[elevator jazz music]
Hello! My name is Abigail and welcome back to Polyglot Progress.
I just want to start off by apologizing for disappearing from YouTube for like 2 months.
Had I known I wouldn't be uploading while moving I would have
said something and just kind of planned to be away for a little while but I honestly thought that
I was going to be uploading up until April and then just uploading prefilmed content.
But here we are. And I've decided that with that, with moving to a new city in a new state, having a new apartment,
I just want to have a fresh start. I am not going to edit all of the recap videos that I filmed
and didn't get around to editing while I was gone. I am not going to film my quarter 1 update/quarter 2 goals video at the end of
quarter 2. I am just going to move on with other video ideas that I had, film a sort of 1/2 update and quarter 3 goals video
very soon
and not dwell on the fact that I missed out on making a lot of videos that I was really excited to do
and missed out on posting weekly for the past few months and
getting around to some of my language goals that I had set out to do in quarter 1 because I was so busy.
All that said, while I was packing up my things and just getting rid of old stuff I wasn't gonna bring with me, I realised that
I had way more language textbooks than I'd even realised.
I had drastically thinned out my language book collection before I moved out of my mom's house the first time---
Thank you COVID for that fact that I am able to say "first time"---
I didn't really want to have a language book "collection" anymore.
I just want to have textbooks that I was either using, or went back to review material or reference material from,
or was planning to getting around to or get around to reviewing on here very soon.
So my language book collection became a lot smaller than the 50-100 books that I had before I moved to New York,
but I had packed all of those books up and just kind of left them in storage at my mom's, which meant I had to deal with them
before I moved to Texas.
Spoiler alert: they're still at my mom's house... Sorry mom.
I did manage to get rid of about half of them, but where I'm going with this is by dealing with 50+ language books
I was reminded of something that I used to get asked pretty often when I did have a really large language book collection
which is "where and how can you buy cheap language textbooks?"
And so today I am here to answer that question for you because, other than books I bought while I was travelling in Europe
and certain textbooks that I had to buy for my French degree, i have really not spent that much money on language books at all.
And yet, at one time I had about 100 language textbooks.
So, right off the bat I will say the way to get cheap language books is to buy them secondhand.
The 3 places that I am going to talk about today all involve getting books secondhand but this doesn't necessarily mean
that you'll be getting books in bad condition. It also doesn't even necessarily mean that you'll be getting books used.
I've gotten a lot of brand new, never used textbooks, brand new novels, etc through these places and it's just because
people will buy things and then not use them and return them or get rid of them and then they end up being much cheaper than
if you just bought them [new].
So, starting off strong, the place that without a doubt I have gotten the majority of the things that I have owned over the
years, either language textbooks, books in other languages, DVDs in other languages, etc is library book sales.
I don't know if this one is as applicable for people outside of the US-- I just don't know if these are really as common---
but in the US most public libraries hold book sales annually or sometimes more often than annually
in order to raise funds for the library.
Usually how it works is they will collect book donations throughout the year and also toss in some books that were
maybe in the library collection that they don't want anymore and then they will just have a sale and sell all of them and the
profits will go towards the library for funding certain things or buying new books, etc. And the books are CHEAP.
The sale in my hometown always had books for a few dollars at most and every year on the last day of the sale,
usually a Sunday, there would be a deal where you could buy one of those kind of paper grocery bags for 5-10 dollars--
I don't remember the exact price but it was in that range--
and anything you could fit in the bag was yours for that price.
I've looked into other library sales as well and it seems a lot will do similar things, either you pay for a box or a bag or by the
pound or something like that so you're able to get a ton of books for a very very cheap price.
So how I managed to get most of my books from that hundred book collection was I would go on the last day of the sale
buy one of those paper bags, fill it up with pretty much any language related books I could find that I was even mildly
interested in, and I would leave with like 30 new books for 10 bucks.
And I know some of you are probably thinking that this sounds great but it doesn't apply to you and your library won't have any
language related stuff at its book sale, but I can almost assure you that it does.
I am from a small, very undiverse town. People do not really learn foreign languages or speak languages other than
English and have materials for those languages like novels or DVDs so I definitely never expected to find anything
and yet, I always did.
But the more I've thought about it, the more sense it makes. A lot of people will decide they want to learn a new language as
their New Year's resolution or learn language before they go on vacation to another country or
maybe have slight familial ties to a language and have a little bit of interest but not enough to really continue with it.
All things where maybe they buy books and then don't want them anymore and so they end up at a book sale.
So even if you think that you're not going to find anything at your library book sale or at a neighbouring towns library book sale
look anyway, you'll probably find something.
Of course the specific language and the quality of the materials is not always guaranteed,
there's always a lot of really outdated materials and a million AP Spanish prep textbooks at my library book sale, but
every single time I left with at least one book that I was EXTREMELY excited about and like I said I was filling up
these paper bags with books and I wasn't just picking things because they were there, I was picking things I was actually
interested in, so even if they're things that I maybe haven't held on to they were definitely things that I was excited about a lot
of it is just that I don't really hold on to materials for languages I'm not planning to very soon anymore and that used to be
something that I did do. But even having gotten rid of a lot of the things that I did get from those book sales there's a lot that
I've also held onto and there were also several books that I got at that sale that I didn't get rid of without having used.
There were things that I went through and then decided that I just didn't want to hold onto for the long term. So, overall, I've
found a lot of really good stuff and there are definitely a lot of opportunities for you to find really really cheap books that can
often be really helpful. You are of course limited to what people have donated so I would recommend not going in wanting
anything super specific. Maybe going in wanting something in a certain language but I would say don't hope to find a specific
textbook or anything like that. But I think if you're willing to just see what they have it's a great way to find super cheap books
and also a great way to support your local library.
And then the second physical place I would recommend is your local or, if you're traveling, not local used bookstore.
The place that the majority of the books currently on my bookshelf are from is The Strand in New York City.
A few weeks ago I went to a used bookstore that didn't even advertise having any kind of language books,
found a book in Spanish I'm really excited to read for about $2, saw a lot of language learning materials,
none of which I was super interested in buying, but they were there.
I know this one can be a little trickier. Again, I'm from a small town originally, we didn't have a used bookstore so I do know
that it can be a little bit more difficult to find that but overall I would say that my biggest tip here is just to look no matter what
Every time I'm at a thrift store I go to the book section and look around. Recently I haven't been finding ANYTHING not even
things that I don't want, just nothing. But because I look every time there's been a lot of times that I have found things that
I'm interested in, whether that's a novel in another language or, very randomly, a textbook that I've been wanting.
Mush like the used book sale if you go in not necessarily wanting anything specific but at least going with an open mind
and going in to check what they have, you'd be surprised at how much you can end up finding.
And finally, somewhere that you do not have to go in person because it's online, the love of my life, thriftbooks.com.
This is not sponsored I genuinely love thriftbooks. I recommend it to everyone in my life and I'm going to start off recommending
it to you by just showing you a little bit of my order history.
That's right I have 2 orders for $1.05 as well as an order for 7 books for $32.
These were all novels and the price of textbooks is going to vary based on the textbook itself,
but I have bought textbooks from thriftbooks before for about $5. You can also get textbooks that are more in the $30-40
range but usually that's because they're originally like 80 or 90. Basically, there are a lot of really really good deals on thriftbooks
Much like with the other 2 places, the books can be in kind of a variety of conditions so there are some books that have
writing inside or highlight inside and then there are others that are again, literally brand new.
The good thing about thriftbooks is they do say what the condition is and if they have multiples of a book they actually list
different options so you can specifically purchase books based on the kind that you want.
I personally don't care if a book has a bunch of pencil marks and highlight in it and stuff so I usually just buy the whatever
the cheapest textbook is, but if you are a little bit more picky about that and you don't want any writing inside or you want
to be the first one to write inside there is still a way to make sure that you're only getting like new books.
Another thing that I really like about thriftbooks is I feel like their reward system works so well.
I have gotten multiple free books and I really don't buy books that much and that $32 order has been my most expensive
order to date so it's also not that I'm buying really expensive orders. There's also way like you get 100 points if you order
through the app for the first time, you can get rewards for telling your friends about it and having them sign up with your link,
you can get points for your birthday so I'm currently trying to figure out what I want to order with my birthday points.
This is going up after my birthday so I guess check the description to see what I ended up getting.
And everything is shipped super quickly and in recycled material.
Overall, I have no complaints I really love thriftbooks. Again, not sponsored, this is just me really loving thriftbooks.
And so those are the top 3 places that I would recommend to go to find cheap language books.
Obviously there are other options as well, you can buy books on ebay or etsy or amazon or a wide variety of other sites.
I just don't tend to use ebay or etsy when it comes to language books and I don't use or recommend amazon anymore.
So: thriftbooks, thrift stores, used bookstores, library sales...go off, find all of the language learning books and books in your
target language, all within your budget.
I would love to hear about your favourite places to buy cheap books either in your target language or for learning your
target language and I also would like to know what your favourite thing or the best thing that you have every purchased at
a library sale or a used bookstore is. It doesn't have to be language related, I just want to hear about all of the things
that you've gotten from used bookstores. Again, I'm very sorry about dropping off the face of YouTube. I did post some
updates on twitter and instagram while I was gone so if you don't follow me on social media and were very confused
about where I was or just want to keep up with me in between videos I am Polyglot Progress on instagram and
I guess also Polyglot Progres on twitter, just with one s.
And yeah, I am back now with weekly videos and I have some really exciting stuff planned for the coming months.
I am very excited to be back to Polyglot Progress and be back to doing things other than moving.
So, also I guess if you're not already subscribed but are into language learning, now would be a great time to subscribe.
I pormise I won't disappear on you again.
I will see you next Wednesday and remember, practice makes progress.