Now that I'm up to lesson 13 in Assimil's Perfectionnement Allemand (Advanced German), I feel that I have a good enough sample of the whole work to post a review over on Amazon.com. It hasn't appeared there yet, but in any case, it seems worth repeating here. I know I sound like an Assimil fanboy, but I don't think they are the be-all-and-end-all of language learning. I just really believe that their books have helped me immensely, more than any other language course I've tried (and I've tried a few!).
Before the review, my other bit of news for the day is that I met up with an Austrian woman from my work at lunch today for about an hour of chatting. Again, I felt a bit weak in lots of ways, but she never needed to dumb it down (too much) and we had a pretty flowing conversation overall. I tried to ask questions which would elicit long responses because I wanted to make sure that I wasn't dominating the conversation with my bad German, which wouldn't help me, and wouldn't make for a pleasant chat. It looks like we'll be able to meet up weekly, so that's another bit of face-to-face time that I really need. I'm going to try to meet up with another person from work on a different day. At this stage, it's obvious to me that I need all the help I can get!
Here's the review, reproduced from here:
It's sometimes hard to believe that Assimil language learning books are not more popular outside of Europe. They are just a brilliant, yet simple, way of progressing in a language, allowing the development of vocabulary, correct grammar (and phrasing) as well as pronunciation (albeit, you need to self-correct, which can be difficult), through a daily progression. Well, for me it's every few days on these advanced lesson, but still, it's constant exposure and progression in a way that really works. On top of that, you get so much more actual content in the target language than with other courses (2 hours 40 minutes in this course). And it's ALL in the target language. This means that when you're reviewing the lessons purely through the audio, you don't have any other language interrupting your focus on what you are trying to learn.
There are a few variations/interpretations on the Assimil method - I discuss the way I use the Assimil books on my blog (http://yetanotherlanguage.blogspot.com/2011/04/couple-of-new-arrivals.html) so I won't repeat it here.
I only have two small issues with this book (so far - I'm up to lesson 13/56) - one it the format which has changed in the latest iteration of Assimil's books. Previously they had a more robust cover (though it's still fairly hard wearing - which is great for a book that gets dragged everywhere!), and also the lack of a red cloth bookmark. Originally I thought I wouldn't care about that, but it is just the best way for quickly accessing the book in those spare moments. Even on public transport, I often have just a short gap in which to check what's being said, and the built-in red cloth bookmark was invaluable for this. Bring back the cloth bookmark please, Assimil!
The other "minor" problem depends on how good your French is :-) Unfortunately, the advanced German course is only available in French. My own French is not great, and so a lot of the explanation of more colloquial/metaphorical usage is a little lost on me, but overall I feel fairly confident I'm understanding most of the explanations. I just look up anything more complicated online. The great thing about the audio being purely in German is that once you've read the text and understood it (perhaps with a bit of looking up online) you can listen to the audio over and over without the influence of any other language. With other language courses, I imagine trying to do them in a language in which you are not very confident would be pretty much impossible.
When you use Assimil programs though, it is clear why they don't produce all their volumes in all languages - there is a lot of thought and care put into both the quality of the translations, and also in appropriate explanatory footnotes.
If French is not a barrier for you, then this is the book for the advanced German learner. The dialogs are clear and professional, the text is well written and genuinely funny (the same couldn't be said of the beginner's course in German :-) ) and they are worth every penny of their price. You will go past just about any modern "advanced" course in the first half of the beginner's Assimil book.
And one last point - although you definitely need to practice speaking with native speakers to improve your speaking abilities, you will actually develop good conversation abilities (good pronunciation and comprehension) without native speaker practice. However, it won't help you with gathering your thoughts and explaining yourself in your target language - only real-world practice can do that!
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