Gamma Octoglot Groupie Brazil Joined 6930 days ago 82 posts - 85 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, French, English, GermanC2, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Finnish Studies: Icelandic, Dutch
| Message 1 of 53 15 March 2008 at 7:07pm | IP Logged |
I am fascinated by the incredibly beautiful Icelandic language, and I would like to learn it through the Assimil method, which I love so much, in the near future. However, not only Assimil does not offer an Icelandic language course but also does not plan to create one. Such upsetting fact was personally verified by me yesterday via e-mail.
Dear members, the reason I am writing this is to bring together all of you and anyone else you know who is interested in learning Icelandic with the Assimil method. After doing this, we should all e-mail Assimil encouraging its crew to develop an Icelandic course. I am not sure how hard it is to get them to publish a new course, and I know it may sound too ambitious for one's ear, but I definitely consider this to be a significant first step towards our goal.
Click here to send your message to Assimil. Make sure you fill in with all the information requested. Otherwise, they will not read your message.
Feel free to introduce new ideas and suggestions. I appreciate your attention and count on your support,
Gamma
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alang Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 7208 days ago 563 posts - 757 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish
| Message 2 of 53 15 March 2008 at 11:53pm | IP Logged |
I also asked the same question over a year ago and the response was the same from Assimil. I think you are exactly right when it comes to petitioning for a particular release. In my preference it would be a German base of Icelandic, since both are Germanic languages. Just like I would like an Afrikaans Assimil course with a Dutch base. I will personally fill out the request. I hope many others are also supportive.
I can see it now.
Isländisch Ohne Mühe and Afrikaans zonder Moeite.
Edited by alang on 16 March 2008 at 12:03am
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Gamma Octoglot Groupie Brazil Joined 6930 days ago 82 posts - 85 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, French, English, GermanC2, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Finnish Studies: Icelandic, Dutch
| Message 3 of 53 16 March 2008 at 2:08am | IP Logged |
I am happy to read such a positive reply. Thank you very much for your support, alang!
With regard to the base-language of the course, I did not mention anything about it because I believe it is a delicate issue to be discussed with Assimil, due to financial matters. They would probably publish their first Icelandic course with a French base, since French speakers are the main customers of the company. However, linguistically speaking, German would be indeed more appropriated as a base-language. Anyway, maybe it is just too soon to get into that sort of detail. Firstly, I think we should feel the company's reaction to the idea of publishing an Icelandic program, and then, as the process flows, we could express our preference concerning the base-language of the book.
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rob Diglot Senior Member Japan Joined 6152 days ago 287 posts - 288 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese, Norwegian, Mandarin
| Message 4 of 53 16 March 2008 at 5:03pm | IP Logged |
I also emailed them a while back asking if they had any plans to produce such a course, but indeed got the same answer. I guess they just don't have the demand for it, but perhaps after enough emails, they will consider that they have sufficient demand... Admittedly the costs of making a course must be relatively high, so they would certainly hope to sell in the thousands before considering producing one...
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ChristopherB Triglot Senior Member New Zealand Joined 6303 days ago 851 posts - 1074 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English*, German, French
| Message 5 of 53 16 March 2008 at 9:04pm | IP Logged |
I once rather stupidly requested a Greenlandic course, but Icelandic is certainly one worth publishing, and one I would definitely use and have been hoping for. You have my support also!
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Gamma Octoglot Groupie Brazil Joined 6930 days ago 82 posts - 85 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, French, English, GermanC2, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Finnish Studies: Icelandic, Dutch
| Message 6 of 53 17 March 2008 at 12:00am | IP Logged |
I am glad to have you added to our chain, Franzi. Thank you so much!
I have just sent an e-mail to Assimil expressing my interest in a future Icelandic publication and asking them whether it is possible. What about you guys? If you haven't done this yet, please go ahead! I feel very confident about our success!
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densou Senior Member Italy foto.webalice.it/denRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6119 days ago 120 posts - 121 votes Speaks: Italian*
| Message 7 of 53 18 March 2008 at 11:12am | IP Logged |
Dialogues must be the focus of an Icelandic course because it's not difficult at all to obtain grammar books for free :)
For who can read Italian: http://www.giuristipernaso.it/KENNSLUB.pdf ... A copyright-free complete written book ... (nearly 700 pages :O ) I think it the best resource for written Icelandic, but only for Italian readers :(
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Makrasiroutioun Quadrilingual Heptaglot Senior Member Canada infowars.com Joined 6093 days ago 210 posts - 236 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Armenian*, Romanian*, Latin, German, Italian Studies: Dutch, Swedish, Turkish, Japanese, Russian, Arabic (Written)
| Message 8 of 53 18 March 2008 at 12:36pm | IP Logged |
YES! I CAN read Italian without a problem! Thanks!
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