A language learners’ forum

I'm not familiar with all of the methods used by the Humboldt Insitute, but the ones I've superficially seen (with the exception of the Russian one) are not the ones made by Jensen. They do have an emphasis on dialogue and communication but they're not the "monolingual graded novels" typical of the "Jensenian school".

I have the Latin one "Familia Romana" I think it was called. I did a semester of Latin back in college (damn it hurts to say back in college ) and used it to dive a little deeper. Unfortunately being the dilettante that I am I completely forgot about it up to this present moment. I would recommend it in an eye-bat to anyone wanting to learn Latin.

I also looked it up the French course from the Nature Method Institute and, apparently, it's the same process, so I guess it will be good too. The problem is, of course, that this couldn't work for very separated languages ala spanish-mandarin.

indeclinable wrote:The Spanish one was never finished, as far as I’m aware they only made 10 chapters or so. But I have never seen it.

The German one is supposedly complete, if anyone can locate it I’d be eternally grateful.

Is there any reason why these books here (Studien und Plaudereien 1&2) would not be an acceptable substitute? They seem to be trying to do the same thing ...

Xmmm wrote:Is there any reason why these books here (Studien und Plaudereien 1&2) would not be an acceptable substitute? They seem to be trying to do the same thing ...

Unfortunately, these books are hopelessly outdated. If it has to be a direct method textbook for German, I'd recommend the following modern book instead:
Deutsche Sprachlehre für Ausländer by Dora Schulz and Heinz Griesbach (Amazon.de link with book preview; Google Books).

For those of you interested in the Italian course, L'Italiano secondo il metodo natura:

Does anyone know who holds the copyrights to these magnificent books? From what I've read Arthur Jensen passed the copyrights to the publishing company that later went under. So does this mean that no one holds the copyrights currently? is this what's called orphaned works, and thus can be treated as public domain?

LanguageProf wrote:Does anyone know who holds the copyrights to these magnificent books? From what I've read Arthur Jensen passed the copyrights to the publishing company that later went under. So does this mean that no one holds the copyrights currently? is this what's called orphaned works, and thus can be treated as public domain?

No because they are not the creation of a company but a person. So the copyright passes to the authors heirs.

Does anyone know where the late Arthur M. Jensen passed away? It would be a good start in looking for a will and finding out who his heirs are.

Regarding the Russian course, I stumbled upon this book in some French online shop: "The russian alphabet by the nature method", by Oleg Koefoed-Obiedoff, published in Moscow in 1993.



The description lists 'Centre De Langue Et Culture Russe' as a publisher.

For those interested in acquiring physical copies of the Nature Method books, it seems that the French and Italian versions, divided into three volumes each, are now available:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=francais+met ... nb_sb_noss

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=l%27+italian ... _ss_i_1_22

As to whether these are authorized or unauthorized reprints, I have no idea.