ASSIMIL REVIEW: Still worth it?

[@Planetside2VBX]

That collection of assimil is really impressive!

[@bhutchin1996]

Overall, their flagship B2 "With Ease" product line has just under 50 languages that they teach, especially if you include the languages they don't offer courses for anymore: Armenian, Esperanto, Tamil, etc. I just finished their German B2 course, but I'd still need to review the grammar (especially with all the uses for the verb 'werden', which was covered towards the very end of the course) actively. Still, I was able to look at two German grammar books I have and recognize a very high percentage of what they cover. Right now I'm going back to French and get that up to a C1 level. In college (university) I CLEP'ped out of 3 semesters of French (I did the same with Spanish) and had a few advanced French courses which were taught in French, so even the first third of the Assimil French B2 course has been very basic to me, but when I peruse their "Using French" C1 course, it's not basic at all, and I'll need to go through that course to use their "Perfectionnement Allemand" C1 course. On the whole, there are not a lot of advanced language courses out there simply because most language learners simply don't complete even the basic courses, so there's not a high enough demand for the advanced stuff. To really attain the C1/C2 levels, it's not enough to practice speaking with native speakers or even watching shows or movies in the target language (although they help greatly in attaining the B1/B2 levels). The vocabulary necessary to attain those levels can only come from reading alone, and lots of it. I really recommend audio when using Assimil, specifically their audio, but if your budget doesn't allow it, you could feed the L2 (target language) texts into Google and/or Bing Translate depending on the L2.

[@Hagelnot]

I picked up Turkish Assimil by kinda accident. Since then I'm in love with it too. Always my first purchase when exploring a new language. I worked as a booktrader and to everybody who wanted to genuinely study a language, I said go with Assimil. On the other hand, when only needed for vacation, thus needing specific things, other material might be better.

[@languageslover4401]

I share your thoughts too. In case you only want to know some sentences, a phrasebook would be better (Berlitz, Lonely Planet, etc.)

[@raynepontes1881]

I was using Assimil for learning French but since I need to brush up my English level firstly, I quit it... However I've found it really helpful.

[@languageslover4401]

There's an Assimil course for English too if you are interested :)

[@maikonlanguagelearner5171]

Thank you for your video! You have a nice Assimil collection! Now I feel more motivated to keep studying languages with Assimil. Recently I got German and French Assimil books and I'm curious to see how much progress I will make by following the method. Unfortunately, it seems like few people know Assimil here in Brazil.

[@bhutchin1996]

Boa sorte! Acabo de completar o curso alemão B2 deles e foi ótimo. Aqui nos EUA, não é tão difícil achar cursos da Assimil, mas em países como (o) Brasil e (a) Austrália, imagino sim. Para fazer os cursos deles além do nível B2, é preciso saber francês muito bem porque têm muitas poucas opções C1 para aqueles que falam alemão (inglês, francês, espanhol) e inglês (só francês!). Não utilizei um curso da Assimil para aprender o português. Trinta anos atrás utilizei um curso da Living Language (com fitas cassetes!) e um livro de gramática portuguesa, mas mesmo assim a minha amiga por correspondência daquela época me disse que falei como português (kkkkk)... Your English is good. My Portuguese is good, but if I had to learn it all over again I would've started with Assimil.

[@LaconiconYT]

Hey there I'm debating whether I should buy myself the Assiml book of French taught in English, I've been seeing many mixed reviews by people who have already completed it they've been saying their proficiency is a mild B1 instead of B2 is this correct?

[@languageslover4401]

Hey :) based on my experience, it really depends on how you use the method. If you limit yourself to a lesson each day, repeat the dialogues at least twice and then do the exercises, I believe it is possible to reach the level they promise you. Don't try to do too many at once! Also, try getting the recordings too. (I know it's more expensive, but it really comes in handy). I personally don't own any of the recordings, but I did find some online, tried it that way and it really paid off in my opinion.

[@languageslover4401]

If you do all these, then I believe B2 is possible in about 3 months (100 lessons).

[@LaconiconYT]

@ I’ve seen your channel and you appear to be a linguist so after I finish the assiml book what other resources do you recommend I can use to carry on elevating my French.

[@languageslover4401]

Hey. I'm not a linguist 😂 but thx. After using the basic Assimil book, there is another book for more advanced students :). It's called "Using French"

[@vincesauce888]

nice job marco!!

[@languageslover4401]

Thx mec;)

[@alfonsobifulco-of6oc]

I'm using Assimil for American English, Spanish and Brazilian PT.

[@Flauschbally]

Wow. You really have a huge collection.

[@poliglottaperpassione]

Ta collection est très belle! As-tu pensé d'acheter le Corse?

[@languageslover4401]

Merci et je ne sais pas

[@bhutchin1996]

Ils ont aussi des cours pour l'Occitan et le Bréton, mais ils ont plus d'assez de cours pour autres langues.

[@None.oooo1]

For which languages did you find assimil more effective?

[@languageslover4401]

All of them tbh

[@hindj9142]

where can I find the Spanish audios free?

[@languageslover4401]

Probably somewhere online. Be careful though. Not every book has the same audios

[@valentino5999]

is the German ones good I really want to learn German can you reccomend me a book please?

[@languageslover4401]

It's good yes

[@bhutchin1996]

It's good. I just finished Assimil's B2 German course. I'd recommend combining it with a Grammar book for learning all the ways that the verb "werden" is used in German because it's only towards the end that they lightly cover it and explain it.

[@ibtissemibtissem7479]

Helllo How are you doing Mr But i didnt find Arabic language ?

[@languageslover4401]

0:43 ''Perfectionnement Arabe'' and 1:01 ''L'Arabe

[@languageslover4401]

Check there!

[@brandonmeza3077]

So for Spanish assimil do they only sell the book in b2 level language ?

[@languageslover4401]

They have one for advanced too (using Spanish)

[@brandonmeza3077]

I saw two books being sold one was “Spanish with ease” and the other just says “Spanish” the one that just says Spanish says b2 level and the Spanish with ease doesn’t say what level whats the difference and thanks for taking the time to reply

[@languageslover4401]

There are only 2 Spanish courses. Spanish with Ease (to get to B2) and Using Spanish (to get to C1). Here's the link to Using Spanish. www.assimil.com/en/perfect-your-skills/1518-espanol-perfeccionamiento-3135414907106.html

[@brandonmeza3077]

@@languageslover4401 oh ok thank you and last questions I’m just getting into French, I have no knowledge of French which is best recommend ?

[@languageslover4401]

I suggest "French with Ease" and afterwards you can work your way through the "Using French" book

[@djordje4293]

I don't like using Assimil as a starter book. I usually finish another "classic" A1 course in the Internet, and then start learning with Assimil.

[@languageslover4401]

That works too!

[@TheDafase]

do you think that the German assimil is good?

[@languageslover4401]

Oh yes! Definitely good. It helped me with case endings a lot and other grammar points

[@zainabbarakat9566]

Is the book absolutely necessary? I can find the book but not the audio for a language I'm interested in

[@languageslover4401]

I highly recommend the book version or the Pdf version. If you don't get it, you won't be able to know how a word is spelled and therefore you won't be able to recognize it whenever you come accross something to read in that language.

[@zainabbarakat9566]

@@languageslover4401 please forgive me, I didn't say my question right. I meant that I can find the book, but not the audio, do I absolutely need the audio? If so, where can I find for any?

[@languageslover4401]

No problem. And personally, I think audios are good to hear how the language is spoken regularly. But if you can't find them, you can always rely on Assimil's pronunciation charts at the beginning of their books. They're decent enough to get you started with the sounds of the language. Not to mention that Assimil's Super Packs (book + CDs) are really expensive. So not everyone has the funds to buy the book and the audios at once.

[@languageslover4401]

So I'd say start with the pronunciation charts at the beginning of the book

[@veselinivanov7208]

What language?

[@xianwuxing]

Are Assimil course mainly for native French speakers. I have heard a lot of good things about Assimil?, but I don't speak French and it is not currently on my list of languages that I want to learn.

[@languageslover4401]

Hi:) Yes Assimil is really awesome A lot of Assimil courses are done in many different languages. However, not all of them. They all have a French edition because Assimil is a French company:)

[@bhutchin1996]

It really depends on the language(s) you want to learn. If it's Arabic, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish, then they have B2 courses for these languages in English. All these languages except for Portuguese have C1 courses to further learn them, but except for French itself, you'll need to know French to use them. The Hebrew B2 course is also available in English, but it's modern Hebrew, and they don't have English versions for their Greek (Attic, modern) courses.

[@baronmeduse]

A lesson a day from 100 lessons is +/-10 days more than 3 months!

[@languageslover4401]

Exactly!

[@JamieOGman]

Would you recommend doing 2 lessons a day?

[@languageslover4401]

Trick question haha :) I'd say yeah maybe. If you think you probably won't be able to do a lesson one day, then I'd say do 2 lessons the previous day or the following day. The ideal goal is to go through a lesson each day because regularity is the key, but it is possible to run out of time a specific day. But, yeah, you can if you want.

[@seanmactire158]

Hi just a question trying to learn latin with lingua latina per illustrata but have the assimil le latin though my French is ok but not beeds to be improved I order to approach modern and ancient greek and others. Would you advise me to learn french assimil primarily and then return to le latin or continue to try latin with the level I have and learn 2 languages. I would appreciate your thoughts.

[@languageslover4401]

Yes I'd say do the French one primarly

[@seanmactire158]

@@languageslover4401 thank you ...have you learned Le latin ?

[@languageslover4401]

Yes I have it at home

[@bhutchin1996]

In addition to French I'd also recommend Italian before learning Latin. Luke Ranieri has a video on one of his channels where he talks about learning Italian before Latin, and the Italian version of 'Athenaze' (ancient Greek) is very much like Lingua Latina.

[@aurorarmariazell]

Good information!

[@languageslover4401]

Gracias 🙂

[@suthan2003]

For a moment I thought French was missing then realised the source is French language

[@rafaelcolin1121]

Efectivamente: Es muy difícil estudiar un idioma SI NO TIENES LOS AUDIOS.

[@joshor5912]

Can you tell me what your native tongue is, please?

[@languageslover4401]

Hey! My mother tongue is French

[@lusca6177]

I see you got japanese with ease there. What are your thoughts on it? How do you study each lesson? I'm gathering some information to help me with my studies.

[@languageslover4401]

I try to do a lesson everyday:) If you have the audios take the time to listen to each audio as often as possible and repeat them until you get used to the sounds and structure of Japanese. Read the explanations given by each number in the dialogue. And I tend to do the ''Fill in the blanks'' and ''translation'' exercises at the end of each lesson several times:)

[@languageslover4401]

Very good way to learn Japanese:)

[@bhutchin1996]

@@languageslover4401 I used to put the "Fill in the blanks" exercises into Anki using Cloze, but after doing their Latin course for a while I realized that they don't have those exercises in that course, so I started skipping going over them in their other courses and saved a lot of time in the process, especially when I was going to Forvo to get audio for the words to be filled in. Unfortunately, Assimil doesn't have audio for those exercises. I think each of us uses Assimil in a different way, but that's fine if we still get a lot out of the rest of the course itself.

[@alexmckenzie8491]

Sympa! Merci

[@UAE8643]

Is there any Assimil Turkish for English speakers? Please I really need it. Thank you

[@languageslover4401]

Hi. Just searched on Google images and only saw a French and German base for the Turkish book. However, I saw that there is an Assimil book to learn English for Turkish speakers... but yeah, they should make a Turkish book for English speakers

[@UAE8643]

Languages Lover Yeah exactly .. I just found the opposite .. from turkish to english ... do you recommend?

[@languageslover4401]

It depends on your level of Turkish. If you're a beginner, I'd say wait because all the instructions in the book are in Turkish, therefore you won't understand what they're saying. But it's kind of good to get it early. That way you could probably learn in advance the Turkish sentence structure in long sentences which is different from the English sentence structure.

[@UAE8643]

Languages Lover Beginner unfortunately

[@UAE8643]

Languages Lover By the way do you read and learn all of these books or you just have them? looks amazing!

[@SuccessfulChan]

do u study all of them?

[@languageslover4401]

Yes:)

[@darkempire6050]

How many languages do you know

[@languageslover4401]

My mother tongue (French), the languages shown in this video (through book titles) and a few others.

[@darkempire6050]

@@languageslover4401 last question. What are the resources appart from assimil that you used to learn Japanese. And how long did it tale to learn it.

[@languageslover4401]

I'm still learning it. Michel Thomas, Lonely Planet, etc. The ones I made videos about

[@mirrorgalaxy6273]

i know it sounds odd , but would please ( really PLEASE) provide me the audio files . i really need it . i know it’s your right not to do so . but i was eager to find a good french course but unfortunately i couldn’t find one . but i heard lots of good recommendations about this one . i can send you my email if you want.. thanks in advance. take care and keep up the good work

[@languageslover4401]

Thanks for your nice words:)) Unfortunately I can't. If I could I would but I'm unable to for the following reasons: 1-I don't have the French course because I don't need it lol. It's my mother tongue but if you want, we could chat in French:). 2-Whenever I get Assimil courses, I don't really buy it with the audios because of how expensive it is

[@mirrorgalaxy6273]

@@languageslover4401 ah i don’t know that ! so you only buy the books?

[@languageslover4401]

Yes lol:) I try to find audios on KZbin of the language since there's a lot more available on KZbin:). Just to give you an idea of how different the prices are, if you only buy the book, it's about $35 and if you buy the whole pack, it's between 70 and 100 lol. Huge difference 😂

[@languageslover4401]

If I had bought the super pack for all the Assimil courses I have, I'd probably be poor right now lol since I have over 30😂

[@mirrorgalaxy6273]

@@languageslover4401 i was like : oh wowww he must. be a rich 😂😂😂