The Nature Method Institute's Language Courses

[Cainntear]

Does anyone know the copyright status of these books, and how they ended up as pdfs? I'm confused because at first they appeared to be pirated, but they were posted on Vivarium Novum.

In the US, the French and Italian books were published early enough that they are out of copyright. They were not renewed. Latin was renewed, of course, and the Russian book was published just after the copyright rules changed so it is still protected.

Where were they first published?

[galaxyrocker]

I got sent this website by another friend of the search today. Seems like they even have stumbled upon our website here a time or two (and make notice of the MSU possession of a volume of the Russian Course, which I posted on Reddit, so they're likely active there too)

https://caligula.org/Nature_Method_Institute.html

Hopefully it leads to more.

Also, if the author is reading again: I have actually seen several pages from the MSU work. It is the same work as the rest of them, in the same format. I had a friend request it via ILL in 2016, though he was unable to scan it before it had to be returned due to family issues. He sent me pictures, though I've since cleared out the Telegram chat it was on. I'll see if he still has them, and reupload them. I believe it was just of a few pages of it.

[Proclus]

So if these books are actually available in public libraries that means they are not entirely lost. Isn't there anyone here from Denmark and Netherlands?

https://www.worldcat.org/title/2000-fre ... 1002106586

EDIT:
For those interested in English voice-recordings. They are fresh

[Daantjerrr]

Yes, there are Dutchies here! It would be interesting to make a trip to The Hague to go look up those materials. However, I don't think I'll be able to anytime soon, thanks to the increased COVID19 infections here.

[Sahmilat]

This youtube channel is making recordings for the English, Italian, and French books in the series. They are up to Ch 3 of Italian and Ch 8 of French. I'm not sure if the people reading it are native speakers, but the audio quality seems pretty good.

[galaxyrocker]

I just want to revive this thread to see if anyone has looked further into anything here? I'm still on the hunt for the Russian course, and noticed the MSU one has been returned to their library. If it's open to the public next year, might be worth taking a trip in that direction...

[Stairway2kevin]

Hi all, someone reached out because of my affiliation at Michigan State and I couldn’t help but get involved. I promise to be back later with more for everyone but in the meantime I wanted to drop confirmation the existence of the Russian volume at MSU! https://imgur.com/a/IF10Yek

[mokibao]

This is awesome news! Do you know if there were other volumes? It's hard to say with MSU's virtual interface

[galaxyrocker]

Hi all, someone reached out because of my affiliation at Michigan State and I couldn’t help but get involved. I promise to be back later with more for everyone but in the meantime I wanted to drop confirmation the existence of the Russian volume at MSU! https://imgur.com/a/IF10Yek

This is absolutely great news! Now if we could only get a scan of it, and maybe find the other volumes.

[galaxyrocker]

So I did some trawling through various library websites last night, and not only was I able to find copies of the Italian, French and English books in various languages (Swedish, Danish and German), but I was able to actually find what appears to be a new nature method course, published by the same Naturmetodens Sproginstitut. It seems to unfortunately only be in Denmark, but it's still worth a shot to go look at when the libraries reopen (sadly I think it'll be much harder to get a scan and I can't read Danish, so don't know if it'd be available to check-out from the library to be able to scan it).

I was unable to find anything about the Russian one, though, and it really seems like there's only vol 3 at MSU. Quite disappointing. I still might contact the Humbolt institute again, just in case someone else there might see it and know about the old courses. It'd be interesting to see their other ones too, even if lower quality (I believe they had Spanish, German, Turkish and maybe some others besides the Russian?)

Edit: Actually, I might have just found a link to a Spanish one?

https://www.worldcat.org/title/amt-natu ... ef_results

It seems that they have English and French as well, with audio cassettes. I don't know if it's the same ones that eventually found their way to Humboldt, or the quality, or if it's even the same series but if there's someone in that area of Germany it might be worth looking at.

I've also found what appears to be a 'continuation course' for their English one. Whether it's a part 2 or just already part of the earlier one that's available online, I don't know.