"This is the best kanji book available today. Designed for beginners with a basic knowledge of Japanese to use in the classroom or for self-study."--Modern Language Journal
Everyday tasks like finding a street address or buying a train ticket can be an ordeal in Japan if you don't read kanji-the system of Japanese writing based on Chinese characters. Unfortunately, the kanji characters taught in most textbooks are not always those that you'll encounter in everyday situations. To fill this gap, a group of teachers from the prestigious University of Tokyo have pooled their talents to create 250 Essential Japanese Kanji Characters in two volumes: a practical way to learn the kanji most frequently used in daily life in Japan. Each lesson helps you master a new group of kanji, using an extremely effective approach that focuses on you, the learner, taking an active part.- Introductory Quizzes introduce everyday situations where you encounter kanji.
- Vocabulary sections help you understand the readings and meanings of the kanji.
- New Character Charts teach you new kanji systematically—for each character you'll learn its meanings, its basic on-kun readings, its stroke order, common compounds, and derivations.
- Practice sections help you improve your skills in recognizing and using the kanji.
- Advanced Placement Exam Practice Questions for each lesson follow the format of the College Boards Japanese Language and Culture examination.
The result of the collaborative effort between author Antonio Ventura and illustrator Noemi Villamuza over three years time, this spectacular work of visual art and literature emanates from the alphabet itself and can be enjoyed by people of all ages."El resultado de la colaboracion entre el autor Antonio Ventura y la ilustradora Noemi Villamuza durante tres anos, esta espectacular obra literaria y artistica surge del abecedario en si y puede ser disfrutado por personas de todas las edades.""
"If everybody's first English teacher were Roy Blount Jr., we might still be trillions in debt, but we would be so deeply in love with words and their magic . . . that we'd hardly notice." --Chris Tucker, The Dallas Morning News
After forty years of making a living using words in every medium except greeting cards, Roy Blount Jr. still can't get over his ABCs. In Alphabet Juice, he celebrates the juju, the crackle, the sonic and kinetic energies, of letters and their combinations. He has a strong sense of right and wrong, but he is not out to prescribe proper English. His passion is for questions such as these: Did you know that both mammal and matter derive from baby talk? Have you noticed how wince makes you wince?
Three and a half centuries ago, Thomas Blount produced his Glossographia, the first dictionary to explore derivations of English words. This Blount's Glossographia takes that pursuit to new levels. From sources as venerable as the OED and as fresh as Urbandictionary.com, and especially from the author's own wide ranging experience, Alphabet Juice derives an organic take on language that is unlike, and more fun than, any other.
"Amusing, bemusing, and smart as hell." --Daniel Okrent, Fortune
"Danced in Blount's arms, English swings smartly." --Jack Shafer, The New York Times Book Review
"Gracefully erudite and joyous." --Katherine A. Powers, The Boston Sunday Globe
Rabbinic tradition asserts that every letter of every word of the Torah is a word in itself. Author Stan Tenen demonstrates that each letter is also a hand gesture, and it is at this level that Hebrew forms a natural universal language. All people, including children before they speak and people without sight, make natural use of these gestures.
In The Alphabet That Changed the World, Tenen examines the Hebrew text of Genesis and its relationship to the alphabet. He shows how each letter is both concept and gesture, with the form of the gesture matching the function of the concept. There is thus an implicit relationship between the physical world of function and the conscious world of concept. Using over 200 color illustrations, Tenen demonstrates geometric metaphor as the best framework for understanding the deepest meaning of the text. Such geometry models embryonic growth and self-organization and the core of many healing and meditative practices. Many subjects in contemporary science were derived from the methods and means available to the ancients; The Alphabet That Changed the World makes this authoritative recovery of the "science of consciousness" in Genesis accessible for the first time to the contemporary reading public.
How on Earth did we fix upon our twenty-six letters, what do they really mean, and how did we come to write them down in the first place? Michael Rosen takes you on an unforgettable adventure through the history of the alphabet in twenty-six vivid chapters, fizzing with personal anecdotes and fascinating facts. Starting with the mysterious Phoenicians and how sounds first came to be written down, he races on to show how nonsense poems work, pins down the strange story of OK, traces our five lost letters and tackles the tyranny of spelling, among many many other things. His heroes of the alphabet range from Edward Lear to Phyllis Pearsall (the inventor of the A-Z), and from the two scribes of Beowulf to rappers. Each chapter takes on a different subject - whether it's codes, umlauts or the writing of dictionaries. Rosen's enthusiasm for letters positively leaps off the page, whether it's the story of his life told through the typewriters he's owned or a chapter on jokes written in a string of gags and word games. This is the book for anyone who's ever wondered why Hawaiian only has a thirteen-letter alphabet or how exactly to write down the sound of a wild raspberry.
Fresh-squeezed Lexicology, with Twists
No man of letters savors the ABC's, or serves them up, like language-loving humorist Roy Blount Jr. His glossary, from ad hominy to zizz, is hearty, full bodied, and out to please discriminating palates coarse and fine. In 2008, he celebrated the gists, tangs, and energies of letters and their combinations in Alphabet Juice, to wide acclaim. Now, Alphabetter Juice. Which is better.
This book is for anyone--novice wordsmith, sensuous reader, or career grammarian--who loves to get physical with words. What is the universal sign of disgust, ew, doing in beautiful and cutie? Why is toadless, but not frogless, in the Oxford English Dictionary? How can the U. S. Supreme Court find relevance in gollywoddles? Might there be scientific evidence for the sonicky value of hunch? And why would someone not bother to spell correctly the very word he is trying to define on Urbandictionary.com?
Digging into how locutions evolve, and work, or fail, Blount draws upon everything from The Tempest to The Wire. He takes us to Iceland, for salmon-watching with a "girl gillie," and to Georgian England, where a distinguished etymologist bites off more of a "giantess" than he can chew. Jimmy Stewart appears, in connection with kludge and the bombing of Switzerland. Litigation over supercalifragilisticexpialidocious leads to a vintage werewolf movie; news of possum-tossing, to metanarrative.
As Michael Dirda wrote in The Washington Post Book World, "The immensely likeable Blount clearly possesses what was called in the Italian Renaissance 'sprezzatura, ' that rare and enviable ability to do even the most difficult things without breaking a sweat." Alphabetter Juice is brimming with sprezzatura. Have a taste.
This is the fiftieth anniversary printing of The American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language. This beloved dictionary has become the premier resource for anyone who wants to know precisely what words mean, where they come from, and how to use them effectively. It is renowned for presenting accurate and comprehensible definitions, etymologies based on the latest research, and authoritative usage guidance from the celebrated American Heritage Usage Panel.
The fifth edition of the dictionary, published in 2011, included 10,000 new words and senses, as well as 4,000 new full-color images. This comprehensive update continues the tradition of exhaustive research and thorough review. Thousands of revisions to definitions and etymologies, 150 new words and senses, and new usage advice make this updated printing the most current print dictionary of its size available today.
The American Heritage Dictionary combines clear, precise definitions with useful features that make it easier to choose your words and express yourself clearly. Your words really do define you. Make the most of them with the guidance of this respected work of reference.
- Contains 448 flash cards plus a 48-page index booklet.
- Learn 448 main words plus 1,792 related words and phrases--2,240 basic vocabulary items.
- Arabic script, romanized forms and English meanings are given for all items.
- A sample sentence in Arabic with its English translation shows how the main word is used.
![Arabic in a Flash Kit Volume 1 [With Flash Cards]](/images/books_by_isbn/080/484/721/5/0804847215_item.jpg)
- Contains 448 flash cards plus a 32-page index booklet.
- Learn 448 main words plus 2,240 related words and phrases--2,240 basic vocabulary items.
- Arabic script, romanized forms and English meanings are given for all items.
- A sample sentence in Arabic with its English translation shows how the main word is used.
