Book picks similar to
Welcome to Welsh: A Complete Welsh Course for Beginners by Heini Gruffudd
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wales
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Dirty German: Everyday Slang from "What's Up?" to "F*%# Off!"
Daniel Chaffey - 2009
GET D!RTYNext time you’re traveling or just chattin’ in German 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 German teaches the casual expressions heard every day on the streets of Germany:•What's up?Wie geht's?•I'm smashed.Ich bin total angeschickert.•Fuckin' Munich fans.Scheiß München Fans.•That shit reeks.Das riecht aber übel.•I wanna shag ass.Ich will abhauen.•What a complete asshole.Was für ein Arschloch.•Dude, you're built like Arnold!Mensch, du bist der Arnie!
Better English Pronunciation
J.D. O'Connor - 1967
It provides a systematic and thorough introduction to the pronunciation of English to help intermediate and more advanced students improve their production of the spoken language.After a short introduction to pronunciation problems the author explians how the speech organs work; he then deals with each sound separately before dealing with words in combination, rhythm-patterns and intonation. Practice material is given at intervals throughout the book. The particular difficulties of the speakers of certain other languages are noted, and remedial exercises provided. A recording of all the practice material in the book is available on cassettes."...can quite safely be said to be the most effective [book] ever written to help the ordinary learner to improve his pronunciation.'J.Windsor Lewis in The Times Educational SupplementThe complete course consists of:BookSet of 2 cassettes
A Primer of Ecclesiastical Latin
John F. Collins - 1985
Collins includes the Latin of Jerome's Bible, of canon law, of the liturgy and papal bulls, of scholastic philosophers, and of the Ambrosian hymns, providing a survey of texts from the fourth century through the Middle Ages.An "Answer Key" to this edition is now available. Please see An Answer Key to A Primer of Ecclesiastical Latin, prepared by John Dunlap.
When in French: Love in a Second Language
Lauren Collins - 2016
Lauren Collins discovered this firsthand when, in her early thirties, she moved to London and fell for a Frenchman named Olivier—a surprising turn of events for someone who didn’t have a passport until she was in college. But what does it mean to love someone in a second language? Collins wonders, as her relationship with Olivier continues to grow entirely in English. Are there things she doesn’t understand about Olivier, having never spoken to him in his native tongue? Does “I love you” even mean the same thing as “Je t’aime”? When the couple, newly married, relocates to Francophone Geneva, Collins—fearful of one day becoming "a Borat of a mother" who doesn’t understand her own kids—decides to answer her questions for herself by learning French. When in French is a laugh-out-loud funny and surprising memoir about the lengths we go to for love, as well as an exploration across culture and history into how we learn languages—and what they say about who we are. Collins grapples with the complexities of the French language, enduring excruciating role-playing games with her classmates at a Swiss language school and accidentally telling her mother-in-law that she’s given birth to a coffee machine. In learning French, Collins must wrestle with the very nature of French identity and society—which, it turns out, is a far cry from life back home in North Carolina. Plumbing the mysterious depths of humanity’s many forms of language, Collins describes with great style and wicked humor the frustrations, embarrassments, surprises, and, finally, joys of learning—and living in—French.
Easy Spanish Phrase Book: Over 700 Phrases for Everyday Use
Pablo García Loaeza - 2012
The perfect companion for tourists and business travelers in Spain and Latin America, it features words, phrases, and sentences that cover everything from asking directions to ordering dinner.Over 700 conveniently organized expressions include terms for modern telecommunications as well as phrases related to transportation, shopping, medical and emergency situations, and other common circumstances. A phonetic pronunciation accompanies each phrase.
Words and Rules: The Ingredients of Language
Steven Pinker - 1999
In Words and Rules, Steven Pinker explains the mysteries of language by examining a single construction from a dozen viewpoints, proposing that the essence of language is a mental dictionary of memorized words, and a mental grammar of creative rules.
The Big Book of Beastly Mispronunciations: The Complete Opinionated Guide for the Careful Speaker
Charles Harrington Elster - 1999
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.
Motherfoclóir: Dispatches from a Not So Dead Language
Darach Ó Séaghdha - 2017
As the title suggests, 'Motherfoclóir' takes an irreverent, pun-friendly and contemporary approach to the Irish language. The translations are expanded on and arranged into broad categories that allow interesting connections to be made, and sprinkled with anecdotes and observations about Irish and Ireland itself, as well as language in general. The author includes stories about his own relationship with Irish, and how it fits in with the most important events in his life. This is a book for all lovers of the quirks of language.
IELTS Band 9 Grammar Secrets
Cambridge IELTS Consultants - 2014
We show you how to develop your grammar and vocabulary into more formal, precise and advanced English. We will explain how to organise your sentences, your paragraphs and your entire essay in a way that will impress English-speaking college tutors and examiners. Above all, we give you the methods to quickly change your writing from normal, day-to-day English into Band 9 Academic English. Packed with examples, models and guidelines to follow, these methods have been used with great success by our students for IELTS and University preparation. Start getting the results you need - and write the Academic way. ABOUT THE AUTHORS: Cambridge IELTS Consultants are a team of IELTS trainers and past examiners based in Cambridge, United Kingdom. They have many years experience of preparing students for IELTS at University level, assessing the speaking tests and developing course books to guide candidates through the Cambridge IELTS process. They really are the experts!
The Linguistics Wars
Randy Allen Harris - 1993
Soon, however, there was talk from Chomsky and his associates about plumbing mental structure; then there was a new phonology; and then there was a new set of goals for the field, cutting it off completely from its anthropological roots and hitching it to a new brand of psychology. Rapidly, all of Chomsky's ideas swept the field. While the entrenched linguists were not looking for a messiah, apparently many of their students were. There was a revolution, which colored the field of linguistics for the following decades. Chomsky's assault on Bloomfieldianism (also known as American Structuralism) and his development of Transformational-Generative Grammar was promptly endorsed by new linguistic recruits swelling the discipline in the sixties. Everyone was talking of a scientific revolution in linguistics, and major breakthroughs seemed imminent, but something unexpected happened--Chomsky and his followers had a vehement and public falling out.In The Linguistic Wars, Randy Allen Harris tells how Chomsky began reevaluating the field and rejecting the extensions his students and erstwhile followers were making. Those he rejected (the Generative Semanticists) reacted bitterly, while new students began to pursue Chomsky's updated vision of language. The result was several years of infighting against the backdrop of the notoriously prickly sixties. The outcome of the dispute, Harris shows, was not simply a matter of a good theory beating out a bad one. The debates followed the usual trajectory of most large-scale clashes, scientific or otherwise. Both positions changed dramatically in the course of the dispute--the triumphant Chomskyan position was very different from the initial one; the defeated generative semantics position was even more transformed. Interestingly, important features of generative semantics have since made their way into other linguistic approaches and continue to influence linguistics to this very day. And fairly high up on the list of borrowers is Noam Chomsky himself. The repercussions of the Linguistics Wars are still with us, not only in the bruised feelings and late-night war stories of the combatants, and in the contentious mood in many quarters, but in the way linguists currently look at language and the mind. Full of anecdotes and colorful portraits of key personalities, The Linguistics Wars is a riveting narrative of the course of an important intellectual controversy, and a revealing look into how scientists and scholars contend for theoretical glory.
Dirty Chinese: Everyday Slang from "What's Up?" to "F*%# Off!"
Brenden O'Kane - 2008
Qù tama, zánmen chuqù feng ba. •Who farted? Shéi fàng de pì?•Wanna try doggy-style? Yàobù zánliar shìshì gou cào shì?•Son of a bitch!Gouniángyang de!•I’m getting smashed. Wo ganjué heduo le.•I can’t eat this shit! Wo chi bù xià qù!
Collins Robert French Dictionary: French-English English-French
Collins - 1978
A newly revised and updated French dictionary offers more than 130,000 contemporary references and 215,000 translations, along with thousands of idiomatic phrases for the French business traveler, tourist, or student.
Language: The Basics
R.L. Trask - 1995
It features chapters on 'Language in Use', 'Attitudes to Language', 'Children and Language' and 'Language, Mind and Brain'.
Learn Hangul in One Hour: A Complete Course on How to Teach Yourself the Korean Writing System (Learn Korean Fast Book 1)
Allen D. Williams - 2012
Also instantly learn the alphabet order. Trying to learn Korean using English letters is not just a waste of time, it can cause you a great deal of embarrassment! Learn to read, write and pronounce Korean the right way. Save yourself the time and possible embarrassment by getting it right. If you're interested in Taekwondo, Korean drama, or Korean pop singers, or a student of Korean language, this is the place to start. This book is a system that uses mnemonics to teach you the sounds so you can easily remember the Korean alphabet. You'll get sample vocabulary to both re-enforce and remember each character, and samples of each character as they appear both typed and handwritten. You'll also get complete, stroke-by-stroke, diagrams on how to write each letter.
Fluency Made Easy
Ikenna D. Obi
Learn how to reach fluency in your goal language fast, fun and easily.