By Elizabeth Cloutman

Language Quest offers instructional materials

for more than 100 languages

Business Profile

Whether it’s phrase books for international travel, materials for polishing skills in a foreign language, or videotapes and computer software to introduce a young child to a second language - you’ll find it at Language Quest, said owner James Havlice.

“When we began the store in 1996, it was a niche market that hadn’t been served by anyone else,” Havlice said. “There’s also a lot of products like software that hadn’t been available before that are helpful to the customer.”

Language Quest has materials available in languages ranging from Azerbaijani, Basque and Catalan to Estonian, Urdu, Yiddish and Esperanto (an invented language). “We carry as much of the less common languages as we can,” Havlice said. The best-selling languages are Spanish and Italian. Chinese dialect materials are also popular.

Havlice said because many people come from all over the world to Silicon Valley for their careers or education, the store also sells a lot of instructional materials for English as a second language, especially for children. “ESL teachers often refer (parents) here, so kids will have a better chance of success (in the classroom).”

For the children of native English speakers, Language Quest offers videotapes for children under age 6 and software for children, age 7 and above. “The earlier you start a child in a language, the better chance you have of them speaking accent-free.” Older students can keep their language skills sharp over the summer by using tapes, books and software. Language Quest even carries the popular Harry Potter children’s novels in French and German.

Language Quest will soon carry travel books and maps “to fill in the gap” left by the recent closing of Phileas Fogg’s - Books Maps & More for the Traveler, Havlice said.

Havlice is a longtime Los Altos resident, having moved here 30 years ago as a student studying for his doctorate in applied engineering at Stanford. Until opening Language Quest, he worked in medical ultrasound technology. He said he has enjoyed owning his own business. “Obviously, it’s a lot of fun being your own boss. It’s also a lot of hard work.”

For more information, call 941-6383 or logon to www.LanguageQuest.com.