Simon & Schuster would appear to be the sole, extant publisher of the Pimsleur courses. Searches of the company’s website still yield icons for these courses however, the links themselves lead to the Simon & Schuster website. It would appear that Internet Order LLC / Stroll LLC / ceased publishing this collection fairly recently. While the packaging and labelling of the CDs differ, the recorded contents of my copy of the Pimsleur Approach Gold Edition German course are identical to those of the Simon & Schuster German course of the same period. With the exception of the course titles, “Pimsleur Approach” and “Pimsleur Approach Gold Edition”, my searches of this variant suggest a history similar to the Recorded Books variant. It would appear that Recorded Books ceased publishing this collection in the earlier 2000’s. In addition, while the accompanying “Supplemental Reading Booklet” identifies Recorded Books as the publisher, the contents are identical to those of the Reading Guide accompanying the Simon & Schuster course. Save for the introduction, the recorded contents of my copy of the Recorded Books Pimsleur German course are identical to those of the Simon & Schuster German course of the same period. Although the introductory sound tracks identify Recorded Books as the publisher, the CDs and packaging identified Simon & Schuster as the holder of the copyrights. The collection was developed by Paul Pimsleur, the recording media were audio cassettes, thence CDs. In the 1990’s, and perhaps earlier, Recorded Books LLC began publishing a collection of courses entitled “Pimsleur Language Programs” for the teaching of a wide variety of languages. I anticipate that my request will be declined or simply ignored, but it is always worth asking, n’est-ce pas? I have a copy of each of the Spanish, German, French, and Italian audio cassette courses and I will be requesting permission of the current holder of the copyright to release them free-of-charge to the public. It would appear that Reader’s Digest ceased publishing this collection in the early 1990’s. Although the Pimsleur method was used throughout the course, the dialogues and course content differed completely from those published by Simon & Schuster in the 1990’s and later. The new collection was developed with the collaboration of Paul Pimsleur, the recording medium was audio cassettes, and the package included a small dictionary and a User Guide which contained a lesson-by-lesson glossary, a transcript of the basic conversations, and other information useful to the traveller. This collection replaced a previous series of courses under this title that appears to have been available since the early 1960’s. So, I continued searching, I bought a couple of used courses and, to date, I have come up with the following:īeginning around 1984, Reader’s Digest began publishing a collection of courses entitled “At Home With …” for the teaching of Spanish, German, French, and Italian. This discovery aroused my curiosity concerning the existence of other publishers and variants of these courses. Pimsleur: Different Publishers and Course VariantsĮarlier this year, I came across a variant of the Pimsleur Language Program for which the course content differs entirely from those published by Simon & Schuster.
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