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Any good buys lately? | ||
Tags: Low budget | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| ericblair Senior Member United States Joined 4709 days ago 480 posts - 700 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 1 of 9 20 January 2013 at 7:22pm | IP Logged |
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I happened to stop in a Half-Price Books yesterday and picked up the following:
Russian for Beginners - Charles Duff Russian as We Speak it - Khavronina Russian in Exercises All told, the cost was less than what shipping alone would have been had I bought them all on Amazon or ebay! It is nerdy, but that excited me, haha. Anyone else get any good buys on used learning materials lately? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Elexi Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5563 days ago 938 posts - 1840 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 2 of 9 20 January 2013 at 8:35pm | IP Logged |
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Picked up the books and 7 LP records of the 1970s BBC three part German learning series
Kontakte/WegWieser/Kein Problem for £30 - a really good learning series as the audio is all in German and most of it (especially after the first two records) consists of interviews with native speakers rather than contrived dialogues. So that is essentially over 5 hours of audio material. The books are really nice too - 6 small 'large pocket' sized volumes. Each lesson consists of pronunciation practice, some contrived dialogues to teach the content of the lesson, a short humorous essay written entirely in German, an interview and some exercises and information about Germany (albeit in the 1970s - but most still relevant: e.g. how to give flowers to your host at a German dinner party). Have it all ripped to MP3 using it now. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| ericblair Senior Member United States Joined 4709 days ago 480 posts - 700 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 3 of 9 20 January 2013 at 9:24pm | IP Logged |
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Wow, Elexi, that is pretty cool!
Sometimes I think the ease of acquiring things online takes away from an appreciation of having the physical copy of something. I much prefer having the real-deal on hand though rather than a PDF or whatever. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| mahasiswa Pentaglot Groupie Canada Joined 4430 days ago 91 posts - 142 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, German, Malay Studies: Arabic (Egyptian), Persian, Russian, Turkish, Mandarin, Hindi | Message 4 of 9 20 January 2013 at 9:43pm | IP Logged |
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I'm actually pretty stoked to receive Kalaam Gamiil in the mail in this week, and then in March, volume 2.
It's an audio-intensive Egyptian Arabic course and I'm just so happy I have been able to learn so much without a formal course and that Kalaam Gamiil will be a good mix of review of the last 4 months and more progress into my first dialect. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6907 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 5 of 9 20 January 2013 at 11:55pm | IP Logged |
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Two of my latest buys:
A second-hand package of Dutch books * Nederlands for buitenlanders (textbook, two CDs with audio, plus a CD-rom I haven't yet had a look at) * Van Dale Pocketwoordenboek Nederlands-Engels * Engels - Nederlands * an early edition of Dutch: an essential grammar * plus the bonus - Supergezonde Soepen Everything for 325 SEK. And then a bundle of books in the most exotic language (so far) in my personal collection, Kikongo, all in Swedish. Two textbooks (one written in 1912, one newer, typewriter-style in A4), a book about the missionary Karl Edvard Laman (who documented the language in Swedish) and a bilingual Swedish-Kikongo dictionary. 119 SEK. Edited by jeff_lindqvist on 20 January 2013 at 11:58pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| BaronBill Triglot Senior Member United States HowToLanguages.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4687 days ago 335 posts - 594 votes Speaks: English*, French, German Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, Persian | Message 6 of 9 21 January 2013 at 3:43am | IP Logged |
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I got a bunch of the older Teach Yourself books for $1 a piece used off of Amazon:
TY Swahili TY German TY Gulf Arabic TY French TY Japanese TY Improve your German Pretty good haul for the price... 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Darklight1216 Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5098 days ago 411 posts - 639 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German | Message 7 of 9 21 January 2013 at 5:09am | IP Logged |
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I haven't had any good buys because thus far, I've only spent 10 dollars on learning French.
Libraries ftw. I'm blessed enough to live and work in areas whose libraries carry Michel Thomas for beginners, Pimsleur 1-3, FSI, Living Language, and French in Action. Those are just the resources that I've enjoyed using, but there's more. Bookstores are another story though. Borders used to be just minutes away from me, books-a-million closed their closest store too and now the only Barnes and Noble within a convenient distance is closing in February. Sorry that was a bit of a rant. To get back on topic, don't usually spend much on language learning materials. Mainly because I'm never sure that I'll actually like them unless I can borrow them first, and if I can borrow them, why spend money? However, some of the retailers that you guys have mentioned are new to me; I'm going to check them out. Edited by Darklight1216 on 21 January 2013 at 5:20am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Splog Diglot Senior Member Czech Republic anthonylauder.c Joined 5667 days ago 1062 posts - 3263 votes Speaks: English*, Czech Studies: Mandarin | Message 8 of 9 21 January 2013 at 6:31pm | IP Logged |
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I spend a lot of time in second-hand (i.e. used) bookshops, and often pick up language books I have never even heard of before.
My most recent purchase was: Sohlman Conversation Guide, published in Stockholm in 1946, and containing 5,000 words of vocabulary translated in four languages (english, french, German, and russian). It is a cross between a phrase book and themed vocabulary. What is particularly striking about this and many older language books is how densely packed the information is. The typeface is small and margins are narrow. It is in remarkable contrast to many modern textbooks which are padded out with lots of blank space and large pictures, with hardly any text. I suppose that the trend nowadays is to make books that look "easy" rather the substantial, hence my increased preference for older books. In addition to the quality of the contents of the book, the price was low too: just one czech crown (which is about 5 US cents). Such finds are real treasures for me, and they provide me with many hours of enjoyment and learning. I do think that older books are underrated, and do wonder why some people are so keen to get the very latest versions of textbooks. Not long ago, I saw a video of one language enthusiast showing the newest editions of a certain range of popular textbooks which he had purchased despite already owning the previous versions of them. The differences between versions seemed quite small - and in fact appeared to be simplifying the content and therefore not an improvement at all. So I do wonder why we are often pulled into the belief that newer is better, when experience tells us that it is often not the case. 4 persons have voted this message useful |
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