I initially ordered "Английский бес труда" for him as a present (Assimil being my customary first stop shop for beginner-intermediate textbooks). When the course arrived this morning, I decided to check through the book first before sending it on to him. And this turned out to be a good move, as the contents was not really like that of my other Assimil textbooks. Based on the handful of random lessons I checked (and I could have just been unlucky here), the dialogues seemed horribly dry with very little humour at all (something that Assimil usually likes to pride itself on, whether or not the reader genuinely finds the passages funny
), and the English seemed to have been lifted from a time period when pinafores and lace doilies were very much still in fashion. Now I'm not sure what to do...I'm still considering sending him the course, as I'm otherwise a big fan of parallel texts and light grammar in the beginning, but if I do send him this, I'll suggest he at least indulge in some tea whilst studying. This will help ease the digestion of the dry crumbs from this course that I worry may quickly become stuck in his throat.
In the spirit of finding more fun and interesting contemporary resources, I was wondering if there's something much more suitable I could send him or give him a link to instead? And this question goes out to anyone. Заранее огромное спасибо! (Thanks very much in advance!)
. Frankly, I haven't completed this textbook.