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Language bookstore in Hong Kong? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Bookstores |  | |
| Raincrowlee Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 6511 days ago 621 posts - 808 votes  Speaks: English*, Mandarin, Korean, French Studies: Indonesian, Japanese | Message 1 of 8 22 August 2007 at 10:24pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have to leave Taiwan to get a new visa, so I'm going to Hong Kong this weekend. I was wondering if there are any good bookstores there for language learning material, particularly Assimil. I found the address for Librairie Parenteses and I plan on checking it out, but I was wondering if there's anywhere else I should go. Thanks! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Andy_Liu Triglot Senior Member Hong Kong leibby.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6595 days ago 255 posts - 257 votes Speaks: Mandarin, Cantonese*, EnglishC2 Studies: French | Message 2 of 8 24 August 2007 at 1:51am | IP Logged | ||
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I haven't even known that there is Librairie Parenteses at my place.
If you can read language books in Chinese, there're certainly lots of good, inexpensive books, esp. reference ones. Though, I don't think textbooks are better than English ones. There aren't many HK language book publishers at all, not to say good books and non-English books. 90% of my language book collection are actually published in the mainland, and I bought 90% of them in the mainland when I traveled. Edited by Andy_Liu on 24 August 2007 at 1:51am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| nhk9 Senior Member Canada Joined 6613 days ago 290 posts - 319 votes Speaks: English* | Message 3 of 8 31 August 2007 at 11:15pm | IP Logged | ||
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I see that you can speak Mandarin. Do yourself a favour, get a visa to Shenzhen, China (just north of HK) and buy books there. The simplified characters may require time to get used to, but you will see the differences in the quality of the books
Hong Kongers are proud of "being efficient". They are more interested in cup-noodle style learning, so books like "how to master French in 3 minutes" flood the market. If you want books that give you any reasonable detailed explanations on your target language, you will have to look for books published by the various universities in China. Those books give indepth explanations, and they are much cheaper too. They don't call Hong Kong a "culture desert" for no reason. Edited by nhk9 on 31 August 2007 at 11:16pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| quendidil Diglot Senior Member Singapore Joined 6121 days ago 126 posts - 142 votes Speaks: Mandarin, English* Studies: Japanese | Message 4 of 8 10 September 2007 at 11:13pm | IP Logged | ||
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Yeah lol, I remember having a hard time finding a single bookstore while I was at Hong Kong, it seems Hong Kongers' favourite reading material consists mostly of magazines and tabloids, no offence.
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| Andy_Liu Triglot Senior Member Hong Kong leibby.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6595 days ago 255 posts - 257 votes Speaks: Mandarin, Cantonese*, EnglishC2 Studies: French | Message 5 of 8 11 September 2007 at 11:31am | IP Logged | ||
Perhaps. Someone who can't read Chinese can still find some nice bookstores targeted at tourists/other foreigners. Yet, they, like Chinese bookstores that sell academic books, can be quite hard to find. Chain stores are more likely to sell more "commercial" books... but they aren't short of (just) a few nice ones in most categories. UPDATE: I've just been to Librairie Parenteses, and I could see that it did sell Assimil books, but I'm afraid the range of choice is rather limited. There are only courses in English or French (one Chinese course in German), and only for the most popular (European) languages in Hong Kong. You wouldn't probably be able to find any course for Swedish/Turkish/Greek there. I've just bought Perfectionnement Allemand, and the price is HKD 800, a bit more than 100 USD, which is, according to the current Euro-HKD currency rate, is roughly the same as the price on Assimil.com. It's the most expensive book I've ever bought, but the price itself is reasonable, considering the huge shipment cost... That bookshop is actually the only retailer for Assimil products in all of Hong Kong, China and Taiwan. Edited by Andy_Liu on 21 November 2007 at 6:06am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| strossel Triglot Groupie Joined 6292 days ago 47 posts - 48 votes Speaks: English*, Swedish, French Studies: Icelandic, Hungarian | Message 6 of 8 07 November 2007 at 1:24am | IP Logged | ||
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Unfortunately, you won't be in town for the antiquarian book fair, but there's a list of retailers. They're from all over the world, but you might find a few locals if you check through the links.
Wow - somehow this very old post arrived at the top of my screen. Well, I hope this link helps someone somewhere. Edited by strossel on 07 November 2007 at 1:25am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ChristopherB Triglot Senior Member New Zealand Joined 6125 days ago 851 posts - 1074 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English*, German, French | Message 7 of 8 07 February 2008 at 3:54am | IP Logged | ||
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Does anyone know of any other bookstores throughout Hong Kong that would likely sell Assimil courses in either French or German?
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| Asiafeverr Diglot Senior Member Hong Kong Joined 6151 days ago 346 posts - 431 votes 1 sounds Speaks: French*, English Studies: Mandarin, Cantonese, Shanghainese, German | Message 8 of 8 07 February 2008 at 10:26am | IP Logged | ||
I have been to 4 different bookstores in Hong Kong and none of them were selling Assimil books. They all had an English section for languages but I didn't see any material written in French/German. I remember PageOne and The Commercial Press Book Center both had a good language section with a lot of material (especially for Mandarin and Cantonese), and they also had a lot of books about non-mainstream Asian languages such as Tagalog, Khmer, Vietnamese, etc. Their language material was written in English and/or Chinese, and like I said none of them were selling Assimil, unfortunately. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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