Barron’s Foreign Languages
Posted: Mon Jul 08, 2019 1:00 am
Barron’s Educational Services
Earlier today, while searching the internet for information on one of Barron’s Educational Services language series, I located the publisher’s website but discovered that it now seems to be nothing more than a facility for re-directing would be customers to the websites of Simon & Schuster and/or Amazon but that the latter are, effectively, a cul-de-sac. Barron’s Educational Services was founded in 1939, by one Manuel Barron, as an American publisher of materials to help students to prepare for college entrance examinations. With the passage of time, the publisher expanded into many other publishing fields, with over 2,000 titles in a wide range of categories. In 2018, Barron's sold its brand name and its test preparation list to Kaplan Test Prep and the company was renamed B.E.S. Publishing.
Barron’s Foreign Languages
For over eight decades, this publisher offered a catalogue of entry-level language courses, aids-to-study, dictionaries, phrase books, verb charts, grammar charts, introductory readers, and other language-learning materials covering, for the most part, the frequently-studied languages (French, German, Italian, Spanish) with the occasional title in more exotic languages.
Barron's Series
This is a partial list of the Barron’s series of language-learning publications.
1001 Pitfalls in [Language]
2001 [Language] and English Idioms
201 [Language] Verbs
501 [Language] Verbs
[Language] Verbs
[Language] Idioms
Dictionary of [Language] Slang and Colloquial Expressions
[Language] at a Glance
[Language] the Fast and Fun Way
[Language] Grammar
[Language] Vocabulary
[Language] On the Way
[Language] the Easy Way
Fast Track to [Language]
Getting by in [Language]
Getting to Know [Land] and [Language]
How to Prepare for College Board Achievement Tests [Language]
How to Prepare for the [Language] AP (Advanced Placement) Tests
How to Use [Language] Verbs
Master the Basics [Language]
Mastering [Language]
Mastering [Language] Grammar
Mastering [Language] Vocabulary
Mastering [Language] Business Vocabulary
Now You’re Talking [Language] in No Time
Painless [Language]
Pronounce It Perfectly in [Language]
SAT Subject Test [Language]
Succeeding with [Language] Grammar
Talking Business in [Language]
Travel Wise [Language]
Vocabulary Builder [Language]
Write it in [Language]
Barron’s Mastering [Language] Series
The most comprehensive language courses that Barron’s Educational Services ever published were their (accredited) versions of the FSI Basic and FSI Programmatic courses for the self-study of French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Korean, Portuguese, and Spanish, which were retitled as Barron’s Mastering [Language]:
In several instances, Barron’s chose to publish only the first half of the relevant FSI course. I have copies of the Barron's Mastering German, Mastering Spanish, and Mastering Italian. I have also inspected the textbooks of Mastering French and Mastering Korean. In some cases, Barron’s re-typeset the original FSI texts, without changes, as for Mastering German. In the case of Mastering Italian, in the process of re-typesetting the original text, they removed some inconsequential material and incorporated the Instructor's Guide directly into the text, where it should have been all along. In the case of Mastering Spanish, as far as I understand, they used a copying process that avoided the laborious re-typesetting. However, in NONE of the courses that I have seen did they AUGMENT the original FSI courses, whether as a matter of dialogues, drills, or other exercises. As to the CD audio recordings, they took the time to split the longer magnetic cassette tape files into smaller segments and they added a few "culture capsules" which are of no consequence. However, the main part of the audio itself was drawn directly from the original FSI recordings. Generally speaking, the recording quality of the Barron's CDs was "no better than" that of the free audio files that are available on the Yojik.eu website. I cannot be certain, but I get the impression that the Mastering Italian audio was re-recorded by Barron's. Finally, it is generally agreed that their "Mastering Japanese" course was a copy of the textbook "Beginning Japanese" by Eleanor Harz Jorden, which had been adopted for use by the FSI, along with a copy of the original recordings, which are reasonably clear.
In those cases where Barron's re-typeset the original FSI texts, regrettably, some small typographical errors occurred which were never corrected. Often, these are obvious, minor, and can be simply ignored. Unfortunately, in the case of Mastering German, the errors can lead to confusion. For example, in some of the examples and explanatory notes, "ihn" and "ihm" are misrepresented. For the "truly observant" student, who regularly consults a German Grammar, these types of errors might be no more than a minor irritation. However, for the novice student, who is relying more-or-less completely on the Barron's text, the presence of these types of errors renders the German Case System even more difficult to comprehend.
Another One Bites the Dust?
Many of the titles listed above are now out-of-print, leaving me with the impression that the Barron’s era has come to an end. Does anyone have any information which is more concrete than my supposition? Does anyone really care?
EDITED:
Typos, tinkering.
Attached images of the Barron's Mastering series.
Formatting.
Earlier today, while searching the internet for information on one of Barron’s Educational Services language series, I located the publisher’s website but discovered that it now seems to be nothing more than a facility for re-directing would be customers to the websites of Simon & Schuster and/or Amazon but that the latter are, effectively, a cul-de-sac. Barron’s Educational Services was founded in 1939, by one Manuel Barron, as an American publisher of materials to help students to prepare for college entrance examinations. With the passage of time, the publisher expanded into many other publishing fields, with over 2,000 titles in a wide range of categories. In 2018, Barron's sold its brand name and its test preparation list to Kaplan Test Prep and the company was renamed B.E.S. Publishing.
Barron’s Foreign Languages
For over eight decades, this publisher offered a catalogue of entry-level language courses, aids-to-study, dictionaries, phrase books, verb charts, grammar charts, introductory readers, and other language-learning materials covering, for the most part, the frequently-studied languages (French, German, Italian, Spanish) with the occasional title in more exotic languages.
Barron's Series
This is a partial list of the Barron’s series of language-learning publications.
1001 Pitfalls in [Language]
2001 [Language] and English Idioms
201 [Language] Verbs
501 [Language] Verbs
[Language] Verbs
[Language] Idioms
Dictionary of [Language] Slang and Colloquial Expressions
[Language] at a Glance
[Language] the Fast and Fun Way
[Language] Grammar
[Language] Vocabulary
[Language] On the Way
[Language] the Easy Way
Fast Track to [Language]
Getting by in [Language]
Getting to Know [Land] and [Language]
How to Prepare for College Board Achievement Tests [Language]
How to Prepare for the [Language] AP (Advanced Placement) Tests
How to Use [Language] Verbs
Master the Basics [Language]
Mastering [Language]
Mastering [Language] Grammar
Mastering [Language] Vocabulary
Mastering [Language] Business Vocabulary
Now You’re Talking [Language] in No Time
Painless [Language]
Pronounce It Perfectly in [Language]
SAT Subject Test [Language]
Succeeding with [Language] Grammar
Talking Business in [Language]
Travel Wise [Language]
Vocabulary Builder [Language]
Write it in [Language]
Barron’s Mastering [Language] Series
The most comprehensive language courses that Barron’s Educational Services ever published were their (accredited) versions of the FSI Basic and FSI Programmatic courses for the self-study of French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Korean, Portuguese, and Spanish, which were retitled as Barron’s Mastering [Language]:
In several instances, Barron’s chose to publish only the first half of the relevant FSI course. I have copies of the Barron's Mastering German, Mastering Spanish, and Mastering Italian. I have also inspected the textbooks of Mastering French and Mastering Korean. In some cases, Barron’s re-typeset the original FSI texts, without changes, as for Mastering German. In the case of Mastering Italian, in the process of re-typesetting the original text, they removed some inconsequential material and incorporated the Instructor's Guide directly into the text, where it should have been all along. In the case of Mastering Spanish, as far as I understand, they used a copying process that avoided the laborious re-typesetting. However, in NONE of the courses that I have seen did they AUGMENT the original FSI courses, whether as a matter of dialogues, drills, or other exercises. As to the CD audio recordings, they took the time to split the longer magnetic cassette tape files into smaller segments and they added a few "culture capsules" which are of no consequence. However, the main part of the audio itself was drawn directly from the original FSI recordings. Generally speaking, the recording quality of the Barron's CDs was "no better than" that of the free audio files that are available on the Yojik.eu website. I cannot be certain, but I get the impression that the Mastering Italian audio was re-recorded by Barron's. Finally, it is generally agreed that their "Mastering Japanese" course was a copy of the textbook "Beginning Japanese" by Eleanor Harz Jorden, which had been adopted for use by the FSI, along with a copy of the original recordings, which are reasonably clear.
In those cases where Barron's re-typeset the original FSI texts, regrettably, some small typographical errors occurred which were never corrected. Often, these are obvious, minor, and can be simply ignored. Unfortunately, in the case of Mastering German, the errors can lead to confusion. For example, in some of the examples and explanatory notes, "ihn" and "ihm" are misrepresented. For the "truly observant" student, who regularly consults a German Grammar, these types of errors might be no more than a minor irritation. However, for the novice student, who is relying more-or-less completely on the Barron's text, the presence of these types of errors renders the German Case System even more difficult to comprehend.
Another One Bites the Dust?
Many of the titles listed above are now out-of-print, leaving me with the impression that the Barron’s era has come to an end. Does anyone have any information which is more concrete than my supposition? Does anyone really care?
EDITED:
Typos, tinkering.
Attached images of the Barron's Mastering series.
Formatting.