Avions Hors Serie #18

[Peter Cornwell]

This first class offering from Peter Taghon provides 'chapter & verse' on Belgian Air Force operations during May - June 1940. It is an excellent source of information on an often over-looked aspect of the campaign in the west & is very well-illustrated. Highly recommended.

[Ludovico Slongo]

I completely agree with you.
Cheap and extremely detailed the book was up to now the greatest (positive) surprise of this year -as far as my book's purchaeses are concerned. It a real shame that LeLa Presse doesn't publish its books also in English language.

Ludovico

[Many Souffan]

Hello

I was very surprised , a very good surprise to see and to read this Special Issue n°18, This book filled a gap for me, and I must thank Peter Taghon to give me a good vision of the belgian Air forces in may 1940. And to learn many things. Bravo again. a good work as his LG1 even I don't speak German.

One word to Ludovico, I would like to say it is not a shame to not print out in English. It is typically a French problem. We have the best magazines, and it is incredible because we have 5 titles of historical aviation magazines for not so much French readers. And all these magazines work well with all the world.

For my company that you know we have now 4 titles and the Foreign suscribers represent between 20 to 30 percent of all suscribers we have (depend the title).

I agree with you, it will be a good thing to have bilingual books but don't forget it is only a magazine and it is difficult to let pass this idea; the french readers are conservative.

Thank you again Peter

nice to speak with you Ludovico.

[Ludovico Slongo]

Dear Many,
nice to hear from you, I owe you and all the French editors/readers a small explanation... I've looked better into my English dictionary to discover that shame means something one should feel ashamed of, more or less the French honte or something like that. I have to confess that it was absolutely not what I wanted to say, it's just my English that is not that good. What I really wanted to say is that it is a pity (possibly this is the right English word but the French one is dommage) that such beautiful studies in French language couldn't be available to a wider public, being written also in English -a not so orignal statement perhaps- but one I feel sure you agree with.
No, there is no shame at all in using the wonderful French language.
Ciao.
Ludovico.

[Many Souffan]

Hello Ludovico.

I understand better now what what do you wanted to say.

So I agree with you, but as I told you a bilingual publication OK but not for Magazines.

Ciao ciao.

[Nick Beale]

Almost everyone in Britain is taught French at school but hardly anyone ssems to remember it after they leave, for some reason.

But learning French is not impossible and the existence of so many good aviation magazines is maybe an incentive to try. (And France and the French language have quite a few other things in their favour, too...)

[Jukka Juutinen]

Maybe in Britain but not in Finland. When I was in school, choosing French was impossible. German would have been possible, but thanks to our very powerful Swedish People´s Party, Finns are forced to bow to Swedes and forced to study Swedish. Practically this means that e.g. French or German would the the third foreign language for Finnish speaking Finns (after English and Swedish). Now, for an Englishman French could be the first foreign language. The comparison is simply not fair. When relatively much larger minority dictated what the majority could do in RSA, everyone was pointing fingers at them. When 6% minority can dictate what 94% majority can do, the minority calls that equality.

[Franek Grabowski]

Well, it seems there are two things ulikely: an Englishman speaking proper French, and a Frenchman speaking proper English.
There is always a simple choice: to buy and learn or not to buy and to not learn. That is why I do not buy eg. Finnish books.

[FalkeEins]

Originally Posted by Nick Beale

Almost everyone in Britain is taught French at school
...

perhaps when you were a school boy Nick, but thats definitely no longer the case ...I worked airside for Air France for eight years - and we didn't speak much French - it was all 'Franglais' ..after all English is the international language of aviation..
incidentally I've worked with Lela Presse in the past - 600 photo captions in English in the recent 'Carrier borne Samurai' book for one - but didn't want to spend time working on non-Luftwaffe subjects ..so tend to pick and choose what I work on nowadays...to pick up on Franek's point, I happen to know a number of French people who have very good English, including Michel Ledet (Mr. Lela Presse himself ) - but translation into a language should always ideally be done by a native speaker..

[robertp01]

Hi,
I would like to inform that Avions Hors Serie #18 is a French version of the book 'Fighters over France and The Low Countries" ISBN:8391632717 published in 2002 by Mushroom Model Publications
See here http://mmpbooks.biz/books/8391632717/8391632717p.htm
Regards
Robert