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Free Review Copies: Little Prince Biling. | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| DavidW Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6528 days ago 318 posts - 458 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, French, Italian, Persian, Malay Studies: Russian, Arabic (Written), Portuguese, German, Urdu | Message 1 of 22 06 August 2011 at 11:23pm | IP Logged | ||
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As you've probably seen on the forum, I'm publishing a French/English bilingual version of 'The Little Prince.' It has a special layout ease of use, and comes with a CD with full audio recordings in both languages. This book is a test, if it is goes OK, I'd like to produce many more, with the best books I can get permissions for. The cover is here:
Cover I have received the proof copy, and I'm now ordering the first run. I will set aside 25 copies to be sent out as 'review copies.' I ask that you write an honest appraisal on Amazon.co.uk, which will be useful feedback for others. There are still a couple of things to sort out before the book is made available for sale in Europe/North America. These review copies are primarily intended for people in the UK, but I can make exceptions. I plan to give out more copies near the end of the month for the rest of the world. The books are available for members with more than 10 posts, that study French. To get a copy, just fill out this form: Review Copy Form I will post a message in this thread once I have about 50 applicants, and send books to those with the highest number of posts. So if you fill out the form, chances are good you'll get a book. The books will be sent out in about two weeks. You can also send me any comments or ideas here: omilialanguages -at- gmail -dot- com Regards David Edited by DavidW on 07 August 2011 at 3:57am 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 newyorkeric Diglot Moderator Singapore Joined 6381 days ago 1598 posts - 2174 votes Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: Mandarin, Malay Personal Language Map | Message 2 of 22 07 August 2011 at 4:02am | IP Logged | ||
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It looks very well done, and I intend to try it when it's available. Here's hoping the project is successful, and we see many more bilingual books (with audio!!!). Good luck!
Edited by newyorkeric on 07 August 2011 at 4:03am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Jinx Triglot Senior Member Germany reverbnation.co Joined 5695 days ago 1085 posts - 1879 votes Speaks: English*, German, French Studies: Catalan, Dutch, Esperanto, Croatian, Serbian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Italian, Spanish, Yiddish | Message 3 of 22 07 August 2011 at 4:08am | IP Logged | ||
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I would very much like to have a look at it, although my living situation post-August is currently very much up in the air (I will be living in either the US or Germany, and I won't know for sure which it is until after September 1). So I'll refrain on filling out the form for now. But if you're still interested in getting reviewers in early September, I would love to participate then.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| DavidW Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6528 days ago 318 posts - 458 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French, Italian, Persian, Malay Studies: Russian, Arabic (Written), Portuguese, German, Urdu | Message 4 of 22 07 August 2011 at 11:03pm | IP Logged | ||
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There'll be more in late August/early September, so you can get a copy then.
So far only four applicants (did I mention you get a free copy!? :-). If you apply from the UK, you are pretty much guaranteed one. Edited by DavidW on 07 August 2011 at 11:20pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5264 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 5 of 22 08 August 2011 at 2:26am | IP Logged | ||
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Congratulations, David! Good on you! Put me down for a copy. One of my friends here on-island is a French teacher at a local high school and she graduated from the Sorbonne. French is next on my hit list after Portuguese and I can read at a fair level in the language. I love the book- it is so much more than a "children's" story on so many levels. I'm also not in the least way interested in Harry Potter. So for me "Le petit prince" is the way to go! I wish you much success with your project.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| DavidW Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6528 days ago 318 posts - 458 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French, Italian, Persian, Malay Studies: Russian, Arabic (Written), Portuguese, German, Urdu | Message 6 of 22 08 August 2011 at 4:28pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks. It's a nice book. I did the translation and I know chunks of it off by heart
now. I'm going to try to only do books that you might want to read even if it wasn't a language learning exercise. If you are going to be spending a lot of time reading it many times again and again, this is pretty much a requirement. The next books I'm working on are: Little Prince Eng-Ar and Fr-Ar A couple of books by Taha Hussein, a well-known Egyptian author (English-Arabic) Master and Margarita (Eng-Ru) Alice in Wonderland (various combinations) A couple of 19th century French books (not yet decided which). For the more 'serious' books (Taha Hussein, Master and Margarita etc.) there will probably also be chapter-by-chapter analysis recorded in the target language. I'm also spending time experimenting with digital formats. Edited by DavidW on 08 August 2011 at 4:32pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Doitsujin Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5322 days ago 1256 posts - 2363 votes Speaks: German*, English | Message 7 of 22 08 August 2011 at 5:13pm | IP Logged | ||
If you're creating an English-German version, audible.de offers a free German "Alice im Wunderland" audiobook based on the same text as the German Projekt Gutenberg version. (For more information on free access to audible.de, see my related post.) BTW, the spelling of the German text, which was first published in 1865, is a bit archaic and is, IMHO, not suitable for a print edition as it is now. (However the text that is read in the audiobook version is OK, because most archaic expressions have been replaced with more modern equivalents.) Edited by Doitsujin on 09 August 2011 at 9:34pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| DavidW Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6528 days ago 318 posts - 458 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French, Italian, Persian, Malay Studies: Russian, Arabic (Written), Portuguese, German, Urdu | Message 8 of 22 16 August 2011 at 11:22pm | IP Logged | ||
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Still 15 copies left.
I'm wary about the age of 'Alice in Wonderland'... more than 150 old years now. I would say the style of the English is a bit quaint, but that's part of it's charm, and for the most the student is exposed to structures and vocabulary that is perfectly valid today. I used this book to study German, I liked it a lot. I used a different audiobook, a commercial one, read by Susan Weilandt. She does fantastic voices for the different creatures. I think for the public domain works (works with both original + translation in the public domain) I will work on making a library of free texts. The 'classics' often have good audiobooks available for free too. I have been working on a different alignment and presentation that is less time consuming to produce than that used for 'The Little Prince.' It's not as attractive, but still allows easy use. Here's one I've done (Zola - Germinal): www.omilialanguages.com/hosted_files/germinal.pdf There's a good free audiobook here: http://www.bibliboom.com/rubrique,zola-emile,272721.html I'm thinking to make the A4-formatted PDFs available for free, with hardcopies (books) and files formatted for digital readers etc. available at a very modest price. More details to follow. For some books, it can be worthwhile to make changes to an existing translation to create a high-quality bilingual text. Other times there may be no suitable unabridged existing audiobook, and this will need to be produced. It's also possible to create bilingual texts with Google Translate translations. As Google's translation databases have often seen different translations of well known texts, this can give better translations than expected, that often run very close to previous human-made translations. This presents an interesting copyright situation :-). Edited by DavidW on 16 August 2011 at 11:47pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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