sammychanforeve Triglot Groupie United States Joined 6070 days ago 43 posts - 51 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Japanese Studies: French
| Message 1 of 3 20 August 2008 at 12:45pm | IP Logged |
Has anybody had experience with this? There appears to be no English base language version, but I know French well enough and don't expect any problems. The attraction for me is the audio.
I am wondering to what degree this will really be business language, or whether it will be a slightly advanced course with a few business words thrown in.
Any insights welcome. By the way, they do seem to have an English base to learn French business language, so would also appreciate comments from anyone who has used that (as I imagine the dialogues are pretty much the same).
Thanks
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Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6441 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese
| Message 2 of 3 20 August 2008 at 1:40pm | IP Logged |
I honestly doubt the dialogs are similar between the Spanish and French business courses, though I haven't seen any of the business courses. They tend not to be even between different generations of Assimil courses for the same language. Between different languages, the format of Assimil courses occasionally changes fairly dramatically - beyond being bilingual text and audio with some grammar notes, fairly little is constant. The quality also varies.
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charlmartell Super Polyglot Senior Member Portugal Joined 6246 days ago 286 posts - 298 votes Speaks: French, English, German, Luxembourgish*, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Dutch, Italian, Latin, Ancient Greek Studies: Mandarin, Japanese
| Message 3 of 3 21 August 2008 at 3:36am | IP Logged |
I once picked up "Le néerlandais des affaires" (book+audio), new and dirt cheap therefore irresistable. Haven't actually used it as I'm basically totally uninterested in "les affaires": wouldn't have bought it if I were because: a "the good deal" isn't one if you have no use for the "bargain item". Anyway, seems to come in handy here.
It is definitely geared towards business, in the broad sense of the word. 51 lessons about a variety of topics, from agence de voyage to tests psychotechniques, from leasing to shadow price of investment, carte de crédit, eurocheque, carte magnétique de banque to liquidités monétaires internationales, les réserves de pétrole, les forages en mer, la télématique, inventaire, lettre de candidature, le conseil d'administration...... It's all done very nicely, in dialogue form, X explaining things to Y for instance, so yes, I would say it was "business" language and far too technical for me. I even have trouble understanding some of it in French (native fluency) because my mind goes walkabout.
For instance, lesson 34, translate into Dutch:
Qu'entend-on par adjudications?
En fait, il s'agit d'appels d'offres de la part d'instances gouvernementales étrangères, de parastataux ou d'organisations semi-officielles en vue d'une livraison de produits, de matériel, d'études ou des complexes prêts à fonctionner.
It is definitely not a book teaching chit-chat. Nor poetry. Avis aux amateurs.
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