Download or read book Hacking Chinese written by Olle Linge and published by . This book was released on 2016-03-26 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book The Way of the Linguist written by Steve Kaufmann and published by AuthorHouse. This book was released on 2005-11 with total page 142 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Way of The Linguist, A language learning odyssey. It is now a cliché that the world is a smaller place. 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.

Download or read book Reading and Writing Chinese written by William McNaughton and published by Tuttle Publishing. This book was released on 2013-07-23 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a complete and easy–to–use guide for reading and writing Chinese characters. Learning written Chinese is an essential part of mastering the Chinese language. Used as a standard by students and teachers learning to read Chinese and write Chinese for more than three decades, the bestselling Reading & Writing Chinese has been thoroughly revised and updated. Reading & Writing Chinese places at your fingertips the essential 1,725 Chinese characters' current definitions, derivations, pronunciations, and examples of correct usage by utilizing cleverly condensed grids. This guide also focuses on Pinyin, which is the official system to transcribe Hanzi, Chinese characters, into Latin script, now universally used in mainland China and Singapore. Traditional characters (still used in Taiwan and Hong Kong) are also included, making this a complete reference. Newly updated and revised, these characters are the ones officially prescribed by the Chinese government for the internationally recognized test of proficiency in Chinese, the Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi (HSK). The student's ability to read and write Chinese are reinforced throughout the text. Key features of this newly-expanded edition include: The 1,725 most frequently used characters in both Simplified and Traditional forms. All 2,633 characters and 5,000+ compounds required for the HSK Exam. Standard Hanyu Pinyin romanizations. More mnemonic phrases and etymologies to help you remember the characters. An extensive introduction, alphabetical index, and index according to stroke count and stroke order. Completely updated/expanded English definitions. Convenient quick-reference tables of radicals. Updated and revised compounds, plus 25% more vocabulary now offered. Codes to assist those who are preparing for the AP exam or the HSK exam.

Download or read book Remembering Simplified Hanzi 1 written by James W. Heisig and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2008-10-31 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At long last the approach that has helped thousands of learners memorize Japanese kanji has been adapted to help students with Chinese characters. Book 1 of Remembering Simplified Hanzi covers the writing and meaning of the 1,000 most commonly used characters in the simplified Chinese writing system, plus another 500 that are best learned at an early stage. (Book 2 adds another 1,500 characters for a total of 3,000.) Of critical importance to the approach found in these pages is the systematic arranging of characters in an order best suited to memorization. In the Chinese writing system, strokes and simple components are nested within relatively simple characters, which can, in turn, serve as parts of more complicated characters and so on. Taking advantage of this allows a logical ordering, making it possible for students to approach most new characters with prior knowledge that can greatly facilitate the learning process. Guidance and detailed instructions are provided along the way. Students are taught to employ "imaginative memory" to associate each character’s component parts, or "primitive elements," with one another and with a key word that has been carefully selected to represent an important meaning of the character. This is accomplished through the creation of a "story" that engagingly ties the primitive elements and key word together. In this way, the collections of dots, strokes, and components that make up the characters are associated in memorable fashion, dramatically shortening the time required for learning and helping to prevent characters from slipping out of memory.

Download or read book Keeping My Mandarin Alive Lee Kuan Yew s Language Learning Experience With Resource Materials And Dvd rom English Version written by Chee Lay Chua and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 2005-05-25 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Learn Mandarin while you brush your teeth or shave? Read how Singapore's Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew does it!A Prime Minister as an interpreter? Find out when and why MM Lee had to do it.For the first time, this towering figure of the island-state's politics gives a first-hand account of How he has learnt Mandarin over the last 50 years and kept it alive. He also tells When and Why he decided to learn the language, Where he got hold of the learning materials from, Whom he practises his Mandarin with and What spurs him on.MM Lee goes beyond these 5Ws and 1H in Keeping My Mandarin Alive, to share the agony of a mature Chinese language student and how he has overcome the difficulties — he strove to learn Mandarin only at age 32 (from 1955) and Hokkien at age 38 (from 1961).The comprehensive package also details how the English-educated MM Lee has been relating Mandarin to his master language in an effort to grasp the former and unravels how the latest technology has helped him in his quest.Edited by Dr Chua Chee Lay, one of MM Lee's Chinese tutors, Keeping My Mandarin Alive comprises:

Download or read book Tuttle Learning Chinese Characters written by Alison Matthews and published by Tuttle Publishing. This book was released on 2011-12-20 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This user-friendly book is aimed at helping students of Mandarin Chinese learn and remember Chinese characters. At last--there is a truly effective and enjoyable way to learn Chinese characters! This book helps students to learn and remember both the meanings and the pronunciations of over 800 characters. This otherwise daunting task is made easier by the use of techniques based on the psychology of learning and memory. key principles include the use of visual imagery, the visualization of short "stories," and the systematic building up of more complicated characters from basic building blocks. Although Learning Chinese Characters is primarily a book for serious learners of Mandarin Chinese, it can be used by anyone with interest in Chinese characters, without any prior knowledge of Chinese. It can be used alongside (or after, or even before) a course in the Chinese language. All characters are simplified (as in mainland China), but traditional characters are also given, when available. Key features: Specially designed pictures and stories are used in a structured way to make the learning process more enjoyable and effective, reducing the need for rote learning to the absolute minimum. The emphasis throughout is on learning and remembering the meanings and pronunciations of the characters. Tips are also included on learning techniques and how to avoid common problems. Characters are introduced in a logical sequence, which also gives priority to learning the most common characters first. Modern, simplified characters are used, with pronunciations given in pinyin. Key information is given for each character, including radical, stroke-count, traditional form, compounds, and guidance on writing the character. This is a practical guide with a clear, concise and appealing layout, and it is well-indexed with easy lookup methods. The 800 Chinese characters and 1,033 compounds specified for the original HSK Level A proficiency test are covered.

Download or read book China in Ten Words written by Yu Hua and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2012-08-21 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From one of China’s most acclaimed writers: a unique, intimate look at the Chinese experience over the last several decades. Framed by ten phrases common in the Chinese vernacular, China in Ten Words uses personal stories and astute analysis to reveal as never before the world’s most populous yet oft-misunderstood nation. In "Disparity," for example, Yu Hua illustrates the expanding gaps that separate citizens of the country. In "Copycat," he depicts the escalating trend of piracy and imitation as a creative new form of revolutionary action. And in "Bamboozle," he describes the increasingly brazen practices of trickery, fraud, and chicanery that are, he suggests, becoming a way of life at every level of society. Witty, insightful, and courageous, this is a refreshingly candid vision of the "Chinese miracle" and all of its consequences.

Download or read book A Billion Voices written by David Moser and published by Penguin Group Australia. This book was released on 2016-05-23 with total page 96 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mandarin, Guoyu or Putonghua? 'Chinese' is a language known by many names, and China is a country home to many languages. Since the turn of the twentieth century linguists and politicians have been on a mission to create a common language for China. From the radical intellectuals of the May Fourth Movement, to leaders such as Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong, all fought linguistic wars to push the boundaries of language reform. Now, Internet users take the Chinese language in new and unpredictable directions. David Moser tells the remarkable story of China's language unification agenda and its controversial relationship with modern politics, challenging our conceptions of what it means to speak and be Chinese. 'If you want to know what the language situation of China is on the ground and in the trenches, and you only have time to read one book, this is it. A veritable tour de force, in just a little over a hundred pages, David Moser has filled this brilliant volume with linguistic, political, historical, and cultural data that are both reliable and enlightening. Written with captivating wit and exacting expertise, A Billion Voices is a masterpiece of clear thinking and incisive exposition.' Victor H. Mair, American sinologist, professor of Chinese language and literature at the University of Pennsylvania and author of The Columbia History of Chinese Literature 'David Moser explains the complex aspects of Putonghua against the backdrop of history, delivering the information with authority and simplicity in a style accessible both to speakers of Chinese and those who are simply fascinated by the language. All of the questions that people have asked me about Chinese over the years, and more, are answered in this book. The history of Putonghua and the vital importance of creating a common language is a story David Moser brings to life in an enjoyable way.' Laszlo Montgomery, The China History Podcast

Download or read book Basic Mandarin Chinese Reading Writing Practice Book written by Cornelius C. Kubler and published by Tuttle Publishing. This book was released on 2017-10-17 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This comprehensive Chinese character workbook can be used with any textbook or on its own to dramatically enhance your Mandarin reading and writing skills! No matter what textbook you're using to learn Chinese, it requires a lot of practice. Here is a wealth of effective activities and drills--plus an hour of native speaker audio recordings--to help you learn the 288 basic Chinese characters quickly and effectively. This book follows the Basic Mandarin Chinese--Reading & Writing textbook but works equally well with other coursebooks or on its own. The free disc contains audio recordings as well as printable PDF files providing hundreds of pages of extra exercises and activities and a set of 288 printable flash cards to help you learn the basic characters. Basic Mandarin Chinese--Reading and Writing Practice Book includes a wealth of carefully-designed activities designed to improve every aspect of your reading and writing skills, including: Character writing practice sheets Dictation, fill-in-the-blank, and dialog completion exercises Answering questions, reading maps, converting written style to spoken style Identifying radicals and phonetics, punctuating sentences Writing tasks based on real-life schedules, photographs and name cards Translation exercises The accompanying disc contains: Audio recordings by native Mandarin speakers Hundreds of printable practice pages A printable set of 288 Chinese flashcards About the Basic Mandarin Chinese series: Respected Chinese language educator Dr. Cornelius Kubler has taught Mandarin Chinese to diplomats, business people and students for several decades--using an effective learning system with two separate but integrated "tracks" to help you learn the spoken and written forms of the language more efficiently and more successfully. The materials in this series have been acclaimed as a breakthrough in Mandarin Chinese language learning.

Download or read book A Little History of the World written by E. H. Gombrich and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2014-10-01 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: E. H. Gombrich's Little History of the World, though written in 1935, has become one of the treasures of historical writing since its first publication in English in 2005. The Yale edition alone has now sold over half a million copies, and the book is available worldwide in almost thirty languages. Gombrich was of course the best-known art historian of his time, and his text suggests illustrations on every page. This illustrated edition of the Little History brings together the pellucid humanity of his narrative with the images that may well have been in his mind's eye as he wrote the book. The two hundred illustrations—most of them in full color—are not simple embellishments, though they are beautiful. They emerge from the text, enrich the author's intention, and deepen the pleasure of reading this remarkable work. For this edition the text is reset in a spacious format, flowing around illustrations that range from paintings to line drawings, emblems, motifs, and symbols. The book incorporates freshly drawn maps, a revised preface, and a new index. Blending high-grade design, fine paper, and classic binding, this is both a sumptuous gift book and an enhanced edition of a timeless account of human history.

Download or read book Japanese from Zero written by George Trombley and published by . This book was released on with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Japanese From Zero! is an innovative and integrated approach to learning Japanese that was developed by professional Japanese interpreter George Trombley, Yukari Takenaka and was continuously refined over eight years in the classroom by native Japanese professors. Using up-to-date and easy-to-grasp grammar, Japanese From Zero! is the perfect course for current students of Japanese as well as absolute beginners.

Download or read book Fluent Forever written by Gabriel Wyner and published by Harmony. This book was released on 2014-08-05 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book The Chinese Typewriter written by Thomas S. Mullaney and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2018-10-09 with total page 501 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How Chinese characters triumphed over the QWERTY keyboard and laid the foundation for China's information technology successes today. Chinese writing is character based, the one major world script that is neither alphabetic nor syllabic. Through the years, the Chinese written language encountered presumed alphabetic universalism in the form of Morse Code, Braille, stenography, Linotype, punch cards, word processing, and other systems developed with the Latin alphabet in mind. This book is about those encounters—in particular thousands of Chinese characters versus the typewriter and its QWERTY keyboard. Thomas Mullaney describes a fascinating series of experiments, prototypes, failures, and successes in the century-long quest for a workable Chinese typewriter. The earliest Chinese typewriters, Mullaney tells us, were figments of popular imagination, sensational accounts of twelve-foot keyboards with 5,000 keys. One of the first Chinese typewriters actually constructed was invented by a Christian missionary, who organized characters by common usage (but promoted the less-common characters for “Jesus" to the common usage level). Later came typewriters manufactured for use in Chinese offices, and typewriting schools that turned out trained “typewriter girls” and “typewriter boys.” Still later was the “Double Pigeon” typewriter produced by the Shanghai Calculator and Typewriter Factory, the typewriter of choice under Mao. Clerks and secretaries in this era experimented with alternative ways of organizing characters on their tray beds, inventing an input method that was the first instance of “predictive text.” Today, after more than a century of resistance against the alphabetic, not only have Chinese characters prevailed, they form the linguistic substrate of the vibrant world of Chinese information technology. The Chinese Typewriter, not just an “object history” but grappling with broad questions of technological change and global communication, shows how this happened. A Study of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute Columbia University

Download or read book Colloquial Chinese written by Qian Kan and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-08-27 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Colloquial Chinese: The Complete Course for Beginners has been carefully developed by an experienced teacher to provide a step-by-step course to Chinese as it is written and spoken today. Combining a clear, practical and accessible style with a methodical and thorough treatment of the language, it equips learners with the essential skills needed to communicate confidently and effectively in Chinese in a broad range of situations. No prior knowledge of the language is required. Colloquial Chinese is exceptional; each unit presents a wealth of grammatical points that are reinforced with a wide range of exercises for regular practice. A full answer key, a grammar summary, bilingual glossaries and English translations of dialogues can be found at the back as well as useful vocabulary lists throughout. Key features include: A clear, user-friendly format designed to help learners progressively build up their speaking, listening, reading and writing skills Jargon-free, succinct and clearly structured explanations of grammar An extensive range of focused and dynamic supportive exercises Realistic and entertaining dialogues covering a broad variety of narrative situations Helpful cultural points explaining the customs and features of life in China An overview of the sounds of Chinese Balanced, comprehensive and rewarding, Colloquial Chinese is an indispensable resource both for independent learners and students taking courses in Chinese. Audio material to accompany the course is available to download free in MP3 format from www.routledge.com/cw/colloquials. Recorded by native speakers, the audio material features the dialogues and texts from the book and will help develop your listening and pronunciation skills.

Download or read book Slide and Seek 100 Words English Chinese written by Insight Editions and published by iSeek. This book was released on 2020-08-18 with total page 5 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Play slide and seek to reveal 100 new words in both English and Mandarin Chinese with this larger format board book. With multiple tabs to pull and flaps to lift, countless surprises await young learners in Slide and Seek: 100 Words English-Chinese. Each page of this larger format board book contains a single pull tab that reveals the English and Mandarin Chinese versions of a word. Colorful artwork brings the pages to life in entertaining and educational ways. Lift-the-flaps add an extra level of engagement to this book that helps pre-readers at the earliest stages of development. Every spread includes a visual puzzle!

Download or read book Fluent in 3 Months written by Benny Lewis and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2014-03-11 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book Niubi written by Eveline Chao and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2009-11-24 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How to talk dirty and influence people—in Chinese! You can study Chinese for years, but do you really know how to talk like a native speaker? The next book in Plume’s foreign language slang series, Niubi! will make sure you learn all the colorful vernacular words and phrases used by Chinese people of all ages in a variety of situations, including flirting and dating, wheeling and dealing, and even specific Internet slang—not to mention plenty of Chinese words that are...well, best not to mention. Accessible and useful to complete novices (Niubi! newbies), intermediate students of Mandarin Chinese, or just anyone who enjoys cursing in other languages, this irreverent guide is packed with hilarious anecdotes and illustrations, mini cultural lessons, and contextual explanations. So whether you?re planning a trip to Beijing, flirting with an online acquaintance from Shanghai, or just want to start a fight in Chinatown—Niubi! will ensure that nothing you say is lost in translation.