Recommended sites to purchase textbooks in the US?

[viva.wasabi]

Hi all,

 

Trying to purchase HSK Standard Course and Boya books in the US. The prices on amazon.com are a bit too high for my comfort--does anyone else knows which sites sell them domestically? Or do you usually resort to amazon.cn for such purchases?

[trevorld]

• A couple years ago I bought Chinese educational material from the US-based ChinaMall.com (at the time it was cheaper to buy a bunch of China Breeze graded readers through them than Amazon) but that company is maybe defunct? 
• China Sprout is another US-based firm I know of that sells Chinese educational material including the HSK Standard Course: http://www.chinasprout.com/shop/BLK059
• Yes Asia is a foreign retailer that makes it easy for Americans to buy Chinese material (i.e. English menu, transactions conducted in US dollars, and free international shipping for orders over $39) but seems to have a better catalog of Chinese entertainment material than Chinese educational material.  http://www.yesasia.com/us/about-yesasia/en/about-yesasia-home.html

If Amazon (US) itself officially stocks a book it will probably be hard to beat the price unless you are lucky enough to find a used copy somewhere but if it just one or two 3rd-party merchants putting books up on Amazon you can sometimes find cheaper options elsewhere (maybe even directly from China) especially if you purchase enough books to get the shipping cost per book down.

[889]

You can try searching "HSK" on Alibris. There's also Abebooks, but it's now owned by Amazon. Sometimes stuff shows up on ebay, too.

[trevorld]

If you want to buy books online direct from China and ship to the US there are a couple previous threads about that:

 

https://www.chinese-forums.com/forums/topic/22900-buying-chinese-books-in-usa/

https://www.chinese-forums.com/forums/topic/16310-buying-chinese-books-online-and-shipping-to-the-us

[viva.wasabi]

Many thanks for the link! Do you know where I could purchase Boya? The ones offered on Amazon are uncharacteristically expensive. 

[trevorld]

Searching for "Boya" finds copies of the Boya textbooks at both China Sprout and amazon.cn (note with the latter that at current exchange rates shipping is $16.15 per book for 4-day FedEx shipping to the US).  Can probably use similar searches to find the book at other Chinese retailers (depending on how fast you want the book will likely have shipping charges ranging from maybe 0.5 times to up to 4 times the retail price of the books plus maybe a flat fee).

[trevorld]

Note if it isn't ownership which is important to you but you just need access to the books to study from then depending on what libraries you belong to (and often for a fee you can join a nearby university library's network) you can often get your hands on chinese textbooks for free (or cheaply) via inter-library loan.  Since you have to return them in a few weeks or months this might not be a good idea if the textbook is a bit beyond your level but if these are textbooks at a level you've been studying for awhile (and hence could get through fairly quickly) then this could be a frugal option as well. 

 

For example purchasing all five of DeFrancis' Chinese Reader textbooks would cost me over a couple hundred dollars but I can read them all for free if I borrow them via an inter-library loan via a university I'm affiliated with.  Also sometimes if you ask nicely (i.e. submit a purchase request) a library might purchase a copy of a book for you (and other patrons) to read.

[viva.wasabi]

Thanks for this trevorld! I will look into China Sprout and see if I can get find affordable shipping somewhere. Thanks again.