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Thimm’s System? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| DrX Newbie Ireland Joined 3319 days ago 18 posts - 21 votes Speaks: English* | Message 1 of 4 08 April 2015 at 6:08pm | IP Logged |
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Anyone know anything about these very old Thimm's System with imitated pronunciation? Here's an example of one-
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Afrikaans-Self-taught-Natural-Phonet ic-Pronunciation/dp/1843560224/ref=sr_1_fkmr1_2?ie=UTF8&qid= 1428508969&sr=8-2-fkmr1&keywords=thimms+imitated+pronunciati on 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Speakeasy Senior Member Canada Joined 3851 days ago 507 posts - 1098 votes  Studies: German | Message 2 of 4 08 April 2015 at 7:19pm | IP Logged |
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Hi DrX,
REPRINTS and OTHER SOURCES A couple of years ago, out of sheer curiosity, I ordered a few reprints of old books for the teaching of German. Afterward, while digging around in the internet, I came across several publishers of reprints of all kinds of materials. As a simple example, here is the link to Kessinger Publishing's Rare Prints who, as it happens, offers some very old self-taught language courses, including at least one from the Timm's System series. There are several sources on the internet of free language-learning materials, some of which are limited to a collection of usual links to other sites. Here's one such site: So You Want To Learn A Language. While the texts on Librivox are not language courses, they do include audio and can be useful for advanced learners. There's lots of FREE material out there! OLDER LANGUAGE COURSES, WITHOUT AUDIO I have looked at a few of the older language courses; that is, those that were published at a time when either the feasibility, or the cost, of providing audio recordings were such that the authors presented "easy phonetic systems" as a substitute to voice recordings. While my brief review included only German and French courses, I came to the conclusion that, while these very old courses were interesting from an historical perspective, they have little to offer when compared to materials developed from the 1960's to the present day. Languages do, indeed, evolve. The texts in these very old courses present the formal spoken language as it existed quite time ago and some of the it would be considered stilted, if not bizarre, by today's standards. Also, the material is often very, very elementary. Moreover, I found that the phonetic systems were of questionable value when compared to audio files. MY CONCLUSION I found that these very old self-teaching guides for the study of foreign languages made for interesting reading, but were of limited value. Others are free to disagree! Edited by Speakeasy on 08 April 2015 at 7:50pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Doitsujin Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5119 days ago 1256 posts - 2363 votes Speaks: German*, English | Message 3 of 4 08 April 2015 at 8:59pm | IP Logged |
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I found the original books by Franz Thimm (the inventor of the method) on the HathiTrust website. For example, Spanish self-taught and German self-taught.
IMHO, there a much better free Natural Method textbooks for some languages out there. I certainly wouldn't waste my money on a reprint of the old Franz Thimm method books. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| DrX Newbie Ireland Joined 3319 days ago 18 posts - 21 votes Speaks: English* | Message 4 of 4 09 April 2015 at 8:44pm | IP Logged |
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Cheers guys,
Yeah it looked pretty weak to me. Wasn't sure if the previews on archive.org were just missing pages but seems to only be lists of vocab and some grammar rules. Probably fooled a few people back in the day! Thanks 1 person has voted this message useful |
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