About Us

Way back in the late eighties last century, Anna and Lyndal, two of the founding partners of The Language People, were both Teacher-Librarians in the then Migrant Education. We were both frustrated that the only way we could find out about new resources was through catalogs. Apart from the American Bookstore which kept a tiny ESL section, there was nowhere in Brisbane where we could browse and review the resources our teachers and learners needed. So it was Anna’s idea that we should start our own bookshop specializing in language resources. And with a miniscule amount of capital, we did, opening for business appropriately on April Fools’ Day 1988.

The third partner was Cheryl who had an admin background and taught us a lot in the early days before she saw the light and left us. Interestingly, she has just now begun a course to become an ESL teacher! Sadly, in 1997 Anna fell victim to cancer. So Lyndal now glories in the title of Sole Proprietor, ably assisted by Teresa.

This website in no way substitutes for the original reason for starting the shop - to provide a place where teachers and learners of languages could come and browse before buying. We have a lot of stock and I have no way of listing it all on this site. All I can hope to do is keep you up to date with new stock as it comes in. So please come and check us out, and if you’re very lucky, your visit may coincide with one from Boopy the Barking Beagle.

Our area of expertise is English as a second language, and that still makes up about two-thirds of the stock, with other languages about one-third. We also have some nice little gifts, mainly Australiana suitable for people to take overseas.

We also have prize-winning children’s books, because I see them advertised in the catalogs and I can’t resist them. And thought-provoking young adult fiction. And books about beagles.