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Audio-Forum’s FSI 50% -off special | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Bookstores |  | |
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 6937 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes  20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 1 of 10 08 October 2009 at 5:32pm | IP Logged | ||
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I normally don't like to support stores that resell original FSI courses at inflated prices, but I'll make an exception for today. I haven't changed my job to being a sales rep for Audio-Forum (yet :-P) but like some people on this board, I can't resist getting a high-quality language course, no matter how whimsical the choice seems :-P
Audio-Forum is selling its larger language courses (e.g. FSI, "Mongolian Basic Course", "Modern Russian", "Finnish for Foreigners") at half price until Saturday, October 10 (i.e. this coming Saturday). When adding these courses to your shopping cart, you get a coupon code from Audio-Forum that allows you to buy them a half-price (look under "Full Length Course Half-price Special" on the left of Audio-Forum's website for more information). In general it means that some fairly well-regarded courses (e.g. "Beginning Slovak", "Modern Russian") are being offered for between $100 to $150 US until Saturday. In my case, I got frustrated trying to look for used, cheap copies of the materials for "Finnish for Foreigners" and on a whim decided to browse Audio-Forum (I was expecting to see the usual extortionate prices but I was in for a bit of a surprise) I'm buying both volumes of the Finnish for Foreigners course (books + CDs) and paying less than if I were to buy the individual course materials through Amazon Marketplace or Ruslania.com (a Finnish bookstore). I am tempted to scoop up one of "Modern Russian", "Mongolian Basic Course" and "Easy Way to Latvian" too. While I'd give a pass to Audio-Forum's offering of FSI material that's already available for free on VagabondPilgrim's site, getting the larger non-FSI courses may be worthwhile. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 6937 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 2 of 10 10 October 2009 at 6:38pm | IP Logged | ||
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In case anyone else is interested. Audio-Forum has extended this promotion of 50% off on its large language courses through midnight Monday.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| maaku Senior Member United States Joined 5355 days ago 359 posts - 562 votes Speaks: English* | Message 3 of 10 10 October 2009 at 7:43pm | IP Logged | ||
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Interesting... I might pick up the Russian series. Does anyone have any experience with
these courses though? The only non-FSI, but FSI method course I've used is Beginning Japanese, which was terrible IMHO. It was 90% there.. but missing the 10% polish that really makes it useful. Almost as if someone read about the FSI method and designed the course but without having gone through an FSI course before. Does anyone have any positive experiences with these FSI look-alike courses? Any particularly good courses? Modern Russian I've been thinking of getting for a while, although even at that discount it might be cheaper elsewhere.. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 6937 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 4 of 10 11 October 2009 at 1:54am | IP Logged | ||
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The only non-FSI language course that I've used and that's currently offered by Audio Forum is "Beginning Slovak" (I've heard that "Contemporary Czech" by Michael Heim is also pretty good, but I've never used it). I find that the only thing "Beginning Slovak" has in common with FSI courses is it use of substitution or transformation drills. Apart from this similarity in exercises used, "Beginning Slovak" is much more user-friendly than any FSI course that I've used. Its dialogues are short, but sometimes comical with the odd idiomatic or colloquial expression.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 6937 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 5 of 10 11 November 2009 at 1:13am | IP Logged | ||
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If anyone is still interested in this, I got an email from Audio Forum about another promotion - it calls this one the "5151 Holiday Sale". I guess that Christmas shopping for the language geek doesn't need to start on Black Friday (i.e. the day after Thanksgiving in the USA).
You can buy a lot of Audio Forum's merchandise (including those "big" language courses that we've been talking about in this thread) for 51% off. When buying eligible material, you enter the code 5151 and get the discount. Audio-Forum's websites states that this promotion is valid until Sunday, November 29 What I said before still applies: Consider some of the stuff that's there and isn't from FSI but skip most of the FSI courses that are in stock even if they are going for half-price since fsi-language-courses.org has many of them for free. I'm really tempted to pick up something. "Easy Way to Latvian" could look cool on my bookshelf but I do have my hands full with other languages...
Maaku: Amazon sells the books for Modern Russian 1 at a much lower price (if I remember correctly, they cost $20 or $30 US - even less if used), yet it seems to resell the complete kit of audio and books using Audio-Forum as the source (checking the price about 5 minutes at Amazon.com, the price for Modern Russian I is the same as that of Audio-Forum's full price and Amazon lists Audio-Forum as the publisher). I'm wondering whether the complete set for Modern Russian I & II could really be had more cheaply elsewhere even after accounting for Audio-Forum's promotion. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 6937 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 6 of 10 04 December 2009 at 6:25pm | IP Logged | ||
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Not to sound like a shill, but Audio-Forum has sent another email to me stating that it has extended the 5151 promotion (51% off a lot of its inventory including some "big" courses) until next Sunday (i.e. December 13, 2009) at midnight.
I'm beginning to think that the Christmas shopping rate must be really slow at Audio-Forum this year and it's having a tough time moving its inventory. It's been offering its stuff at half-price for a good part of the fall already. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 6937 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 7 of 10 30 January 2010 at 5:30pm | IP Logged | ||
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This will very likely be my last post about this topic. Audio-Forum is planning to close down by the middle of February and is having a fire-sale. It's offering its remaining inventory at 65% off.
This may be a good time to get some otherwise expensive, non-FSI courses (e.g. Beginning Slovak, Modern Russian, Finnish for Foreigners, Spoken Eastern Armenian, etc.) at a big discount. I myself am planning on getting one or two of these larger courses but not yet sure which one. As a side-note, I suspect that this recession was the final straw for the company. Extending the deadlines for those promotions of 50% off (there was also a promotion of 45% during last summer) couldn't have been a sign of a company with a decent level of sales. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| hobbitofny Senior Member United States Joined 6014 days ago 280 posts - 408 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Russian | Message 8 of 10 14 March 2010 at 12:22am | IP Logged | ||
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With Audio-Forum closed, I wonder if anyone will pickup Modern Russian and keep it in print. I will miss Audio-Forum, but miss MR being in print more.
1 person has voted this message useful |
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