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.
For more than one hundred years, tourists and residents alike have flocked to Ye Olde Curiosity Shop, located on Seattle's waterfront. Here a mummy nicknamed Sylvester, a collection of shrunken heads from Ecuador, a two-headed calf, and a mermaid preside over walls and cases crammed with an incredible jumble of souvenirs and trinkets, intermixed with authentic Northwest Coast and Alaskan Eskimo carvings, baskets, blankets, and other artworks. The guestbook records visits by Theodore Roosevelt, Will Rogers, Jack Dempsey, Charlie Chaplin, J. Edgar Hoover, Katherine Hepburn, John Wayne, Sylvester Stallone, and Queen Marie of Rumania, among many others. Ye Olde Curiosity Shop was founded in 1899 by Joseph E. "Daddy" Standley, an Ohio-born curio collector who came to Seattle in the late 1890s during the Yukon gold rush. Although Native American material vied for space with exotica from all corners of the globe, it soon grew to be the mainstay of the shop, which became identified with the whalebones displayed outside and the "piles of old Eskimo relics" within. Also to be found were baskets, moccasins, ivory carving from Alaska, Tlingit spruce root baskets, Haida "jadeite" totem poles, masks, paddles, and other curiosities from the Northwest Coast. Indians from the Olympic Peninsula brought baskets, coming up to the back door of the shop in their canoes. Others, originally from British Columbia but now living on the flats not far from the shop, carved miniature totem poles by the hundreds and full-size poles on commission. Trading companies supplied Indian curios from the Plains, Southwest, and California. An art historian trained in the classic arts of the Northwest Coast, Kate Duncan became interested in the history of the shop when she learned that it had not only been an active participant in Seattle's 1909 Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition but had also been a major source of important Northwest Coast collections in many museums, including, among others, the Royal Ontario Museum, the George G. Heye Collection (now in the Smithsonian's Museum of the American Indian), the Washington State Museum, the Newark Museum, the Portland Art Museum, and the American Museum of Natural History. Granted full access by the present owners - grandson and great-grandson of "Daddy" Standley - to the remarkably complete archives maintained from the time the shop opened, Duncan has provided a fascinating chapter in the history of Seattle, especially in its early years, as well as a significant contribution to the literature on tourist arts and collecting. Kate Duncan, professor of art at Arizona State University, is also the author of Northern Athapaskan Art: A Beadwork Tradition, and coauthor of A Special Gift: The Kutchin Beadwork Tradition and Out of the North: The Subarctic Collection of the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology.
Chinese: A Comprehensive Grammar is a complete reference guide to Chinese grammar which presents a fresh and accessible description of the language, concentrating on the real patterns of use in modern Chinese. The volume is organized to promote a thorough understanding of Chinese grammar. It offers a stimulating analysis of the complexities of the language and provides full and clear explanations. Throughout, the emphasis is on Chinese as used by present-day native speakers. An extensive index and numbered paragraphs provide readers with easy access to the information they require. The new edition features a revised and expanded chapter on prosody (Prosody and Syntax), as well as four completely new chapters: • Morphology and Syntax (I) looks at Chinese word formation • Morphology and Syntax (II) explores the interaction between words, expressions and sentences • Intralingual Transpositions reviews the possible conversions between sentential constructions • Interlingual Conversions examines the differences between Chinese and English. The Grammar is an essential reference source for the adult learner and user of Chinese. It is ideal for independent study and for use in schools, colleges, universities and adult classes, up to an advanced level.
Modern society owes a tremendous amount to the Muslim world for the many groundbreaking scientific and technological advances that were pioneered during the Golden Age of Muslim civilization between the 7th and 17th centuries. Every time you drink coffee, eat a three-course meal, get a whiff of your favorite perfume, take shelter in an earthquake-resistant structure, get a broken bone set or solve an algebra problem, it is in part due to the discoveries of Muslim civilization.
Basic Chinese introduces the essentials of Chinese syntax. Each of the 25 units deals with a particular grammatical point and provides associated exercises. Features include: a clear, accessible format many useful language examples jargon-free explanations of grammar ample drills and exercises a full key to exercises. All Chinese entries are presented in both Pinyin romanization and Chinese characters, and are accompanied, in most cases, by English translations to facilitate self-tuition as well as classroom teaching in both spoken and written Chinese. Basic Chinese is designed for students new to the language. Together with its sister volume, Intermediate Chinese, it forms a compendium of the essentials of Chinese syntax.
