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Your Local Bookstores | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Bookstores |  | |
| victor Tetraglot Moderator United States Joined 7112 days ago 1098 posts - 1056 votes  6 sounds Speaks: Cantonese*, English, FrenchC1, Mandarin Studies: Spanish Personal Language Map | Message 1 of 50 22 February 2005 at 6:13pm | IP Logged |
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What are your thoughts on the language section of your local bookstore? It is difficult for me to find a language-focused bookstore around here, though I live in the suburbs of a large city.
I went to one called Chapters last Saturday, and two shelves, on both sides, displaying methods/books for language learning, quite a lot compared to many other bookstores. There was an entire shelf dedicated to Teach Yourself ____ Series. They're so modern and the cover is so attractive. On the back the cassettes have now been switched to CDs. On the cover, it identifies the goals of the program and its intended target. It looked so attractive - but I have dealt with the program before - plain memorization of dialogues with translations on your side, dealing with "real-life situations" that hardly would ever happen. Despite its cover, the inside is actually very unattractive, almost without illustrations (not that they're too important). It's a bit of a stereotype too though - French was depicted as two lovers kissing each other... Perhaps out of two full shelves, I found only 3 books worth looking for language learning. This is unfortunate. I have to mention however that the Chinese learning books went from 4 to 5 books all the way to a whole rack of them. Looks like a lot of companies are developing material for Chinese. Edited by administrator on 23 February 2005 at 2:19am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| ElComadreja Senior Member Philippines bibletranslatio Joined 7032 days ago 683 posts - 757 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Portuguese, Latin, Ancient Greek, Biblical Hebrew, Cebuano, French, Tagalog | Message 2 of 50 22 February 2005 at 9:50pm | IP Logged |
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My local bookstores all have about the same thing... about 4 or racks (so like half a row) of various language materials about half of which is for Spanish.
There's lots of pimsuler quick&simples, with the occasional full level I. Lots of 'Teach Yourself' (I was unimpressed with these as well, except for the esperanto one) Lots of Barron(FSI) for the available languages, but I don't think I've ever seen a level 2. I usually expect to see those 501 books, some Kanji books, and some easy readers for the more popular languages. Now that I think about it, these stores have all the good stuff in them, and some more, it's just that it's all on a low level. Makes sence, there's a wider array of people that are at a low level. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Malcolm Triglot Retired Moderator Senior Member Korea, South Joined 7109 days ago 500 posts - 515 votes 5 sounds Speaks: English*, Spanish, Korean Studies: Mandarin, Japanese, Latin | Message 3 of 50 23 February 2005 at 1:56am | IP Logged |
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I do almost all my language book buying from amazon.com/amazon.ca. I've recently stopped buying language books though, as I've found hugh sections devoted to each language at my university's library. The Chinese section is particularly impressive, with hundreds (or maybe thousands) of books at the intermediate/advanced level that aren't normally available in the west. It's very difficult to find anything beyond the beginner level for Chinese in a western bookstore. Even a book called "intermediate chinese" will probably be at the beginner level, but will assume knowledge of basic grammar. This is the impression I got from browsing though the shoddy Chinese section at a local bookstore. It really doesn't matter how many books there are if they're all the beginner level. Still, I've found some pretty impressive foreign language sections in Chapters, World's Biggest Bookstore, and most notably the bookstore at my university (it's actually more of a foreign language "room" than a section. As a rule though, I never buy anything without reading the reviews on amazon.
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| administrator Hexaglot Forum Admin Switzerland FXcuisine.com Joined 7170 days ago 3094 posts - 2987 votes 12 sounds Speaks: French*, EnglishC2, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian Personal Language Map | Message 4 of 50 23 February 2005 at 2:02am | IP Logged |
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Gentlemen: In which cities are the bookstores you discuss? What languages do they focus on?
Victor, are you from the Toronto area? If yes, is there a special emphasis on Chinese and French? In my city (Lausanne, Switzerland), the largest bookstore is Payot. They have five large shelves of language books, plus some additional sections with novels in foreign languages. I have never found any good audio program there, with the possible of exception of Assimil which some people on this forum have used successfully. However, they have some good books for the intermediate and advanced learner. I recently bought a pile of bilingual Russian-French novels and a historical grammatical treatise of Spanish. Payot mostly focuses on English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and French for foreigners. They have many other languages as well but only a few titles per language. The only bookstore entirely specialized in foreign languages I know in Switzerland is in downtown Zurich. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| ElComadreja Senior Member Philippines bibletranslatio Joined 7032 days ago 683 posts - 757 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Portuguese, Latin, Ancient Greek, Biblical Hebrew, Cebuano, French, Tagalog | Message 5 of 50 23 February 2005 at 6:34am | IP Logged |
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I live in Houston, TX just so you know. I can't say how the bookstores would be in less populated areas.
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| Malcolm Triglot Retired Moderator Senior Member Korea, South Joined 7109 days ago 500 posts - 515 votes 5 sounds Speaks: English*, Spanish, Korean Studies: Mandarin, Japanese, Latin | Message 6 of 50 23 February 2005 at 4:05pm | IP Logged |
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I'm in Toronto, where more than half the population speaks English as a second language, or not at all. The Chinese sections in convential bookstores are pretty lousy, but there are a few Chinese stores with excellent language learning sections for Mandarin, Cantonese, and English. I suspect that the Chinese language materials are intended for Chinese parents who want their children to learn the language instead of speaking just English. As for French, there's no special emphasis on this language at bookstores and the Spanish section is sometimes a little bigger. However, there are far more French language materials available at public libraries. Speaking of which, I think I should mention that the public library system of any large city should not be underestimated. I've found Pimsleur, FSI, FSI clones, Linguaphone, and all sort of independent language courses in my city's public library system. The largest course has over 50 tapes! Edited by Malcolm on 23 February 2005 at 4:07pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| ElComadreja Senior Member Philippines bibletranslatio Joined 7032 days ago 683 posts - 757 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Portuguese, Latin, Ancient Greek, Biblical Hebrew, Cebuano, French, Tagalog | Message 7 of 50 23 February 2005 at 9:51pm | IP Logged |
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Yes I forgot about that! All that good stuff just sitting in the library. Unfortunatly when I look, most of it is missing (especialy the spanish stuff). But I found a library close to me that stays resonably stocked. That's where I checked out my pimsluer quick and simple french before I took on FSI.
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| kidnickels Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 7044 days ago 124 posts - 119 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishB1, French Studies: Mandarin | Message 8 of 50 24 February 2005 at 9:45am | IP Logged |
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There's an amazing bookstore in Harvard Square (Cambridge, Massachusetts - very close to Boston) called Schoenhof's that is dedicated entirely to foreign language books and materials. However, they're not cheap, and often mark books up above their list prices. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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