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rgugler
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Quote rgugler Replybullet Topic: FSI material on ebay
    Posted: 01 January 2007 at 5:22pm
Hey all!

I've been browsing ebay for FSI materials and the audio cassettes for Italian volume 1 and 2 showed up. I'm still concentrating on spanish, but I wanted to let any interested know about them! The auction is up in about a day, with no bids. Here is the link. http://cgi.ebay.com/Learn-Italian-Official-Foreign-Service-Institute-Course_W0QQitemZ120068676816QQihZ002QQcategoryZ29792QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Here is a FSI French course
http://cgi.ebay.com/Foreign-Service-Institute-French-24-Cassettes-w-Text_W0QQitemZ130062796987QQihZ003QQcategoryZ3149QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

FSI German units 1-12 book
http://cgi.ebay.com/Foreign-Service-Institute-French-24-Cassettes-w-Text_W0QQitemZ130062796987QQihZ003QQcategoryZ3149QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

FSI Japanese 12 cassettes
http://cgi.ebay.com/Japanese-The-Official-Foreign-Service-Institute-Course_W0QQitemZ140068489226QQihZ004QQcategoryZ378QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

http://cgi.ebay.com/Offical-Foreign-Service-Japanese-Language-Course_W0QQitemZ220066311029QQihZ012QQcategoryZ2228QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

These are all the original FSI materials. There are alot of Barrons materials, but I didn't include those.

Hope this helps someone!

Rachel
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Chung
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Quote Chung Replybullet Posted: 01 January 2007 at 5:46pm

I noticed in some of those pictures that the binders have "Multilingua Inc." while the Italian binder has a little inscription at the bottom "Presented by the American Express Company."

Who is Multilingua Inc. and what does the American Express Company have to do with what are otherwise FSI materials?
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DemiPuppet
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Quote DemiPuppet Replybullet Posted: 01 January 2007 at 6:30pm
I can shed light on the latter question.

At a used book sale I found a copy of Italian courses.  Stuck in the pages of one of the books was a form letter from American Express addressed to "Dear Cardholder".  It congratulated the card holder on receiving "the most effective Language Course available".  It was signed by a person in American Express' "Special Offer Center".  I assume AE just repackaged the Italian course and gave it away as a special offer to card holders.

Edit:
Could Multilingua refer to Multilingual Books, the FSI reseller?


Edited by DemiPuppet - 01 January 2007 at 6:36pm
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Chung
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Quote Chung Replybullet Posted: 01 January 2007 at 7:09pm
Thanks for mentioning the link with American Express. Why didn't the other credit card companies catch on to using FSI courses as promotional gifts/special offers? Tongue
 
I still haven't been able to find anything about Multilingua Inc.
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Will
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Quote Will Replybullet Posted: 01 January 2007 at 8:32pm
[Edited out information irrelevant to the topic] - Will



Edited by Will - 30 January 2007 at 10:18pm
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Sir Nigel
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Quote Sir Nigel Replybullet Posted: 01 January 2007 at 11:14pm
Just curious, how much do you think the original materials could fetch on eBay? One of these days I'm going to sell off a lot of my courses I've since digitised and have wondered if I'll re-coop my money I bought them for.
Insurance Excuse:
The accident was due to the road bending.
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Will
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Quote Will Replybullet Posted: 02 January 2007 at 3:40am
[Edited out information irrelevant to the topic] - Will

Edited by Will - 30 January 2007 at 10:18pm
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Chung
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Quote Chung Replybullet Posted: 02 January 2007 at 9:36am
The only thing to keep in mind is whether the bidders on eBay know about this website. I'm sure that knowing about the free stuff here will keep the bids low on Ebay for FSI materials. I doubt that anyone who knows about this site would want to pay even a penny on eBay for FSI courses that are already here, let alone go whole hog for stuff at NTIS.
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onebir
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Quote onebir Replybullet Posted: 03 January 2007 at 1:29pm
Originally posted by Chung

I doubt that anyone who knows about this site would want to pay even a penny on eBay for FSI courses that are already here, let alone go whole hog for stuff at NTIS.


If X is ANY language for which an FSI course exists, the value of physical FSI X course should be much lower than it was before this site was set up, because there's a good chance of the X course getting uploaded in the near future, at which point it's secondhand value drops significantly.

I imagine (& hope) NTIS & resellers sales of FSI courses have dropped dramatically.  And serve them right for continuing to charge prices set at the same level as those charged by publishers that actually have to pay royalties, commission books etc...
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Chung
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Quote Chung Replybullet Posted: 03 January 2007 at 2:45pm

On one hand, NTIS does sell other documents from the government, and I'm not sure how much of its revenue comes from sales of FSI courses. It may be a relatively small part since most language learners who like FSI's methods have got by using courses from a library, resellers' courses, or modified courses such as Barron's or Platiquemos.

To boot, I suspect that more people learn languages without FSI. Judging by people who swear by French In Action, Pimsleur, Assimil, Destinos, etc., this not only tells me that many people aren't that keen on FSI, but in spite of the comprehensiveness of FSI courses for "rarer" languages such as Cambodian, Lao or Yoruba, let's be honest, those "rarer" languages aren't the top choices for the casual language learner, whose type makes up the greatest share of the market.
 
On the other hand, I'd be a little concerned if NTIS' sales of FSI stuff go down so much that it'd stop offering the courses for sale at all.
 
That would make things a little more difficult around here since we know that NTIS is a reliable and easy (if not expensive) source for new material for gdfellows. As a worst-case, someone who would want to provide a course for a somewhat more exotic language such as Fula or Lao could at least bite the bullet and get it from NTIS and then digitalize for the website.
 
 
 
 
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