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A history of Assimil (in French) | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5330 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes  Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 1 of 3 31 August 2012 at 1:52pm | IP Logged | ||
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While browsing through the Assimil catalog, I found the following book (in French),
which gives a history of the company:
It sounds like Alphonse Chérel is a pretty interesting polyglot, and I'm actually rather intrigued to hear the "official" version of the company's history. Has anyone read this book? And if so, is it worth the effort of tracking down a copy? 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Juаn Senior Member Colombia Joined 5143 days ago 727 posts - 1830 votes Speaks: Spanish* | Message 2 of 3 31 August 2012 at 4:22pm | IP Logged | ||
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I own a copy. It is a handsome book, and a great way to indulge your passion for language learning while actually working on one of them.
2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Kronos Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5059 days ago 186 posts - 452 votes Speaks: German*, English | Message 3 of 3 31 August 2012 at 5:44pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have a copy of 'My Tailor is Rich'. Since I don't really know French (yet) I haven't read it, but repeatedly looked into it and picked up snatches of information here and there.
It has not more than 80 pages and lots of the space is taken up by photographs, a number of them quite beautiful though. Almost half of the book deals with Alphonse's early travels throughout Europe while the later chapters focus on the genesis of the Assimil system and the later development of the company. This is highly interesting, but not as detailed as it could have been, and unfortunately the narrative becomes even more sketchy and anecdotal as it moves on. There is a lot of family background as well. You get some idea of the man Alphonse Chérel, but he remains a somewhat mysterious figure and for some reason there is only one photo of him in the book (which indeed is reproduced twice). Assimil has been, and still is, essentially a family business, run by Alphonse's son and grandson successively. Unfortunately the book does not contain a bibliography of the Assimil courses, which is a missed opportunity; it just mentions some individual courses throughout the text, and I noticed that the publishing dates given there are obviously unreliable. There are a few tidbits. What I found interesting to learn is that the first Assimil course (L'Anglais sans peine) - if I got it right - originally didn't have any accompanying audio material. Chérel apparently got the idea only afterwards and records were produced not before the mid-1930s, and they were a huge success. But the original idea was the bilingual text format. I also realised that Chérel was already nearing the age of fifty when he devised the method and began writing the courses, which is quite unusual for a product that has such an innovative power. But well, I haven't (and couldn't) studied the earlier chapters in detail yet, maybe there is some backstory I have missed... -- Overall I'd say this book is almost a 'must' for anyone who is strongly attracted to Assimil, the production is also quite beautiful and the price reasonable, it's just that it could have been more comprehensive and less presentation-like. But even so it's still worth having, it's a nice book. 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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