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Your favorite language program? | ||
Tags: TellMeMore | Fluenz | Living Language | Colloquial (program) | DLI | Linguaphone | Teach Yourself | Platiquemos | Rosetta Stone | Michel Thomas | Listening-Reading (L-R) | Pimsleur | Language Program | FSI | Assimil | Book | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| Elexi Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5346 days ago 938 posts - 1839 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 281 of 376 17 July 2012 at 3:43pm | IP Logged | |||||
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How is that then? -
Pimsleur - 600 words in 3 levels (CEFR A1) - Assimil 2500+ words (CEFR B1) Pimsleur - $690 for 3 levels - Assimil $80 book with 4 cds Pimsleur - Limited reading - Assimil - Lots of reading Pimsleur - No formal grammar explanation - inference only - Assimil - Formal grammar explanation + inference. Pimsleur - 50% of the audio is English speaker who sounds like a Football coach - Assimil - Audio is purely native. and it goes on... 11 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4690 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 282 of 376 18 July 2012 at 2:00pm | IP Logged | |||||
Elexi forgot to add:
Nevertheless, both courses are useful and can complement each other quite well. Edited by Jeffers on 18 July 2012 at 2:01pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| swedeenz Newbie New ZealandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4795 days ago 17 posts - 23 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Bulgarian | Message 283 of 376 15 August 2012 at 7:23am | IP Logged | |||||
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For the two languages I'm learning I've tried many various types of courses. One of my
favourites would have to be Assimil, It's a shame they don't have such a wide selection in English, but maybe that's an excuse to learn French. I have an older edition of Teach Yourself advanced German which I really have enjoyed, And TY Bulgarian which doesn't seem too bad. I'm not a fan of Pimsleur or anything that is audio based because I find it hard to learn by just listening I need to see and write things down. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4403 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 284 of 376 08 September 2012 at 8:08am | IP Logged | |||||
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I really enjoyed the Michael Thomas advanced course. He hammers the hell out of verbs and I believe this is a good learning strategy. He doesn't offer much vocabulary but once you start conjugating verbs and thinking out sentences you really feel you are getting somewhere.
I didn't really need the foundation course when I discovered Michel, but I listened to it nonetheless. He stresses that foreign languages are not as alien as people think and that many words sound similar to their English counterparts. Any linguist could tell you that but for a beginner it can be very reassuring to find cognates and loanwords. Edited by beano on 08 September 2012 at 8:08am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| ernestd Triglot Newbie United States Joined 4420 days ago 5 posts - 11 votes Speaks: Spanish, Catalan*, English | Message 285 of 376 10 September 2012 at 7:18pm | IP Logged | |||||
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duolingo.com No doubt about it
I recommend it 100 times more than assimil as the first resource to use when you start with a language. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Tilia Diglot Groupie Denmark Joined 4257 days ago 48 posts - 68 votes Speaks: Danish*, English Studies: Spanish | Message 287 of 376 19 December 2012 at 1:27am | IP Logged | |||||
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Well I don't have a lot of experience with different language programs, but I must say I really enjoy listening to ”Show time Spanish” from radiolingua. It is a continuation course to ”Coffee break Spanish” but contrary to that course it dos have a native speaker, together with the teacher (who is the same as in coffee break Spanish). I like to listen to the “real” conversation in Spanish between the two of them and I understand most of it. I think that the teacher Mark (he is Scottish) has a nice way of explaining things and a pleasant voice. I have only listened to the free audio lessons, so I don’t know if the paid for extra material is any good.
I got hold of “Pimsleur Spanish 1” from the library and I was very curious to see what it was like, because it is so highly recommended on this forum. Though the Spanish 1 course is really below my current level and I find it a little bit boring I still think it is useful for practicing pronunciation and basic sentence construction, so I’ll keep using it. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| ribas Pentaglot Newbie Brazil blogmarceloribas.blo Joined 5641 days ago 37 posts - 48 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, English, Spanish, French, German Studies: Italian, Mandarin | Message 288 of 376 20 December 2012 at 2:53am | IP Logged | |||||
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I have to confess that I really love Pimsleur. I have completed Germân and French (3 levels) and Italian (2
levels - pretty easy for a romance speaker). I have also completed 7 lessons of Mandarin, 4 of Russian and Romanian, 3 of Japanese and Hebrew. I agree it is not the most comprehensive method, but it certainly gives you great pronounciation. Two of the most rewarding experiences I had as a language learner were seeing the reaction of native speakers to me speaking my little mandarin and Romanian. As the ad goes, priceless. The same folks told me I sounded a little formal, though. I also love listening to Assimil French without toil, which are also great. MT seems to be very effective, but It irritates me after a while... 1 person has voted this message useful |
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