How to Learn Any Language: Quickly, Easily, Inexpensively, Enjoyably and on Your Own


Barry Farber - 1991
    The techniques he presents in "How to Learn Any Language" will have you speaking, reading, writing and enjoying any foreign language you want to learn - or have to learn - in a surprisingly short time.Without beating your head against verb conjugations or noun declensions, you can follow Farber's principles and glide toward proficiency in your chosen language. His method consist of four ground-breaking but simple concepts hailed by language-teaching professionals:

The English Language: A Historical Introduction


Charles Laurence Barber - 1993
    The main theoretical and technical concepts of historical linguistics are also explained. Charles Barber uses familiar texts, including the English of King Alfred, Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Addison, to illustrate the state of the English language through time. This is a fascinating book for anyone with an interest in language.

The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World


David W. Anthony - 2007
    But who were the early speakers of this ancient mother tongue, and how did they manage to spread it around the globe? Until now their identity has remained a tantalizing mystery to linguists, archaeologists, and even Nazis seeking the roots of the Aryan race. The Horse, the Wheel, and Language lifts the veil that has long shrouded these original Indo-European speakers, and reveals how their domestication of horses and use of the wheel spread language and transformed civilization.Linking prehistoric archaeological remains with the development of language, David Anthony identifies the prehistoric peoples of central Eurasia's steppe grasslands as the original speakers of Proto-Indo-European, and shows how their innovative use of the ox wagon, horseback riding, and the warrior's chariot turned the Eurasian steppes into a thriving transcontinental corridor of communication, commerce, and cultural exchange. He explains how they spread their traditions and gave rise to important advances in copper mining, warfare, and patron-client political institutions, thereby ushering in an era of vibrant social change. Anthony also describes his fascinating discovery of how the wear from bits on ancient horse teeth reveals the origins of horseback riding.The Horse, the Wheel, and Language solves a puzzle that has vexed scholars for two centuries--the source of the Indo-European languages and English--and recovers a magnificent and influential civilization from the past.

122 Zen Koans


Taka Washi - 2013
    Find enlightenment with these one-hundred twenty-two traditional Buddhist Zen koans -- stories, dialogues, questions, or statements, used in Zen-practice to provoke the "great doubt," and test a student's progress in Zen practice.

Arabic Course for English-Speaking Students: Originally Devised and Taught at Madinah Islamic University (#1)


V. Abdur Rahim - 2006
    A tried and tested course over 40 years with proven track record of success, it is ideal in terms of the topics covered and short time taken to learn. It is suitable for schools and colleges in the UK and other Western English speaking countries. This course is a comprehensive and popular course for the teaching of the Qur'anic and Traditional Arabic, originally devised and taught at the renowned Islamic University of Madinah, catering for the non-Arabic speaking students from all over the world. Over the years, this course has enabled students to become competent in their use of the Arabic language and to participate and benefit from scholarly pursuits such as Qur'anic exegesis, Hadeeth, Fiqh, Seerah, History, and classical and modern Arabic literature.Whilst there are now several courses available on the market for the teaching of the Arabic language, the unique features of this particular one are: 1. It is very concise, consisting of only three books, all of which are short but extensive in their coverage. 2. It combines modern Arabic vocabulary with Islamic terminology as used in the Qur'an and the Sunnah. 3. It covers all the essential Arabic grammatical rules in such a way that the student is spared the monotonous task of memorizing them 4. The author presents Arabic as a living and vibrant language and takes examples from Arabic in everyday use, as also from the Qur'an and the Sunnah, so that as the student learns the languages, he also acquires an understanding of hundreds of Qur'anic verses, ahaadeeth, Arabic parables and poetry. This allows the student to become directly involved in the study of the Qur'an and the Sunnah while also acquiring a sound understanding of the Arabic language.

Why Are We So Clueless about the Stock Market? Learn how to invest your money, how to pick stocks, and how to make money in the stock market


Mariusz Skonieczny - 2009
    Material covered includes the difference between stocks and businesses, what constitutes a good business, when to buy and sell stocks, and how to value individual stocks. The book also includes a chapter covering four case studies as well as a supplemental chapter on the pros and cons of real estate versus stock market investing.

The Penguin Guide to Punctuation


R.L. Trask - 1997
    Do you find punctuation difficult? Are you puzzled by colons and semicolons? Unsure of where commas should go? Confused by hyphens and apostrophes? If so, then this jargon-free and succinct guide is for you.•Contains precise and up-to-date definitions of every type of punctuation mark and shows how each should be used•Gives numerous examples of good and bad usage•Explains the correct use of capital letters, contractions and abbreviations, italics, boldface and the special characters available on a word processor

Alphabet Juice: The Energies, Gists, and Spirits of Letters, Words, and Combinations Thereof; Their Roots, Bones, Innards, Piths, Pips, and Secret Parts, Tinctures, Tonics, and Essences; With Examples of Their Usage Foul and Savory


Roy Blount Jr. - 2008
    certainly has, and after forty years of making a living using words in every medium, print or electronic, except greeting cards, he still can't get over his ABCs. In Alphabet Juice, he celebrates the electricity, the juju, the sonic and kinetic energies, of letters and their combinations. Blount does not prescribe proper English. The franchise he claims is "over the counter."Three and a half centuries ago, Thomas Blount produced Blount's Glossographia, the first dictionary to explore derivations of English words. This Blount's Glossographia takes that pursuit to other levels, from Proto-Indo-European roots to your epiglottis. It rejects the standard linguistic notion that the connection between words and their meanings is "arbitrary." Even the word arbitrary is shown to be no more arbitrary, at its root, than go-to guy or crackerjack. From sources as venerable as the OED (in which Blount finds an inconsistency, at whisk) and as fresh as Urbandictionary.com (to which Blount has contributed the number-one definition of alligator arm), and especially from the author's own wide-ranging experience, Alphabet Juice derives an organic take on language that is unlike, and more fun than, any other.

501 Italian Verbs


John Colaneri - 1992
    The 501 most commonly used Italian verbs are listed in table form, one verb per page, and conjugated in all tenses, identified by English infinitive forms. Verbs are both regular and irregular, and are presented alphabetically for easy reference. Added material related to verbs and verb usage is also presented, including lists of hundreds more regular verbs, idiomatic verb usage, and more.

China and the Chinese


Herbert Allen Giles - 1902
    You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

Alphabetical: How Every Letter Tells a Story


Michael Rosen - 2013
    Whether it's how letters are arranged on keyboards or Viking runes, textspeak or zip codes, this book will change the way you think about letters for ever. How on Earth did we fix upon our twenty-six letters, what do they really mean, and how did we come to write them down in the first place? Michael Rosen takes you on an unforgettable adventure through the history of the alphabet in twenty-six vivid chapters, fizzing with personal anecdotes and fascinating facts. Starting with the mysterious Phoenicians and how sounds first came to be written down, he races on to show how nonsense poems work, pins down the strange story of OK, traces our five lost letters and tackles the tyranny of spelling, among many many other things. His heroes of the alphabet range from Edward Lear to Phyllis Pearsall (the inventor of the A-Z), and from the two scribes of Beowulf to rappers. Each chapter takes on a different subject - whether it's codes, umlauts or the writing of dictionaries. Rosen's enthusiasm for letters positively leaps off the page, whether it's the story of his life told through the typewriters he's owned or a chapter on jokes written in a string of gags and word games. So if you ever wondered why Hawaiian only has a thirteen-letter alphabet or how exactly to write down the sound of a wild raspberry, read on ...