How expensive is your language journey?

[reineke]

Should we also count overseas property? I've spent a few pennies on hard copies of learner/intermediate resources. Native media is something I would have continued buying even if I had remained monolingual. Subscriptions - God, no.

[DaraghM]

is there anything you purchased (for any level) anything you feel is a "must have" in your book?

I wouldn't have any must haves as such, but I would start using material written entirely in French as soon as possible. Courses like Alter Ego, Édito and Echo do this. The only catch is they're designed for classroom use, so you may need to purchase a separate guide, and have a good dictionary at hand. These courses tend to have more up to date material and language usage.

I'm on the fence now, as to whether grammar exercises lead to a language competence. I like reading about different theories in SLA, and that sometimes skews my approach to learning and purchases. E.g. Audio Lingual, Input Hypothesis, Focus on Forms, Task Based Learning, Skills Acquisition theory, CLIL, Dogme, e.t.c. The last two are teaching methodologies where for CLIL, I'm learning Continental Philosophy through French, and Dogme using the TuneIn App.

[Chung]

My question is, how much (or little) have you spent so far? Do you buy all the resources or do you have a more frugal approach? Do you think spending the money you have has helped or do you think you could have done without? Feed my curiosity, please!

I feel an old post coming on...

That beats the hell out of me since I don't have the receipts/paper trail for all the classes I attended or stuff I've bought.

To be a little more pedantic, I can't give an accurate figure once we account for inflation (hey, I've been in the language-learning business for a while) and foreign exchange (my books in Saamic languages among others didn't cost me dollars).

Would anyone here want to run a mark-to-market check on the inventory circa 2013? (I've added more stuff since; my Korean stuff is noticeably absent in the photos).

You know you want to

Hard copies of stuff not in boxes or strewn on my desk.



Hard copies for my beloved Uralic languages.

I've spent a small fortune over many years when I count also classes taken. The amount of stuff not in the picture above has only grown, and sometimes wish that I could get my money back on some of my transactions, though. At some time in the future, I can easily imagine that many of my books will end up as donations to the public library, if not some lucky linguaphile. Write-offs are write-offs...

See here for more discussion.

[tiia]

Now I did some calculation and end up with:

Swedish (started October 2017): 135,11€
Including the upcoming bill for the current course.

Spanish (restart in October 2014): 306,80€
Not included:
-Two used cheap books (literature), that I bought for a family member, but have not (yet?) given to the person in question.
- maybe 3-4€ for copies in the classes.
- drinks during the 2-3 1:1 language exchanges or at language cafes.
- one small book and costs for copies during school (before 2014), maximum 15-20€ for both.

Finnish (started in 2006!): 1255,13 €
The costs of the first 3-4 courses (2006-2008) I had to estimate, plus several books, because I couldn't find the price anymore, that I had actually paid. I think the estimation is now relatively close to the real price.
Not included:
- Fiction books! I guess I might have spent around 300-500€.
- DVD's. Not that many though. Maybe worth 50€.
- the 1€ for copies in some of the classes.
- drinks/food during language exchanges or language cafes.
- Travels, because though travelling has been also useful for practising, I don't count them in here.
- Expenses for studying one year in Finland. (But I also got some money from the EU, covering more or less my additional costs.)
- Expenses for moving here etc.

However, as I now live in Finland and work here using Finnish, I think it has already paid off.

Though I cannot say 100% sure that I have not forgotten anything in the calculation, it should be pretty much complete otherwise.

[Iversen]

I don't participate in courses and I don't use tutors, so my expenses are mainly of two kinds: 1) grammars and dictionaries, 2) participation in gatherings and conferences (although I always try to extend them into real holidays which also have other gratifying aspects). As for the books I have already covered most of my present target languages and those that might come on my agenda in the near future. I can't say the same thing about the voyages - they will cost me some money.

[WildGinger10]

I've spent probably around $150 on German so far, but I've had a few advantages, the biggest one being that I was flown to and lived in Germany for 6 months on a company's dime. I'm also not at a stage where I need a tutor like from iTalky and I intend to fly myself back to Germany and live there again for at least a few months so I expect I will be spending a LOT more on that education soon.

[Cainntear]

I think I'm probably past the break-even point... I've probably earned more in language teaching than I've spent on language learning (including my distance degree)

[jeff_lindqvist]

Hardly anything on formal lessons. The main exception would be classes at Oideas Gaeil, and of course the cost of travelling+accomodation. My two terms of Portuguese didn't cost me much besides travelling to the university once per month. Monthly LingQ membership for some time (many years ago). Then books...

[Ani]

Expensive/inexpensive is extremely relative. I find the langage hobby to be significantly less expensive than any of my husband's hobbies Soo...

I'd have a bit of a hard time counting what I've actually spent. If I only count the things I've spent money on AND actually used, why learning French was very inexpensive. If I count the piles of books I've bought and never touched.. well that's a different story all together.

[varto2893]

My question is, how much (or little) have you spent so far? Do you buy all the resources or do you have a more frugal approach? Do you think spending the money you have has helped or do you think you could have done without? Feed my curiosity, please!

I feel an old post coming on...

That beats the hell out of me since I don't have the receipts/paper trail for all the classes I attended or stuff I've bought.

To be a little more pedantic, I can't give an accurate figure once we account for inflation (hey, I've been in the language-learning business for a while) and foreign exchange (my books in Saamic languages among others didn't cost me dollars).

Would anyone here want to run a mark-to-market check on the inventory circa 2013? (I've added more stuff since; my Korean stuff is noticeably absent in the photos).

You know you want to

Hard copies of stuff not in boxes or strewn on my desk.



Hard copies for my beloved Uralic languages.

I've spent a small fortune over many years when I count also classes taken. The amount of stuff not in the picture above has only grown, and sometimes wish that I could get my money back on some of my transactions, though. At some time in the future, I can easily imagine that many of my books will end up as donations to the public library, if not some lucky linguaphile. Write-offs are write-offs...

See here for more discussion.

I've never seen such a collection of language books. It's impressive!