    Dutch, German, Irish, Polish, Russian, Welsh, Sicilian
    I always found it difficult to accept his advice on anything afte hearing him talk about the Teach Yourself series. His criticism of the new version vs the old ones always revolved around numbers: the old ones had a lot more words in them than the newer ones. He represented this as how many words they "teach", but just because the word is in the book doesn't mean it has been "taught", does it...?

    The difference between old (yellow and blue) vs new (white with a bit of yellow) is a complete change in teaching style, and a comparison like that isn't much use to anyone.
  8. t123

    t123 New Member VIP member

    Joined:
    Jun 15, 2014
    Messages:
    25
    Native Language:
    English
    Advanced Languages:
    Afrikaans
    Intermediate Languages:
    German
    Basic Languages:
    Polish, Turkish
    I'm not saying a graded reader can replace Assimil (I'd say that would be a very bad thing to do), just that people give up trying use it as a language course. I think that after lesson 35 or so everyone has stopped reading all the grammar notes etc and just uses the translation instead. I'm also reasonably confident that most people use some alternate source for grammar (TY, Colloquial etc) because of the poor way Assimil introduces grammatical concepts. This is especially true when you try use it for more distant languages.

    As for the dumbing down, it's better to have courses which are better for 99% of the market than have courses which are better for 1% of the market. I'm not even convinced they are dumbed down, they just contain less material. That would make sense because 60 years ago accessing foreign language material would have been incredibly difficult even, for example, French people learning Dutch or German, never mind someone in the US learning German. Since about the 1980s its become so much easier it's no longer necessary to include so much material. If someone bought TY German in 1970 that was probably the only German they would read and hear for a long time.
  9. Peregrinus

    Peregrinus Active Member

    Joined:
    May 27, 2014
    Messages:
    613
    Native Language:
    English
    Intermediate Languages:
    German
    Basic Languages:
    Spanish
    Elexi made a similar comment on HTLAL some years ago if I recall rightly, i.e. that only accomplished polyglots really liked the older Without Toil versions as much that had steeper learning curves. To me less material is dumbed down unless it is so dense that it becomes a truly intensive exercise. Assimil lessons however tend to be short (not counting the advanced courses). A lot of people have complained about TY courses being too dense and also not revising the grammar points introduced at later stages, which is why some people advocate not using TY for a first course, but rather as a refresher (another of Elexi's points).

    Dumbed down to me also means including less frequent vocabulary in a first course in order to cover higher level CEFR topics and then (falsely) claim a high CEFR level like anything past B1. The vocabulary removed from the total to make way for that other less frequent vocabulary was likely more frequent vocabulary, including mid-frequency vocabulary that often poses a challenge to acquire. Dumbing down to me also includes introducing more white space, fill-in-the-blank exercises instead of more traditional Assimil exercise sentences which illustrated sentence patterns or were a version of FSI-like variation drills.

    As far as introducing grammar, I am a fan of getting a slimmer overview grammar and then lots of input before trying to study grammar in any depth. It is a lot easier to me to focus on grammar once I have long since learned all the words in the example sentences. One can only focus efficiently on so many aspects of language at at time, maybe just one or two. I am not sure about new Assimil courses, but older ones also had fairly extensive reference grammars and tables at the end, as did other texts of that era.

Share This Page