Read on your PC, Mac, smart phone, tablet or Kindle device. If You Don't Have Kindle You Can Still Read This Book On Your Web Browser using Amazon Free Cloud ReaderThis book contains proven steps and strategies on how to pronounce French vowels and consonants, how to pluralize nouns, and how to get around your way in France, using all the helpful examples of phrases and dialogues provided in this book.Through this manual you will learn the basics of the romantic French language and gain confidence as you speak. To facilitate learning, easy-to-follow pronunciation guides have been included. Tips for tourists and other pertinent information about the City of Lights were extensively researched for your convenience. Here Is A Preview Of What You'll Learn Inside ✔ Numbers and Gender✔ Plural Forms of Nouns✔ Pronouns✔ Verbs✔ Prepositions✔ Useful Expressions✔ Much, much more! Take Action Right Away and START your amazing journey with French!

    Writing with marvelous brio, Winchester first serves up a lightning history of the English language--"so vast, so sprawling, so wonderfully unwieldy"--and pays homage to the great dictionary makers, from "the irredeemably famous" Samuel Johnson to the "short, pale, smug and boastful" schoolmaster from New Hartford, Noah Webster. He then turns his unmatched talent for story-telling to the making of this most venerable of dictionaries. In this fast-paced narrative, the reader will discover lively portraits of such key figures as the brilliant but tubercular first editor Herbert Coleridge (grandson of the poet), the colorful, boisterous Frederick Furnivall (who left the project in a shambles), and James Augustus Henry Murray, who spent a half-century bringing the project to fruition. Winchester lovingly describes the nuts-and-bolts of dictionary making--how unexpectedly tricky the dictionary entry for marzipan was, or how fraternity turned out so much longer and monkey so much more ancient than anticipated--and how bondmaid was left out completely, its slips found lurking under a pile of books long after the B-volume had gone to press. We visit the ugly corrugated iron structure that Murray grandly dubbed the Scriptorium--the Scrippy or the Shed, as locals called it--and meet some of the legion of volunteers, from Fitzedward Hall, a bitter hermit obsessively devoted to the OED, to W.C. Minor, whose story is one of dangerous madness, ineluctable sadness, and ultimate redemption. The Meaning of Everything is a scintillating account of the creation of the greatest monument ever erected to a living language. Simon Winchester's supple, vigorous prose illuminates this dauntingly ambitious project--a seventy-year odyssey to create the grandfather of all word-books, the world's unrivalled uber-dictionary.

    Now, in From Elvish to Klingon: Exploring Invented Languages, a group of leading linguists offers a lively investigation of all manner of invented languages. Each chapter focuses on a different language, or group of languages, and explores the origins, purpose, and usage of these curious artifacts of culture. We learn about the new languages invented to enhance the experience of video and online games, from the complexities of Gargish, the language of gargoyles in Ultima VI, to Simlish, the emotionally expressive language of The Sims, and 1334, the entirely exclusionary and satirical language of international gamers. We also learn about the futuristic languages, Newspeak and Nadsat, invented by George Orwell and Anthony Burgess in their dystopian novels 1984 and A Clockwork Orange, and many more. The book explores all aspects of invented languages--their unique grammar, vocabulary, and usage--and includes fascinating analysis of sample dialogues and expressions. Written by experts in their fields, chapters cover such topics as International Auxiliary Languages, Invented Vocabularies, Literary "Nonsense," and Language Reconstruction and Renewal. It's all "maj" (good) as the Klingons would say, or "doubleplusgood," as a "duckspeaker" in Orwell's 1984 might observe. For anyone wanting to understand more fully the intricacies and attractions of invented languages, From Elvish to Klingon offers the most thorough study of the subject available today.

    A long-standing favorite of English speaking tourists and visitors, Chinglish is now quickly becoming a culture relic: in preparation for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, the Chinese government was determined to wipe out incorrect English usage.

    Geoffrey K. Pullum's writings began as columns in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory in 1983. For six years, in almost every issue, under the banner "TOPIC. . .COMMENT," he published a captivating mélange of commentary, criticism, satire, whimsy, and fiction. Those columns are reproduced here—almost exactly as his friends and colleagues originally warned him not to publish them—along with new material including a foreword by James D. McCawley, a prologue, and a new introduction to each of these clever pieces. Whether making a sneak attack on some sacred cow, delivering a tongue-in-cheek protest against current standards, or supplying a caustic review of some recent development, Pullum remains in touch with serious concerns about language and society. At the same time, he reminds the reader not to take linguistics too seriously all of the time. Pullum will take you on an excursion into the wild and untamed fringes of linguistics. Among the unusual encounters in store are a conversation between Star Trek's Commander Spock and three real earth linguists, the strange tale of the author's imprisonment for embezzling funds from the Campaign for Typographical Freedom, a harrowing account of a day in the research life of four unhappy grammarians, and the true story of how a monograph on syntax was suppressed because the examples were judged to be libelous. You will also find a volley of humorous broadsides aimed at dishonest attributional practices, meddlesome copy editors, mathematical incompetence, and "cracker-barrel philosophy of science." These learned and witty pieces will delight anyone who is fascinated by the quirks of language and linguists.

    You won't have to wait for a helper or pass up a job that seems too difficult to do alone. And if youre a homeowner working on your own house, you will be amazed at what you can accomplish.Written by a builder with 30 years' experience, Working Alone is packed with more than 50 innovative tips and techniques. You'll learn how to handle nearly every aspect of home construction alone, from foundation layout to raising walls to building decks.This book, the only one of its kind, offers a myriad of unique solo solutions. A perfect example is the problem of bringing a large sheet of plywood up a ladder. Even with a helper, this is a difficult and dangerous task. But if a large C-clamp is fastened to one end of the plywood, it's easy to pull the sheet up the ladder from behind. Clever techniques like this will have you solving common problems safely and efficiently.

    The Samurai spirit, Bushido, is an integral component of Japanese tattooing that is traced through the imagery and interpersonal dynamics of this veiled subculture. The eloquent text is based largely on Takahiro Kitamura's experiences as client and student of the famed Japanese tattoo master, Horiyoshi III. Over 200 beautiful photos by Jai Tanju capture the breathtaking tattoo artistry of Horiyoshi III. Five original, unpublished prints by Horiyoshi III, like those in his acclaimed book, 100 Demons of Horiyoshi III, are included here. Bushido: Legacies of the Japanese Tattoo is certain to fascinate everyone with an interest in tattoo culture.

    the eighth edition of Total Baseball: the ultimate baseball encyclopedia is the most striking, compelling and comprehensive single volume ever devoted to America's pastime.

    As Elster points out, there is no sewer in connoisseur, no dip in diphthong, and no pronoun in pronunciation. The culmination of twenty years of observation and study, The Big Book of Beastly Mispronunciations is more than just a pronunciation guide. Elster discusses past and present usage, alternatives, analogies, and tendencies and offers plenty of advice, none of it objective. Whether you are adamant or ambivalent about the spoken word, Elster arms you with the information you need to decide what is acceptable for you.The Big Book of Beastly Mispronunciations has now been expanded and revised and features nearly 200 new words, including:al-Qaeda bruschetta commensurate coup de grâce curriculum vita exacerbate gigabyte hara-kiri machismo Muslim Niger Pinochet Pulitzer sorbet tinnitus w (as in www-dot)and many, many more.Charles Harrington Elster is the pronunciation editor of Black’s Law Dictionary and the author of various books about language, including Verbal Advantage, There’s a Word for It, and What in the Word? He has been a guest columnist on language for the Boston Globe and the New York Times Magazine and a commentator on NPR and hundreds of radio shows around the country.

    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.

    It presents haiku poets writing in English, Spanish, French, German, and five other languages on an equal footing with Japanese poets. Not only are the four great Japanese masters of the haiku represented (Basho, Buson, Issa, and Shiki) but also several major Western authors not commonly known to have written haiku.

    In this 148-page hardback they reveal the places that they have got to know and love and show you why Tokyo is the friendliest big city in the world. It’s a guide book that will lead you to the best in culture and new architecture – and a few fun nights out too.The Monocle Travel Guide series reveals our favourite places in each city we cover, from the ideal route for an early-morning run to the best spots for independent retail. Full of surprises and quirks, they also feature detailed design and architecture pages, neighbourhood walks to get you away from the crowds and our favourite places to eat everything be it tasty fast food or something truly celebratory.

    We think nothing of jumping on a plane to travel to another country or continent. The most exotic locations are now destinations for mass tourism. Small business people are dealing across frontiers and language barriers like never before. The Internet brings different languages and cultures to our finger-tips. English, the hybrid language of an island at the western extremity of Europe seems to have an unrivalled position as an international medium of communication. But historically periods of cultural and economic domination have never lasted forever. Do we not lose something by relying on the wide spread use of English rather than discovering other languages and cultures? As citizens of this shrunken world, would we not be better off if we were able to speak a few languages other than our own? The answer is obviously yes. Certainly Steve Kaufmann thinks so, and in his busy life as a diplomat and businessman he managed to learn to speak nine languages fluently and observe first hand some of the dominant cultures of Europe and Asia. Why do not more people do the same? In his book The Way of The Linguist, A language learning odyssey, Steve offers some answers. Steve feels anyone can learn a language if they want to. He points out some of the obstacles that hold people back. Drawing on his adventures in Europe and Asia, as a student and businessman, he describes the rewards that come from knowing languages. He relates his evolution as a language learner, abroad and back in his native Canada and explains the kind of attitude that will enable others to achieve second language fluency. Many people have taken on the challenge of language learning but have been frustrated by their lack of success. This book offers detailed advice on the kind of study practices that will achieve language breakthroughs. Steve has developed a language learning system available online at: www.thelinguist.com.

    This book is a unique storehouse of surprising, thought provoking, fascinating and useful facts about human speech and the written word.

    THE WORD AND PICTURE METHOD--Each new word, phrase, or sentence is accompanied by a line drawing that immediately explains its meaning.READY-MADE VOCABULARY--Right from the starts, this books leads you to speaking conversational Spanish. It utilizes everyday Spanish words and phrases that look and sound like their English equivalents.Also includes: - A traveler's word list- A pronunciation guide- A grammar section