Interpreters and Conference Interpreting

hello
I would like to know your impressions about the Assimil method.
Is it a good method to learn a new language and to get a general knowledge of it?
Thanks

Hello

I quite like the assimil method. I learned Spanish from scratch with it. But my mother tongue is French so it is nothing extra ordinary. I don't know if assimil works for exotic languages such as Chinese or Japanese.
The main shortcoming of the assimil method is grammar, you need a grammar manual to complete your knowledge of the language. The assimil is very good at spotting key vocabulary and key structures that are likely to come up a lot.
I took the English improvement before going to the US and most of the themes and the vocabulary taught did actually come up when I was there.
What I don't like is that they tend to say that you can learn a language without effort, they tend to assert that it is not necessary to do grammar drills, you will learn your grammar intuitively which is not true. I tried assimil with German and as a matter of fact grammar is not an option when you learn German there is no way of getting around it.
However assimil is a nice short cut to learn a language and have fun with it.

I entirely agree with Yogi.
I used Assimil with Chinese and it worked great, because Chinese has a very 'light' syntax. However with more complex languages (I have tried Russian, Turkish and Arabic), Assimil is a really good introductory method, but you have to complement it with grammar books. Also, each book being written by different authors, some might be much better than others.
For example, the French edition of Assimil for Turkish is outstanding, but the one for Arabic is a disaster.

yes I should say I tried the italian version of Arabic and was almost impossible to learn something.
I guess it can work for easier language or languages close to your mother tongue, anyway it 's not without effort as advertised