Take advantage of BCU-Lausanne’s foreign-language offerings for the general public!
The BCUL has long promoted a certain linguistic and cultural plurality with the aim of facilitating encounters and exchanges. At the Riponne site, in addition to the national languages of German and Italian and international English, we also have collections in languages of recent immigration, such as Spanish and Portuguese. For language learning – including French as a foreign language – we also offer a wide range of materials suitable for everyone.
Documentaries and fiction
Every month, you’ll find a selection of foreign-language documents that keep up with the latest literary trends, allowing you to read bestsellers in their original language, or find out more about a wide range of subjects. Consult our catalog, our list of recent acquisitions on the General Public Collections page, or our short research guide. You can also take advantage of the 2,500 books in English on our digital lending platform eLectures. Borrow on your favorite e-reader/tablet/PC/smartphone!
Press
In the press room, you’ll find a number of national press titles(NZZ, Die Weltwoche, Corriere del Ticino), as well as publications that help you learn a language or culture(Vocable, I Love English World, Monocle, Jornal de letras, etc.). And, of course, there’s PressReader, with its wide selection of newspapers and magazines from all over the world for online consultation.
Self-learning a language
Our mission is to encourage independent language learning by offering a wide range of different documents! There’s no substitute for individual or group tuition or a language stay to improve active skills such as oral or written expression, but some learners are more at ease with this approach, which allows them to go at their own pace and concentrate on what they need to develop first. Our offer in this area is designed to help learners take charge of their own learning by providing them with a variety of resources(methods and manuals, dictionaries, press, bilingual books, easy reading, etc.) to develop their communication skills. Don’t forget our extensive collection of DVDs, most of which offer different versions or subtitles in several languages!
The famous Assimil method
Assimil is a French language teaching publisher, founded in 1929 by Alphonse Chérel. The publication that same year of “L’Anglais Sans Peine” was an immediate success, and laid the foundations for the Assimil method. Baptized “sans peine”, it is designed for self-learning languages based on the principle of intuitive assimilation. This approach is based on listening, reading and the daily repetition of simple phrases, excluding the need to learn by heart (hence the name “effortless”).
The Assimil method is now available in dozens of languages. BCU-L offers you many titles from the Sans peine collection, which systematically consists of two elements:
- the manual, containing between 63 and 150 lessons (depending on the language studied)
- audio recordings, on compact disc or MP3, to facilitate comprehension and practice pronunciation
Consult our catalog to access the collection and other manuals offered by Assimil or follow this link to register and access the online method.
