Language Bookstore Adventure in Austin, Texas 📚🦇

Y'all asked, I answered. Let's go on a polyglot bookstore adventure together in Austin, Texas!
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✨About/FAQ
↳ Hi! I’m Abigail (she/they). I love learning languages and using them to live a multilingual life. I post videos sharing my honest experience learning, improving, and maintaining multiple languages, and tips and advice based on the things I've learned along the way. My goal is to create a supportive community of people who love languages and the things we can do with them as much as I do! My current languages-- English (native), French, German, Spanish, Italian, and Bulgarian.
✨ Music
↳ share.epidemicsound.com/1vufuq
✨ Chapters
0:00-2:21 Intro
2:21-5:08 HPB Southpark Meadows
5:08-9:41 HPB South Lamar
9:41-11:38 BookPeople
11:38-17:23 HPB North Lamar
17:23-20:40 Kinokuniya
20:40-21:22 Outro
✨ Disclaimer
↳ This video is not sponsored.

[@katherineelisabeth4387]

This was such a nostalgic, old-school-vlog style video and I absolutely loved it. Consider this my vote for the Polygot Progress book club, also! 😊

[@darrendaka3688]

I wish there were more places like this , wandering through shops like this is heavenly 😊

[@PolyglotProgress]

It was such a fun day!!

[@JohnnyTsc]

I remember watching the first video years ago, thank you for being part of my learning history, what a journey 😄

[@castellanspandrell891]

If you're ever in Montreal, definitely check out Librarie Michel Fortin. They're a bookshop devoted entirely to language books, and they have so many different languages! Its textbooks and real books in the target language - i remember seeing a Scottish gaelic translation of Astérix, for example. It's also right across the street from the flagship Renaud-Bray, which is like a Québécois french-language equivalent of Barnes and Noble (but nicer, imo. They also have a huge comic and manga selection in french!) If you go during the last weekend of may, there's also the Montreal comic arts festival - it's a huge street festival (like six blocks!) devoted just to comics! There's a bunch of authors and illustrators there doing signings, and local book stores and publishers selling books too.

[@PolyglotProgress]

Thank you so much for these recommendations! I've actually been itching to visit Montreal, so hopefully in the next year or two I'll be able to make it up and will also be able to check out all of these spots!

[@Ashikawahong]

The Librairie Michel Fortin sounds like heaven on earth!

[@mandiepitre8063]

Ah!! I've been going to visit Montreal soon - I will definitely be checking this out! Halifax has next to nothing in language books

[@ancientstarfruit]

oh girl you've inspired me to pick up french just to spend a week in Montreal and visit this store and practice with the locals 🤣😭

[@makizdat]

This video was enormously fun -- both in the content and in the way you did it. Maybe your best video to date.

[@josephscottlawrence]

That same Kinokuniya is what motivated me to start studying Japanese more seriously! It’s been a really fun year since then.

[@MarchingBandsFromHome]

Was gonna complain that there are no bookstores in Albuquerque, but actually googled a few interesting ones! I may have to have an adventure like you! Great video. 👏🏼

[@marinab8205]

Da bin ich neidisch. Ich würde auch gerne mal in so einen großen Second-Hand-Buchladen gehen. Leider findet man nur selten Bücher in Sprachen wie Irisch und Isländisch, die ich lerne.

[@joreneelanguages]

Omg I love this video! Now I want to do this lol. HPB hive, if/when I ever leave the half price books market I will weep. Would love the polyglot progress book club! A discord perhaps?

[@rich5729]

I have all three Shadowing books and really like them! If you like that sort of thing, there's also the "Let's Speak!" series which has about 8 books up to intermediate, with a similar learning style. Also I have all of the tadoku graded readers, but honestly I haven't touched them much as satori reader is too good. If you do go for the graded readers, skip level 0, as level 1 has the same difficulty (range of vocab) but more words per story :)

[@KMMOS1]

There are several Half Price Books stores near Seattle, WA, in the Greater Puget Sound region. The store nearest the University of Washington probably has the best foreign language section. (At least it did when I was last there several years ago.) The HPB at Crossroads, in Bellevue across the lake from Seattle, had a roll-up metal door/wall to a coffee shop with a sit-down drinking and reading area. An addicting pleasure, indeed.

[@langdinish]

I was certainly not expecting that OFMD reference! (But omg the books stores and language learning - or even books in other languages - there is huge!)

[@Ashikawahong]

So excited for this! It's really interesting to see what American bookstores have to offer! A second hand book store like Half Price Books is amazing for language books because you get to find old editions of Teach yourself and many other 'older' but usually better resources. BookPeople on the other hand only seems to offer new books, so maybe that's why you didn't find that many interesting things there. Don't worry. I'm not going to come to America to buy all the good language books at your favorite Half Price Books 8DD (No seriously though, I can definitely understand that kind of worry.) Yay, Warrior Cats! Loved it as a child and listened to some of the audiobooks in French a few years ago

[@PolyglotProgress]

Yes! I also love how many books I've never heard of but end up finding useful I can find at second hand bookstores! I've thought about that for the book club too! I want to just stick with one thing first though as I get it set up. I'm adding those books to my list, thank you for the recommendations!

[@sasharama5485]

There is also a tv series of elena Ferrante's book🫶

[@mycobacteriem2540]

I wont call myself an active language learner by any means. i try and keep up with my spanish, and sadly my catalan needs more work but i'm getting there. books are my favorite way of immersing myself in spanish. im also one of those adults who quite enjos middle grade fiction in english, so picking it up in spanish is also fun for me. i love the whimsy and fun mdidle grade offers.

[@melaniegrace7707]

I wish one of those Japanese shops were in Florida! Also I love this color hair!

[@ThatNerdyMystic]

You're in Austin?! I'm in Austin! Omg. I'm learning French, Japanese, German, and others... I'll have to keep up more and see if you're doing any language meetups! 😁 And yeah, same opinions about the different HPB's. Kinokuniya is SO COOL, but I can never find a parking space, because it's so popular!

[@bhutchin1996]

Incredible variety at different HPB locations. You should visit the mothership in Dallas. Lots of rare finds.

[@nuansd]

Oh yeah! I just went a few weeks back and it was sick, not too many cool language books though tbh.

[@PolyglotProgress]

I definitely plan on it! And yeah I love how different every store is!

[@bhutchin1996]

@@PolyglotProgress The one not too many miles north in Richardson is good too. It's in a shopping area with a movie theater where you can order food and beer, Alamo Drafthouse Cinema. Also, some ethnic restaurants there.

[@languageishard]

I also struggle so much with shadowing. Like, even in languages I'm intermediate in I struggle so much. Its nice to hear someone else say the same thing because I only ever hear people talk about how great shadowing is

[@PolyglotProgress]

Yes! I feel like I only hear good things and I *want* to love it but I just haven't been able to make it work for me quite yet.

[@BrainInAVat7]

I appreciate the bat emoji in the title, lol

[@PolyglotProgress]

I just hope I can think of other good city-specific emojis for future videos 😂

[@theoraven]

What a fun video! Now I want to visit all of the HPB by me. I think I have been to 3 in my area, but there are definitely more. This also reminded me that I just want to check out more bookstores in general in my area.

[@J17891]

I just started rereading a Warriors cat series that I read in middle school 😂 I should try reading it in Spanish! I gasped when you showed the Japanese copies of Heartstopper. I attempted learning Japanese in the past but didn’t keep up with it. Now I’m learning Norwegian, so I don’t think I’ll add Japanese too soon. That store looks wonderful!

[@ReneBarcena7]

Hi there! I’m also a language nerd and have been living in Austin for two years. I just went to HPB yesterday and found L’amica geniale in Greek. How funny is that?! It’s definitely above my current level but I’ll work my way up to it. Thank you for creating these wonderful videos. Happy language learning! 😊

[@marcelamacedo4574]

I live in Brazil and is reeealy hard to find textbooks, specially cheap ones 😢 Although the variety is limited, you can find some things here and there in used bookstore, but most of the times I end up using on line sources. I loved the video and expect to visit Austin and brouse through those bookstore someday ❤

[@igorcarvalho329]

Greetings from Brazil! I would like to thank you for this video! I do love going to book stores and just buying me anything that catches my eyes, especially when written in other languages. Therefore, I LOVED the way you showed us your bookstores in Austin! Ps: believe me, you will simply adore Cornelia Funke and her trilogy. Tintenherz was one of the best German books I read, enjoy!

[@JuanSoares-sf8zn]

Thank you very much! There are some words that you have helped me reactivate!

[@amandawrites5235]

Love this video! Now I really want to go to Texas

[@user-si3gk1bv4x]

I love your hair!!❤

[@PolyglotProgress]

Thank you!

[@nuansd]

kinokuniya!! Love going but the book section is usually very limited nowadays :/

[@PolyglotProgress]

Ah boo, I've never been to one in any city before so I didn't have anything to compare its current selection to, that's a shame it's getting more limited!

[@user-dh3df1gl5j]

Which store would you recommend for German language books?

[@svetlozarstoyanov8400]

Готина кола ;)

[@Bastard-of-Ming]

Keep it up!