Character Text for Beginning Chinese


Book Description

In this parallel character version of Beginning Chinese, dialogues, pronunciation drills, sentence-building exercises, substitution drills and memorization exercises correspond to the same lessons Beginning Chinese offers in English and in pinyin romanization of Mandarin.




Fluent Forever


Book Description

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • For anyone who wants to learn a foreign language, this is the method that will finally make the words stick. “A brilliant and thoroughly modern guide to learning new languages.”—Gary Marcus, cognitive psychologist and author of the New York Times bestseller Guitar Zero 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—and here he wants to show others what he’s discovered. 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. 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.




What Rosetta Stone Mandarin Won't Tell You - Learn That Language Now


Book Description

Want to learn the quickest, easiest and most efficient way to learn a language to fluency? Don't waste any more time and money with classes, textbooks, audio courses, computer programs and other materials until you have read this. Coming from 10 years of experience and having already shown thousands of language learners the right way to learn languages... Read on to learn the secrets they don't give you in class. Life is good for me. I am fluent in several languages and conversational in many more. I have friends I speak to on a daily basis who don't speak a word of English. My language ability has opened career doors and made immediate friends out of strangers. Better yet, I receive enjoyment out of using my languages daily in meeting people, watching movies and reading my favorite books. How was I able to learn a foreign language so fluently in such a short period of time? Let me give you a hint: it's not because I'm a genius, spend 10 hours a day studying or have some "gift" for learning languages. It's because I developed a METHOD that will allow you to IMMEDIATELY: Learn new words and phrases quicker than you ever have before and not worry about forgetting them! Speak without a single error. Natives will be scratching their heads wondering why you speak so much better than the other foreigners. Be able to "study" the language without getting bored ever! No more painful language learning. Become fluent quicker than anyone you know. I'm sure you know of people who have studied a language for a couple or more years. Now you can be fluent well within that time. Surprisingly, the best, easiest and quickest way to learn a language is not written in those textbooks, audio programs, computer programs or other materials. In fact, most of the time, they advocate a painful, hard way to get to fluency. What I've learned in the past 10 years is, it doesn't have to be painful or long! This isn't to say those materials are completely useless but if you want to gain from them as quickly and efficiently as possible, you need to incorporate them into a larger plan. I wrote this book to stop others from making the same mistakes I did when I started to learn languages. I wrote it to show the fastest, quickest and most efficient way to learn languages so that you don't waste a single minute or dollar. I've read a lot of material about language learning and used a lot of different methods. I've discovered what works and what doesn't. Everything I've written in my book is the tips, secrets and method that I've found to actually work to get me to fluency in the shortest period of time. You won't find any ridiculous ideas here like subliminal learning while you sleep. Everything here has been tested by me from scratch and is from real world experience.I have personally invested 10 years and thousands of dollars on learning the best, most efficient way to learn languages. I wish that I could have been able to buy the knowledge and information presented in this book when I first started out. It could have saved me a lot of trouble, time and money. Many people spend thousands of dollars or more on audio programs, textbooks, classes and other language learning materials. What if this book saved you from wasting money on even one of those? If this book saved you even just one hundred hours of studying, what would that be worth to you? Probably a lot more than the cost of this book. A lot of people start out learning a language and then give up somewhere in the middle, never reaching fluency and wasting all the energy, time and money they spent getting somewhere in the middle. Make sure you are not one of those people and invest today to discover what really works and how you can get to fluency quickly and efficiently.




Michel Thomas German Foundation Course


Book Description

Michel Thomas's approach to language learning aims to provide in a few hours a functional working knowledge of a language without books, note-taking or conscious memorizing. This CD pack provides an eight-hour course in German plus a 2-CD review course.




Fluent in 3 Months


Book Description

Benny Lewis, who speaks over ten languages—all self-taught—runs the largest language-learning blog in the world, Fluent In 3 Months. Lewis is a full-time "language hacker," someone who devotes all of his time to finding better, faster, and more efficient ways to learn languages. Fluent in 3 Months: How Anyone at Any Age Can Learn to Speak Any Language from Anywhere in the World is a new blueprint for fast language learning. Lewis argues that you don't need a great memory or "the language gene" to learn a language quickly, and debunks a number of long-held beliefs, such as adults not being as good of language learners as children.







Basic Spoken Chinese


Book Description

This is a beginning-level course in spoken Chinese that employs a revolutionary new method designed to have you quickly speaking and comprehending Mandarin Chinese. Along with its sister book Basic Written Chinese and their accompanying workbooks, Basic Spoken Chinese offers a complete introductory course to the Chinese language. As a native English speaker, working hard to learn Chinese is not enough; you have to work smart to learn this very different language efficiently. Downloadable audio and video reinforce the material introduced in the book. No matter why you've chosen to learn Chinese--for business, travel, cultural studies or another goal--the Basic Chinese approach of two separate but integrated tracks in spoken and written Chinese will help you learn this language most efficiently and successfully. Detailed explanations in English of Chinese pronunciation, grammar, usage, culture, society, and recommended learning approaches. A digital Instructor's Guide is available electronically. A written Character Transcript (Simplified and Traditional) is available electronically. The downloadable materials feature: 40 videos with dozens of native speakers filmed on location in mainland China, Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan, Singapore, and Malaysia. 6 hours of native-speaker audio, including all of the book's conversations. Build up sections, new words, and pronunciation exercises. Available separately, Basic Spoken Chinese Practice Essentials is the companion workbook for Basic Spoken Chinese. This practical guide includes a broad range of drills and exercises designed to enhance your proficiency in speaking and comprehending dramatically. While intended for use with the companion textbook, it can be used together with any Chinese textbook or teaching program to hone your Chinese language skills.




Polyglot: How I Learn Languages


Book Description

KAT LOMB (1909-2003) was one of the great polyglots of the 20th century. A translator and one of the first simultaneous interpreters in the world, Lomb worked in 16 languages for state and business concerns in her native Hungary. She achieved further fame by writing books on languages, interpreting, and polyglots. Polyglot: How I Learn Languages, first published in 1970, is a collection of anecdotes and reflections on language learning. Because Dr. Lomb learned her languages as an adult, after getting a PhD in chemistry, the methods she used will be of particular interest to adult learners who want to master a foreign language.




Hacking Chinese


Book Description

Learning Chinese can be frustrating and difficult, partly because it's very different from European languages. Following a teacher, textbook or language course is not enough. They show you the characters, words and grammar you need to become proficient in Chinese, but they don't teach you how to learn them! Regardless of what program you're in (if any), you need to take responsibility for your own learning. If you don't, you will miss many important things that aren't included in the course you're taking. If you study on your own, you need to be even more aware of what you need to do, what you're doing at the moment and the difference between them. Here are some of the questions I have asked and have since been asked many times by students: How do I learn characters efficiently? How do I get the most out of my course or teacher? Which are the best learning tools and resources? How can I become fluent in Mandarin? How can I improve my pronunciation? How do I learn successfully on my own? How can I motivate myself to study more? How can I fit learning Chinese into a busy schedule? The answers I've found to these questions and many others form the core of this book. It took eight years of learning, researching, teaching and writing to figure these things out. Not everybody has the time to do that! I can't go back in time and help myself learn in a better way, but I can help you! This book is meant for normal students and independent language learners alike. While it covers all major areas of learning, you won't learn Chinese just by reading this book. It's like when someone on TV teaches you how to cook: you won't get to eat the delicious dish just by watching the program; you have to do the cooking yourself. That's true for this book as well. When you apply what you learn, it will boost your learning, making every hour you spend count for more, but you still have to do the learning yourself. This is what a few readers have said about the book: "The book had me nodding at a heap of things I'd learnt the hard way, wishing I knew them when I started, as well as highlighting areas that I'm currently missing in my study." - Geoff van der Meer, VP engineering "This publication is like a bible for anyone serious about Chinese proficiency. It's easy for anyone to read and written with scientific precision." - Zachary Danz, foreign teacher, children's theatre artist About me I started learning Chinese when I was 23 (that's more than eight years ago now) and have since studied in many different situations, including serious immersion programs abroad, high-intensity programs in Sweden, online courses, as well as on the side while working or studying other things. I have also successfully used my Chinese in a graduate program for teaching Chinese as a second language, taught entirely in Chinese mostly for native speakers (the Graduate Institute for Teaching Chinese as a Second Language at National Taiwan Normal University). All these parts have contributed to my website, Hacking Chinese, where I write regularly about how to learn Mandarin.




Finnish: An Essential Grammar


Book Description

This second edition of Finnish: An Essential Grammar has undergone profound revisions. The chapter on basic sentence structure has been rewritten and syntax has been given more space. Sections have been added on phrase types, simple clause types, and types of complex sentences. A section on discourse particles has been added. The vocabulary of the copious example sentences has been updated to give it a touch of the twenty-first century. The section on modern colloquial Finnish has been considerably expanded. Internet addresses helpful for any learner of Finnish are provided which make is possible to automatically analyse the grammatical structure of any Finnish words and sentences. It gives not only a systematic account of the structures of the written language, but also features the characteristics of colloquial Finnish. No prior knowledge is assumed on the part of the reader and grammatical rules are clearly explained without jargon. Features include: pronunciation guide, including the tendencies in present-day colloquial Finnish thorough descriptions of morphology (word structure) and syntax (sentence structure) clear rules and an abundance of concrete examples inflection tables subject index internet addresses to online software for grammatical analysis of Finnish. This is the ideal reference source both for those studying Finnish independently and for students in schools, colleges, universities and adult classes of all types.