This second edition contains updated references and new entries to the alphabetical reference guide.

    As such it has the difficult task of mediating between academic expertise and lived experience, attempting to reconcile opposed interests and perspectives. This clearly written introduction provides a concise but comprehensive overview of the most pressing and controversial issues surrounding contemporary language use today, including intercultural communication, political persuasion, new technologies, the growth of English, language in education, and foreign language teaching and learning.

    At thirty years old, Gabriel Wyner speaks six languages fluently.  He didn’t learn them in school -- who does? -- rather, he learned them in the past few years, working on his own and practicing on the subway, using simple techniques and free online resources. In Fluent Forever Wyner reveals what he’s discovered.   The greatest challenge to learning a foreign language is the challenge of memory; there are just too many words and too many rules. For every new word we learn, we seem to forget two old ones, and as a result, fluency can seem out of reach. Fluent Forever tackles this challenge head-on. With empathy for the language-challenged and abundant humor, Wyner deconstructs the learning process, revealing how to build a foreign language in your mind from the ground up.  Starting with pronunciation, you’ll learn how to rewire your ears and turn foreign sounds into familiar sounds. You'll retrain your tongue to produce those sounds accurately, using tricks from opera singers and actors. Next, you'll begin to tackle words, and connect sounds and spellings to imagery, rather than translations, which will enable you to think in a foreign language.  And with the help of sophisticated spaced-repetition techniques, you'll be able to memorize hundreds of words a month in minutes every day. Soon, you'll gain the ability to learn grammar and more difficult abstract words--without the tedious drills and exercises of language classes and grammar books.  This is brain hacking at its most exciting, taking what we know about neuroscience and linguistics and using it to create the most efficient and enjoyable way to learn a foreign language in the spare minutes of your day.

    In Righting the Mother Tongue, the author of A Left-Hand Turn Around the World brings us the tangled story of English Spelling, from Olde English to email. Utterly captivating, deliciously edifying, and extremely witty, Righting the Mother Tongue is a treat for the language lover—a book that belongs in every personal library, right next to Eats, Shoots, and Leaves, and the works of Bill Bryson and Simon Winchester.

    Newly recorded colloquial audio and video materials also accompany each lesson and continue the story of Maha and Khalid and their travels to Cairo with brief explanatory vocabulary and notes provided in the text. The appendices include grammatical reference charts, an Arabic-English glossary, and a grammar index. The materials cover approximately 150 contact hours of instruction, and students who complete Part Two should reach advanced proficiency.Each lesson in Part Two centers on a text that deals with a social, historical, literary, or cultural issue. In addition to the main reading text, students will also find additional authentic texts for reading and listening comprehension, vocabulary and grammar exercises, close listening and speaking activities, and cultural background for the reading.The revised and repackaged Part Two has been restructured to reflect pedagogical developments over the last eight years, updated with new authentic reading and listening texts, and expanded with new video materials. In addition to the speaking, listening, and writing skills emphasized throughout each lesson, more time and emphasis is placed on activating vocabulary and structure with new activities for inside and outside the classroom.FEATURES: - Provides basic texts of printed media to help students connect the written and aural/oral aspects of Arabic - Features intensive reading that is focused on grammar and pronunciation - Contains substantial amounts of drills and exercises to help students memorize and gain active control of an expanded vocabulary - Explores the root and pattern system of Arabic grammar and complex sentence structure using vocabulary, complex texts, and translation exercises - Develops writing skills at the paragraph level to encourage synthesis of vocabulary and grammar - Provides explicit instructions to students and instructors on drills and activities, including recommendations on appropriate exercises for inside and outside the classroom - Interactive DVD contains reading comprehension texts with new material and new listening comprehension material - DVD presents cultural background with illustrations and continues the story of Maha and Khalid using both Egyptian Colloquial Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic

    This process will allow you to rapidly build comprehension and confidence as you enjoy the stories."Easy Spanish Reader" begins with the story of two high-school seniors involved with their Spanish Club. As you read about their experiences, you'll discover the nuances of language and culture right along with the students.The next section contains a colorful history of Mexico, from the Conquistadors to the present, including vivid depictions of Cortes's encounters with the Aztecs. The last section is comprised of an abridged version of the classic story "Lazarillo de Tormes," which allows you to practice your grammar and vocabulary skills on a great work of Spanish literature. Progressive format makes it easy to quickly build comprehension Marginal word glossaries conveniently present new words and phrases Exercises challenge language comprehension and build reading skills Fully updated new editions, featuring expanded exercises and answer key "

    But linguist Daniel Everett argues that, like other tools, language was invented by humans and can be reinvented or lost. He shows how the evolution of different language forms—that is, different grammar—reflects how language is influenced by human societies and experiences, and how it expresses their great variety.  For example, the Amazonian Pirahã put words together in ways that violate our long-held under-standing of how language works, and Pirahã grammar expresses complex ideas very differently than English grammar does. Drawing on the Wari’ language of Brazil, Everett explains that speakers of all languages, in constructing their stories, omit things that all members of the culture understand. In addition, Everett discusses how some cultures can get by without words for numbers or counting, without verbs for “to say” or “to give,” illustrating how the very nature of what’s important in a language is culturally determined. Combining anthropology, primatology, computer science, philosophy, linguistics, psychology, and his own pioneering—and adventurous—research with the Amazonian Pirahã, and using insights from many different languages and cultures, Everett gives us an unprecedented elucidation of this society-defined nature of language. In doing so, he also gives us a new understanding of how we think and who we are.

    Scheisse! introduces readers to the fine art of cursing and basic slang to spice up their German speech.If you think you have a fairly good command of German, think again. For it's a sure bet that Frau Schultz never taught you those nasty little guttural curses and humiliating invectives so expressive of real low German speech. But relax--here at last is the one book that can introduce you to the very worst beer-hall German. Scheisse! is an indispensable guide to off-color German colloquialisms and profanities--lascivious bedroom slang and boozy insults, jeering scatological put-downs and scurrilous ridicule. This hilarious illustrated cornucopia of creative expletives, guaranteed to vex, taunt, aggravate, and provoke as only overwrought low German can, will help you master the fine art of German verbal abuse--with triumphant one-upmanship.

    And learning these idioms and phrases will not only help you speak English better, it'll help you understand Americans better!Idioms are presented in 25 lively dialogues which tell the entertaining story of an American family, complete with illustrations. The book comes with an audio CD of all of the dialogues. Contains dozens of helpful exercises & six crossword puzzles to reinforce the material, with convenient answer key for self-study. About the AuthorAmy Gillett has taught ESL (English as a Second Language) in both the United States and Europe. She holds a BA degree in literature fromStanford University, an MA from Stanford in Russian & East European Studies, and an MBA from Cornell. She speaks several foreign languages.Her writing has appeared in many national magazines and newspapers, including MAD Magazine, Family Circle, and the San Francisco Chronicle.

    Professor Lynne Murphy is on the linguistic front line. In The Prodigal Tongue she explores the fiction and reality of the special relationship between British and American English. By examining the causes and symptoms of American Verbal Inferiority Complex and its flipside, British Verbal Superiority Complex, Murphy unravels the prejudices, stereotypes and insecurities that shape our attitudes to our own language.With great humo(u)r and new insights, Lynne Murphy looks at the social, political and linguistic forces that have driven American and British English in different directions: how Americans got from centre to center, why British accents are growing away from American ones, and what different things we mean when we say estate, frown, or middle class. Is anyone winning this war of the words? Will Yanks and Brits ever really understand each other?

    Now this sensational new book strikes back to defend the fascinating, real-life diversity of this most basic human faculty.With the erudite yet accessible style that marks his work as a journalist, Robert Lane Greene takes readers on a rollicking tour around the world, illustrating with vivid anecdotes the role language beliefs play in shaping our identities, for good and ill. Beginning with literal myths, from the Tower of Babel to the bloody origins of the word “shibboleth,” Greene shows how language “experts” went from myth-making to rule-making and from building cohesive communities to building modern nations. From the notion of one language’s superiority to the common perception that phrases like “It’s me” are “bad English,” linguistic beliefs too often define “us” and distance “them,” supporting class, ethnic, or national prejudices. In short: What we hear about language is often really about the politics of identity.Governments foolishly try to police language development (the French Academy), nationalism leads to the violent suppression of minority languages (Kurdish and Basque), and even Americans fear that the most successful language in world history (English) may be threatened by increased immigration. These false language beliefs are often tied to harmful political ends and can lead to the violation of basic human rights. Conversely, political involvement in language can sometimes prove beneficial, as with the Zionist  revival of Hebrew or our present-day efforts to provide education in foreign languages essential to business, diplomacy, and intelligence. And yes, standardized languages play a crucial role in uniting modern societies.As this fascinating book shows, everything we’ve been taught to think about language may not be wrong—but it is often about something more than language alone. You Are What You Speak will certainly get people talking.

    It is possible to read Japanese knowing only a limited number of kanji, but it is not possible with only a limited number of katakana or hiragana-one must know all of them. Let's Learn Hiragana, and its companion volume Let's Learn Katakana, is a textbook that introduces the learner to the basics of one of these fundamental Japanese scripts. Being a workbook, it contains all the exercises that allow the student to master hiragana by the time the book has been finished. Let's Learn Hiragana is a classic in the field, and the huge number of students that have used it successfully is a sign of its preeminence as a self-study guide.

     How Spanish Short Stories for Beginners works: Each story will involve an important lesson of the tools in the Spanish language (Verbs, Adjectives, Past Tense, Giving Directions, and more), involving an interesting and entertaining story with realistic dialogues and day-to-day situations. The summaries follow: a synopsis in Spanish and in English of what you just read, both to review the lesson and for you to see if you understood what the tale was about. At the end of those summaries, you’ll be provided with a list of the most relevant vocabulary involved in the lesson, as well as slang and sayings that you may not have understood at first glance! Finally, you’ll be provided with a set of tricky questions in Spanish, providing you with the chance to prove that you learned something in the story. Don’t worry if you don’t know the answer to any — we will provide them immediately after, but no cheating! We want you to feel comfortable while learning the tongue; after all, no language should be a barrier for you to travel around the world and expand your social circles!So look no further! Pick up your copy of Spanish Short Stories for Beginners and improve your Spanish right now!

    It's an occasionally ribald, frequently witty and unerringly erudite guided tour of the secret labyrinth that lurks beneath the English language, taking in monks and monkeys, film buffs and buffaloes, and explaining precisely what the Rolling Stones have to do with gardening.

     It’s not for the faint-hearted, filled with some very tantalising hot sex and a strong dominant man. It’s a sweeping saga of one woman’s struggle to live and love. It holds temptations and passions. Conflicts and torment to raise your own passions and bring them alive. If you’re looking for something to tempt your days and nights, you just found it. Enjoy! Written mainly in British English, with Americanisms and slang from both languages. *** It was 1832. Before the forced Indian moves to the Reservations. Before the Little Big Horn. On the Plains of Dakota. A young woman found herself alone. Was life meant to be this hard? She asked herself not for the first time. Her life back East had been full of gayety and balls. The finery of silk and lace. Here, it was not. The vast open Plains offered no refuge. No comforts and her home was here now. Her husband long gone and her child not long after. She’d thought herself in love. How wrong, she had been. She had believed in him and it had led her to here. In grief for the child, she no longer had. Alone. She would make this work or die trying. It mattered not to her now. The animals needed her and she had her home. What more did she need? When the wind blew and the sun glinted off the horizon, he was there again. Silhouetted on the crest of the hill looking down on her. He sat proudly. Quietly as was his way. The master of all he surveyed. Gazing down on her. She could feel the heat of the intensity of his stare. She wasn’t alone anymore. He would have seen them all go. She had no doubt of it, he knew all there was to know and she’d not left like he’d told her too. Too stubborn, too wilful some would say and that it would be her undoing. He had warned her of what would happen, if she stayed. She watched him as he kicked his mount on and slowly headed down towards her…..