Yes, I’ve heard several people say that the old Serbo-Croat course was one of Assimil’s all-time best offerings. (I believe I’ve heard it said that their 1960s/1970s era courses in Modern Greek, Russian, and Catalan were the stuff of legends too…)
I guess you’re right about them not reprinting these courses. (Even so, if they did do a small run of limited editions, I reckon they could make a little money on it. Most average customers would go for the newer editions, of course. But hardcore language keeners would most likely end up getting BOTH editions!)
Mike, I thought that the Ducos-Filippi book was not translated into Italian, too, and for the very reasons you stated. But I found these on amazon.it, yesterday: Amazon.it . It surprised me to see this. . . . However, now that I look closer, it appears you’re right, despite what the Editore is listed as for the book, alone, and this is only the French edition. (I’m not at all offended that you questioned my post–never hesitate.)
I think the Desessard book is excellent. The Ducos-Filippi effort did not meet with much favor that I ever saw. If Assimil had sense, they’d issue the French-Latin version of Desessard’s book w/ the new set of ecclesiastical and reformed pronunciation recordings from Italy.
Jay_B, thanks for the caution. I’ll keep it in mind.
I have a copy of the old Assimil Rus. course from the 60s or 70s. It’s much like Desessard, which I bought at the same time, and may be even more crammed with information. Unfortunately I do not have the Rus. recordings, which I could not afford at the time–which might have been vinyl records at that point, I don’t know–but only the book. I’d like to find the recordings somewhere, now.