Eurovox Language Courses (Strikingly Similar to Assimil)

[Speakeasy]

Eurovox Language Courses
Recently, while searching the Internet for older language-learning materials, I came across an offer for a boxed-set of 7-inch vinyl LP records and course books entitled “El Alemán de los Alemanes”, for the self-study of German from a Spanish base. My further searches revealed only the name of the publisher, Eurovox S.A., Lausanne, and a few other titles in the series. Nevertheless, operating under the delusion that this might be the “Cullinan Diamond” of language courses, I placed my order. The package that I received, save for a musty odor, was in almost pristine condition. The inside cover of the course books lists the following courses in the series, either published or in preparation:

El Inglés de los Ingléses
El Francés de los Franceses
El Alemán de los Alemanes
El Italiano de los Italianos
El Español de los Españoles
El Ruso de los Rusos
El Americano Comercial
El Alemán Comercial
El Francés Comercial

Eurovox S.A., Lausanne
The publisher, Eurovox S.A., Lausanne, seems to have been active from at least the 1920’s, if not earlier. Although the majority of the language courses were published from a Spanish base, I did come across an English course and a Spanish course both of which were published from a German base. The company did not restrict their activities to the publishing of language courses; I came across home-study courses in mathematics, accounting, and numerous other subjects. The company seems to have ceased operations circa 2013.

Language Course Materials
Based on my copy of “El Alemán de los Alemanes” and on offers for other language courses on the Internet, the course materials, which were supplied as a boxed-set, included: (a) six small course books having approximately 100 pages each, (b) audio recordings of approximately 3-3/4 hours duration, supplied variously as 7-inch 33-1/3 vinyl LP records, cassettes, or CDs, (c) a pocketbook-sized plastic device having small slots for the display of vocabulary lists, (d) a collection of some 30-odd vocabulary cards for use with the plastic device.

Eurovox 3a.jpg

Language Course Methodology (Strikingly Similar to Assimil)
The method of instruction was strikingly similar to that adopted by Assimil. The instruction programme was divided into 100 lessons, each of which introduced the target language through a dialogue (on the left-hand page) with a translation (on the right-hand page). The Eurovox dialogues were about twice as long as those of the Assimil courses. As for the Assimil courses, a few, brief exercises were included following the dialogues. The dialogues and exercises were recorded by voice-trained, native speakers. Surprisingly, the dialogues were delivered at conversational speed from the very first lesson onward. The quality of sound of my set of 7-inch 33-1/3 vinyl LP records greatly exceeded my expectations. Although the course books did not have either vocabulary lists or a summary of grammar, the accompanying notes were both clearer and more complete than many other self-study language courses. The plastic device seems to have been an attempt at assisting the student memorize word lists. The overall quality of the boxed-set was very high, indeed. I have appended a photograph of a set that I downloaded from the Internet.

¿Recomendado? ¡Absolutamente!, pero …
The Eurovox language courses were strikingly similar to the Assimil courses and were actually somewhat superior to the latter. Would I recommend them? Well, provided the user were able to cope with the L1 language (which seems to have been Spanish in most cases), I would say: ¡absolutamente! Otherwise, only collectors of vintage language-learning materials should consider acquiring them.

EDITED:
Tinkering.
Alignment of the image with the corresponding text.

[Speakeasy]

For Serious Collectors Only
It should come as no surprise to anyone who follows my posts on vintage language-learning materials that I continue to scour the Internet in search of lost treasures. Well, earlier today, I came across a near pristine copy of one such treasure that I already have in my collection. I would readily double-up on this item were it not for my wife’s stern warnings that I curb my enthusiasm. Mindful of the risks I would be incurring should I not heed my wife’s wise counsel, I will demur. Still, the thought came to me that another chronic sufferer of OCD might wish to seize upon the present opportunity. Here it is:

CURSO EL ALEMAN DE LOS ALEMANES.EUROVOX
https://www.todocoleccion.net/libros-antiguos/curso-aleman-alemanes-eurovox-ver-fotos~x105301651

Resistance is Futile
Assimil’s El Nuevo Alemán Sin Esfuerzo is for wimps! At only 50 euros, I dare you to resist the temptation of acquiring a “real” Spanish-German course! Grrr, this is raw meat!

Disclaimer
It goes without saying that: I am not the vendor of this item, I do not have any relationship whatsoever with the vendor, and I will not profit in any manner from the sale of this ítem.

IMAGES
Curso El Alemán de los Alemanes

[dokalthar]

Hello Speakeasy! I found your post very interesting. I really like Assimil, I learned French through it with the old series, and it really intrigues me when you say that Eurovox is somewhat superior to Assimil. I might want to try it to learn Italian, as the Italian assimil book only comes with a Spanish base from the "New with ease" series onwards, which as you might know is worse than the older series. They have much less material, they take many more lessons to introduce key things like the verb tenses, whereas in the older version you get them all sooner (in the newer ones you barely see the subjunctive in the last lessons). It seems that Eurovox might be an alternative.

Could you upload some pictures of some pages of any Eurovox book to get a feeling of what the content is like?

Thank you very much for sharing this interesting method.

[dokalthar]

Hi everyone, I'm looking up courses by Eurovox and I just found this picture of a page of one of their methods which lists all the methods they have and those "in preparation" (we'll see if they've been created or not, as the company has ceased to exist as Speakeasy has said).

Note that there is listed a method to learn Spanish from an English base. There is also one to learn Spanish from a German base as Speakeasy said, although it doesn't mention the one to learn English from a German base that Speakeasy found, so maybe that means that there might also be yet others that aren't in this list.

At the top it says "Eurovox, compañía internacional para la difusión de la cultura europea" that is "international company for the diffusion of European culture" which seems like a cool motto.

The methods in preparation are "comercial" which reminds me of the "des affaires" courses of Assimil, maybe they were following their model?

I transcribe the methods listed:

Current methods:
EL INGLES DE LOS INGLESES
EL FRANCES DE LOS FRANCESES
EL ALEMAN DE LOS ALEMANES
EL ITALIANO DE LOS ITALIANOS
L'ESPAGNOL DES ESPAGNOLS
THE SPANISH OF THE SPANIARDS
LAS MATEMATICAS VIVAS

In preparation:
DAS SPANISCH DER SPANIER
EL AMERICANO COMERCIAL
EL ALEMAN COMERCIAL
EL FRANCES COMERCIAL
etc., etc.

Edit: Ok so Speakeasy had given a list before, but it didn't mention the courses with other languages as a base.

[dokalthar]

I've looked through every Eurovox course sold on todocoleccion.net which I think is the only website where they sell these courses, and I found one article of El ingles de los ingleses with many images of pages, and another article of the same course with one picture of a page. I attach the images here, the course seems good to me from those pictures, but I don't think they allow you to get enough of a sense of what the course is like, they are too few pictures.

[Elexi]

Here is a page from the German Eurovox course to give you an idea of what an sample lesson is like.

[dokalthar]

Here is a page from the German Eurovox course to give you an idea of what an sample lesson is like.

That's interesting Elexi. A lesson centered on the human body. I've gone through most of Assimil's French without toil and it doesn't have thematic lessons in that way. I've seen that for example Berlitz courses do have, like one lesson for body parts, another for the parts of a house and so on. I think it's a good idea in order to learn all at once a group of related vocabulary.