Assimil German without Toil (1965)

[Random Review]

I have listened to L'allemand Sans Peine (1939). You'll learn how to swear at servants and other little people and in hindsight the course finishes on an ominous note. Great fun to listen to and quite modern. The textbook is 3,00€ used on Ebay.

I'd love to hear that, is it public domain yet?

[reineke]

I believe you'll need to wait 13 years. Felix Salten's Bambi should have entered public domain last year.

I didn't want to pay $50 for a recent edition while I was in Germany so I am looking forward to picking it up soon. A great first or second book after Assimil btw.

A somewhat interesting story about Disney trying to weasel out of copyright issues citing public domain:

http://williampatry.blogspot.com/2006/1 ... s.html?m=1

This antiquation business is one of my pet peeves here. Tolkien's Hobbit was published in 1937. I've never heard anyone complaining about Tolkien.

FSI German: Too Old?
viewtopic.php?f=17&t=3901&hilit=Fsi+too+old

Watch out for gnädige Frau.

[Kubelek]

Jokes aside - German Without Toil has some antiquated vocabulary - for example, it prefers 'verzeihung' for 'pardon' instead of entschuldigung (although people will still say verzeihung)

As a side note, another editio I own from the 80s and 90s era also used verzeihung.

[Random Review]

I believe you'll need to wait 13 years. Felix Salten's Bambi should have entered public domain last year.

I didn't want to pay $50 for a recent edition while I was in Germany so I am looking forward to picking it up soon. A great first or second book after Assimil btw.

A somewhat interesting story about Disney trying to weasel out of copyright issues citing public domain:

http://williampatry.blogspot.com/2006/1 ... s.html?m=1

This antiquation business is one of my pet peeves here. Tolkien's Hobbit was published in 1937. I've never heard anyone complaining about Tolkien.

FSI German: Too Old?
viewtopic.php?f=17&t=3901&hilit=Fsi+too+old

Watch out for gnädige Frau.

Great literature is timeless; great language courses age. I speak as one who loves these old courses and thinks they are useful.

[YtownPolyglot]

I took a few German classes in the 1980s with materials that were then contemporary.

I didn't have much opportunity to use German for a number of years, and I was particularly lost when I had to talk about computers. Of course, I couldn't look those things up in my old dictionary. There was also this little matter of spelling reform. I think I sounded like I was speaking Rip van Winkle German.

[Speakeasy]

I have listened to L'allemand Sans Peine (1939) ... Great fun to listen to and quite modern. The textbook is 3,00€ used on Ebay.

Thank you very much for your inspiring comments! While I was unable to locate an edition of Assimil L'allemand Sans Peine from 1939, I did come across one for each of 1938 and 1943 on AbeBooks and I ordered them both. However, I could not come up with a source for the audio recordings; would you happen to know of one?

[reineke]

I have listened to L'allemand Sans Peine (1939) ... Great fun to listen to and quite modern. The textbook is 3,00€ used on Ebay.

Thank you very much for your inspiring comments! While I was unable to locate an edition of Assimil L'allemand Sans Peine from 1939, I did come across one for each of 1938 and 1943 on AbeBooks and I ordered them both. However, I could not come up with a source for the audio recordings; would you happen to know of one?

Hi Speakeasy. I have tried looking for it. A lot of online sellers do not mention the date of the publication so I am afraid that hunting down the right LPs may turn into toil. You could try writing to Assimil. The audio course is certainly interesting as a historical document.

[Speakeasy]

Hi Speakeasy. I have tried looking for it. A lot of online sellers do not mention the date of the publication so I am afraid that hunting down the right LPs may turn into toil. You could try writing to Assimil. The audio course is certainly interesting as a historical document.

Thank you very much for the suggestion. I have copy of the course book from 1957 along with the audio recordings. Upon receipt of the course books from 1938 and 1943 that I ordered, I will compare their texts with that of the 1957 edition and, if there are differences in the dialogues, I will submit a request to Assimil concerning the audio recordings.

EDITED: typos, wie immer.

[Elexi]

There are some 78s for l'allemand sans peine on ebay.fr at the moment - no international delivery by the looks of it, but I think 78s must be before the 1965 edition - I have records from that year and they are 45s.

http://www.ebay.fr/itm/methode-de-langu ... SwhQhYxpK6

[Speakeasy]

There are some 78s for l'allemand sans peine on ebay.fr at the moment ...

Thank you, Elexi! Hmm, what to do, what to do?