From one of the authors of Basic Patterns of Chinese Grammar comes Speak and Read Chinese, a simple, fun guide that helps language learners remember pinyin, tones, and characters of essential Chinese words. Students and teachers rate pinyin, tones, and characters as some of the most difficult aspects of learning Chinese. This book addresses this issue by organizing easy memorization tricks for the three hundred most basic characters in popular textbook series like Integrated Chinese and New Practical Chinese Reader. Larry Herzberg did his Master's and PhD work in Chinese Language and Literature at Indiana University. He founded Chinese-language programs at two colleges and has been teaching for thirty years.

The book consists of Elementary and Pre-intermediate courses with parallel Chinese-English texts. The author maintains learners' motivation with funny stories about real life situations such as meeting people, studying, job searches, working etc. The method utilizes the natural human ability to remember words used in texts repeatedly and systematically. The author composed each sentence using only words explained in previous chapters. The second and the following chapters of the Elementary course have only about thirty new words each. Phonetic transcription Pinyin transcribes the sounds of Mandarin using the western (Roman) alphabet. The book is equipped with the audio tracks. The address of the home page of the book on the Internet, where audio files are available for listening and downloading, is listed at the beginning of the book on the copyright page. As you read a bilingual reader, your brain begins to remember words and phrases simply because you are exposed to them several times. You don’t even realize, until you must recall what you’ve learned, that you have already learned the new words and phrases. The graded language book with a parallel translation has helped many to uncover their potential for learning multiple languages. Whether you are learning a language as a hobby or for a necessary purpose, you will find such books are supportive. It can usually take you from one to three months to finish a bilingual graded reader at beginner level (A1) and elementary level (A2). The amount of time depends on your previous experience with learning foreign languages and on your personal abilities. At this point you should be able to ask and answer simple questions with the following questioning words: What? Who? Where? When? Which? How many/much? A good idea is to use the free VLC media player to control the playing speed. You can control the playing speed by decreasing or increasing the speed value on the button of the VLC media player's interface. Read and listen at the same time!

As globalisation continues languages are disappearing faster than ever, leaving our planet's linguistic diversity leaping towards extinction. The science of how languages are acquired is becoming more advanced and the internet is bringing us new ways of teaching the next generation, however it is increasingly challenging for minority languages to survive in the face of a handful of hegemonic 'super-tongues'. In Speak Not, James Griffiths reports from the frontlines of the battle to preserve minority languages, from his native Wales, Hawaii and indigenous American nations, to southern China and Hong Kong. He explores the revival of the Welsh language as a blueprint for how to ensure new generations are not robbed of their linguistic heritage, outlines how loss of indigenous languages is the direct result of colonialism and globalisation and examines how technology is both hindering and aiding the fight to prevent linguistic extinction. Introducing readers to compelling characters and examining how indigenous communities are fighting for their languages, Griffiths ultimately explores how languages hang on, what happens when they don't, and how indigenous tongues can be preserved and brought back from the brink.

Among American naturalists, C.S. Rafinesque (1783-1840) is second only to Audubon in the popular interest he sustains. This interest is due in part to his colorful life and provocative personality, but he is also remembered for devising Latin scientific names for more plants than any other naturalist who ever lived--and a great number in the animal kingdom, as well. This passion for nomenclature has kept his name memorable (some would say notorious) among naturalists. Yet his taxonomic writings made up only a part of his extensive oeuvre. Rafinesque's restless mind ranged over areas of inquiry from archaeology to zoology. His published writings in these fields have been difficult to lay hands on and have never been collected. Among such essays now gathered into this volume, two were unavailable until 1949, six were listed only in 1982 and four remained unknown until 2001. The recovery and reprinting of these 12 contributions help to broaden the understanding of his achievements over a lifetime. Arranged in nine sections, 25 topics are offered here (several of which are explored in more than one essay), including "the Origin of Native Americans," "Hebrew Studies," "Utopian Society," "Lightning," "The Milky Way," "Sea Serpents" and "Evolution." Editorial introductions are provided for each topic, and period illustrations--some included in the original Rafinesque publications--enhance the text.

4th Revised Edition of JAPANESE FOR BUSY PEOPLE, the most popular Japanese language textbook series in the world. Audio recordings are embedded in this enhanced eBook edition. Since it was first published in 1984, the focus of the Japanese for Busy People series has always been to teach Japanese for effective communication. Picking up where Japanese for Busy People Book I left off, Japanese for Busy People Book II goes beyond survival Japanese, turning to the basics of Japanese syntax, enabling learners to make a smooth transition from mid-beginner-level to intermediate-level Japanese. Grammar and content topics are carefully selected to assist learners to effectively develop sentence patterns and vocabulary related to each topic through the practice of talking about them. Kanji (Chinese characters used in Japanese) are gradually introduced in Book II along with furigana so that learners know how to pronounce them. By the end of the book, learners will have acquired through a series of concise grammatical explanations and extensive speaking and listening exercises a command of Japanese that will enable them to carry on a variety of daily conversations.

Includes the decisions and orders of the Board, a table of cases, and a cross reference index from the advance sheet numbers to the volume page numbers.