Book picks similar to
Learning Chinese Characters by Alison Matthews
chinese
language
reference
chinese-language
No Enemies, No Hatred: Selected Essays and Poems
Xiaobo Liu - 2011
In Oslo, actress Liv Ullmann read a long statement the activist had prepared for his 2009 trial. It read in part: I stand by the convictions I expressed in my June Second Hunger Strike Declaration twenty years ago I have no enemies and no hatred. None of the police who monitored, arrested, and interrogated me, none of the prosecutors who indicted me, and none of the judges who judged me are my enemies.That statement is one of the pieces in this book, which includes writings spanning two decades, providing insight into all aspects of Chinese life. These works not only chronicle a leading dissident s struggle against tyranny but enrich the record of universal longing for freedom and dignity. Liu speaks pragmatically, yet with deep-seated passion, about peasant land disputes, the Han Chinese in Tibet, child slavery, the CCP s Olympic strategy, the Internet in China, the contemporary craze for Confucius, and the Tiananmen massacre. Also presented are poems written for his wife, Liu Xia, public documents, and a foreword by Vaclav Havel.This collection is an aid to reflection for Western readers who might take for granted the values Liu has dedicated his life to achieving for his homeland.
You Are What You Speak: Grammar Grouches, Language Laws, and the Politics of Identity
Robert Lane Greene - 2011
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.
Better Than Great: A Plenitudinous Compendium of Wallopingly Fresh Superlatives
Arthur Plotnik - 2011
Deft praise encourages others to feel as we do, share our enthusiasms. It rewards deserving objects of admiration. It persuades people to take certain actions. It sells things. Sadly, in this "age of awesome," our words and phrases of acclaim are exhausted, all but impotent. Even so, we find ourselves defaulting to such habitual choices as good, great, and terrific, or substitute the weary synonyms that tuble our of a thesaurus -- superb, marvelous, outstanding, and the like. The piling on of intensifers such as the now-silly "super," only makes matters worse and negative modifiers render our common parlance nearly tragic. Until now. Arthur Plotnik, the wunderkind of word-wonks is, without mincing, proffering a well knit wellspring of worthy and wondrous words to rescue our worn-down usage. Plotnik is both hella AND hecka up to the task of rescuing the English language and offers readers the chance to never be at a loss for words!
Dirty Spanish: Everyday Slang from "What's Up?" to "F*%# Off!"
Juan Caballero - 2008
GET D!RTYNext time you’re traveling or just chattin’ in Spanish with your friends, drop the textbook formality and bust out with expressions they never teach you in school, including:•Cool slang•Funny insults•Explicit sex terms•Raw swear wordsDirty Spanish teaches the casual expressions heard every day on the streets of Spain and Latin America:•What's up?¿Qué tal?•I'm wastedEstoy fumigado.•Your mom's a ten.Tu vieja es un cuero.•I gotta take a piss.Necesito mear.•I wanna nail that ass.Quiero clavar ese culo.•What a sunnuvabitch!¡Qué 'jueputa!•Goooooaaalll!¡Gooooooolllll!
The Best Poems of the English Language: From Chaucer Through Frost
Harold Bloom - 2004
For the first time Bloom gives his readers an elegant guide to reading poetry--a master critic’s distillation of a lifetime of teaching and criticism. He tackles such subjects as poetic voice, the nature of metaphor and allusion, and the nature of poetic value itself. Blooms writes “the work of great poetry is to aid us to become free artists of ourselves.” This essay is an invaluable guide to poetry.This edition will also include a recommended reading list of poems.
Ordinary Differential Equations
Morris Tenenbaum - 1985
Subsequent sections deal with integrating factors; dilution and accretion problems; linearization of first order systems; Laplace Transforms; Newton's Interpolation Formulas, more.
Principles of Language Learning and Teaching
H. Douglas Brown - 2006
Douglas Brown, is the classic second language acquisition text used by teacher education programs worldwide. Principles introduces key concepts through definitions of terms, thought-provoking questions, charts, and spiraling. New Classroom Connections encourage students to consider the implications of research for classroom pedagogy. An up-to-date bibliography and new glossary provide quick access to important works and key terminology in the field. The fifth edition takes a comprehensive look at foundations of language teaching through discussions of the latest research in the field, including: * Vygotsky's and Bakhtin's theories * Thorndike's law of effect * error treatment, noticing, recasts * intercultural communication * language policy and politics * corpus linguistics *hot topics in SLA * connectionism and emergentism * flow theory, willingness to communicate * strategies-based instruction * contrastive rhetoric * attribution theory, self-efficacy * output hypothesis Also by H.Douglas Brown: Teaching by Principles: An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy Language Assessment: Principles and Classroom Practices Strategies for Success: A Practical Guide to Learning English
The Art of War
Sun TzuSun Tzu
Since that time, all levels of military have used the teaching on Sun Tzu to warfare and civilization have adapted these teachings for use in politics, business and everyday life. The Art of War is a book which should be used to gain advantage of opponents in the boardroom and battlefield alike.
Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid
Douglas R. Hofstadter - 1979
However, according to Hofstadter, the formal system that underlies all mental activity transcends the system that supports it. If life can grow out of the formal chemical substrate of the cell, if consciousness can emerge out of a formal system of firing neurons, then so too will computers attain human intelligence. Gödel, Escher, Bach is a wonderful exploration of fascinating ideas at the heart of cognitive science: meaning, reduction, recursion, and much more.
The Ring of Words: Tolkien and the Oxford English Dictionary
Peter Gilliver - 2006
He later said that he had learned more in those two years than in any other equal part of his life. The Ring of Words reveals how his professional work on the Oxford English Dictionary influenced Tolkien's creative use of language in his fictional world. Here three senior editors of the OED offer an intriguing exploration of Tolkien's career as a lexicographer and illuminate his creativity as a word user and word creator. The centerpiece of the book is a wonderful collection of word studies which will delight the heart of Ring fans and word lovers everywhere. The editors look at the origin of such Tolkienesque words as hobbit, mithril, Smeagol, Ent, halfling, and worm (meaning dragon). Readers discover that a word such as mathom (anything a hobbit had no immediate use for, but was unwilling to throw away) was actually common in Old English, but that Mithril, on the other hand, is a complete invention (and the first Elven word to have an entry in the OED). And fans of Harry Potter will be surprised to find that Dumbledore (the name of Hogwart's headmaster) was a word used by Tolkien and many others (it is a dialect word meaning bumblebee). Few novelists have found so much of their creative inspiration in the shapes and histories of words. Presenting archival material not found anywhere else, The Ring of Words offers a fresh and unexplored angle on the literary achievements of one of the world's most famous and best-loved writers.
The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain
Betty Edwards - 1979
In 1989, when Dr. Betty Edwards revised the book, it went straight to the Times list again. Now Dr. Edwards celebrates the twentieth anniversary of her classic book with a second revised edition.Over the last decade, Dr. Edwards has refined her material through teaching hundreds of workshops and seminars. Truly The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, this edition includes:the very latest developments in brain researchnew material on using drawing techniques in the corporate world and in educationinstruction on self-expression through drawingan updated section on using colordetailed information on using the five basic skills of drawing for problem solving
English Grammar: 100 Tragically Common Mistakes (and How to Correct Them)
Sean Williams - 2019
They Say / I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing
Gerald Graff - 2006
In addition to explaining the basic moves, this book provides writing templates that show students explicitly how to make these moves in their own writing.