Assimil phasing out physical books?

[Le Baron]

...et les méthodes onéreuses , comme <<Objectif Langues>>, se vendent plus facilement que les historiques <<Sans peine>>

...and the less onerous methods such as as "Objectif Langes", sell more easily than the historical "Sans peine"

'Onéreuses' here probably means 'expensive', rather than 'onerous'. Are those 'Objectif Langues' expensive?

[tastyonions]

The "Objectif Langues" courses are less expensive, looks like about half the price of the old style courses:

https://www.assimil.com/fr/16-objectif-langues

I think the original text was probably supposed to read "moins onéreuses" because the "less" in the English translation given doesn't correspond to anything.

[Le Baron]

The "Objectif Langues" courses are less expensive, looks like about half the price of the old style courses:

https://www.assimil.com/fr/16-objectif-langues

I think the original text was probably supposed to read "moins onéreuses" because the "less" in the English translation given doesn't correspond to anything.

Yes, the 'less' not corresponding to anything made me wonder about the Objectif Langues and so I assumed them to be expensive (as onéreuse commonly is used). I'd never heard of them, I live in the past when it comes to Assimil.

[figgles]

I think the original text was probably supposed to read "moins onéreuses" because the "less" in the English translation given doesn't correspond to anything.

Yes, I forgot to write moins. I did say I was working quickly!

[rpg]

I was exploring the Assimil catalog recently and was a bit surprised when I realized the same thing you folks have, that quite a number of their even fairly recently published languages are out of print entirely, including the following:

• Assimil Le Catalan (2013)
• Assimil Le Danois (2015)
• Assimil Le Finnois (2017) although a slightly older (?) version with a German base is still available. Not sure the difference.
• Assimil Le Khmer (2014)
• Assimil Le Malgache (2011)
• Assimil L'Occitan (2014)
• Assimil L'Ukrainien (2012)

The dates might be wrong on some of these, I just pulled them from a quick Googling. And there are certainly more missing from my list.

All of these titles are currently very difficult to find online, even used for the most part. Many have an e-méthode version published, but personally I find the electronic versions clunky to use (though perfectly usable of course).

I don't know if they plan on reprinting any of these or if the days of print editions are behind us...

[Sizen]

All of these titles are currently very difficult to find online, even used for the most part.

I was surprised to see that the audio is still available for download for many of them if you use the language drop down menu at the top of their site that lists all the languages rather than searching through the language selector on the main page, so if you can find the physical book, it's still possible to buy the audio at the regular price. This even goes for Cantonese, which is not available in print or the e-méthode! (Although I've heard the audio is a bit dubious for that one in particular) I suppose this is good news for those of us who either have just the book, lost the audio, or manage to find a second hand copy. I happen to have a copy of Le catalan without the audio that I bought at a bookstore in Quebec City ages ago, so I'll likely take advantage of the download option at some point!

Many have an e-méthode version published, but personally I find the electronic versions clunky to use (though perfectly usable of course).

I realized I'd never tried any of the courses on my desktop. I tried the app on my iPhone and I wasn't super impressed, even if it was well adapted to a small screen. Turns out the Windows version is just a much slower version of the same app. I downloaded the 7 lesson trial for Ukrainian, since that's one of the books I'd like to eventually hunt down, and the number of times the window went completely white for 5+ seconds was kind of surprising. At least there'll likely always be a way to run the app on a Windows computer. The same can't be said of the iOS app, which hasn't been updated by the developer in 4 years and may eventually become incompatible with newer devices/versions of iOS.

My biggest disappointment with the Windows version, however, was that you really don't have access to the audio files like you used to. It's nice to be able to copy and paste the text from the app if you're the kind of person who likes to write up notes/make flashcards, but you used to get upwards of 2000 sound files with all of the lines of dialogue isolated which made making audio flashcards incredibly easy. I suppose you could buy the e-méthode and the audio download at about €100, but that would come out to be €25 more expensive than the superpacks with the physical book used to be. Still much cheaper than the €150 on amazon.fr or $300 on amazon.ca for the book alone for L'ukrainien at least.

[dubendorf]

Been skimming this thread and a lot of good points have been made. I haven't read every post so excuse me if this has already been suggested, but I wonder to what extent English-language versions of Assimil course materials are shrinking in popularity because English has become the de facto international language in the last few decades. If you are a native English speaker already, why would you learn another language in the first place? Most people in relatively cosmopolitan cities in Europe (and perhaps elsewhere) already speak English. On the flip side, if you are not a native English speaker then you either 1) want to learn English or 2) want to learn a non-English language, in which case you probably want the course materials in your native language (be that French, German, or otherwise). This might explain why English-language materials are disappearing faster than others. I am not suggesting this is the only factor, but this combined with the other things people have mentioned such as a shrinking market for paper books, more competition with apps and Youtube, etc. might explain the reduction in materials.

On the other hand, this would not explain why language learning would be decreasing in popularity more precipitously for native English speakers than for other languages. For example, if you are a native French speaker who already speaks fluent English, you would be subject to the same effect (i.e., why would you want to learn German to travel to Germany when a lot of Germans already speak English?). I don't know why non-native English speakers would be more interested in learning a 3rd language than native English speakers would be in learning a 2nd.

[rpg]

All of these titles are currently very difficult to find online, even used for the most part.

I was surprised to see that the audio is still available for download for many of them if you use the language drop down menu at the top of their site that lists all the languages rather than searching through the language selector on the main page, so if you can find the physical book, it's still possible to buy the audio at the regular price. This even goes for Cantonese, which is not available in print or the e-méthode! (Although I've heard the audio is a bit dubious for that one in particular) I suppose this is good news for those of us who either have just the book, lost the audio, or manage to find a second hand copy. I happen to have a copy of Le catalan without the audio that I bought at a bookstore in Quebec City ages ago, so I'll likely take advantage of the download option at some point!

That was how I made my list above, by going through all the languages currently on their official site and examining the offerings.

I have one more data point to add to this thread: I'm visiting London and I just stopped by the bookstore Foyles, which has one of the largest selections of language books (both language learning and literature in foreign languages) that I've ever found, and to my surprise I didn't see a single Assimil version on the shelves, though I may have missed one. They're one of only a few distributors in the UK listed on the Assimil website.