Random House Word Menu is a useful reference tool for anyone looking to be precise in her writing or conversation.
The book is divided into subject areas like ‘the sciences,’ ‘social order,’ ‘cognition,’ and much more. After each word, a brief description is given.
In some ways, Random House Word Menu feels quite similar to the ubiquitous Dewey Decimal system used by librarians.
With this book in hand, I could see researchers being able to find specific volumes more easily because the search terms are at his fingertips. He would then be able to give that information to a librarian, or utilize it himself if he knows the library system, in order to find exactly what he needs.
However, I tried to look up the word, ‘librarian,’ in the Word Menu and it wasn’t there! Oversight or purposeful act- you tell me.
I suppose author Stephen Glazier wouldn’t want to give too many tools to those book dragons. Who knows what they would do next…
Highly recommended for reference purposes. The only thing that would make this better would be if the book was digital and could be updated with minimal time, effort and resources. Until then, the physical tome will have to suffice.
The First 100 Chinese Characters, Simplified Character Edition: The Quick and Easy Way to Learn Basic Chinese Characters delivers on everything it promises in the title except the part that mentions “easy”.
I didn’t find it easy at all.
“You’ll be learning a writing system which is one of the oldest in the world and which is now used by more than a billion people around the globe every day.” pg 4
After a brief introduction in which the author Alison Matthews outlines the book (there is a pronunciation guide, explanation about the construction of the language, techniques and more), it hops right in to the basic characters, beginning with numbers.
The book provides plenty of space for practice, but I utilized calligraphy paper because I’m not allowed to write in a library book. 🙂
That being said, I am going to acquire a copy of this just for me, because not only is it fun, but also it’s going to take me longer than a few weeks to master the basics.
I had some warning going in to this project that it wasn’t going to be a cakewalk. One of my nephews took Chinese as his foreign language option in the lower grades and, though he’s a smart little dude, he said it was very difficult.
It is. But it is also beautiful. I love how the characters sometimes resemble the words they stand for, a dimension English lacks with our boring Roman alphabet.
My efforts at writing Chinese numbers!
And like calligraphy, there is an art to creating the characters. I suppose the same could be said of cursive, but it doesn’t have the same feel at all. When I finish a practice page of Chinese characters, I feel like I’m looking at a painting rather than an essay.
In addition, being a left-hander is a benefit in writing Chinese rather than the hindrance that I feel it has been for me in English. The characters are traditionally written top to bottom, right to left. I don’t smear the ink across my hand and wrist! It’s been quite novel.
Highly recommended for anybody interested in learning how to write Chinese characters.
Fluent in 3 Months is a self help guide for anyone who aspires to speak more than one language.
Though it’s mainly filled with common sense ideas, I liked how the author, Benny Lewis, put it all together.
Lewis begins by sharing his own life experience with readers- that he felt he failed in his early attempts to learn another language through the traditional method of high school class. He also details how he spent six months in Spain with the idea that he’d absorb language like a sponge but then didn’t learn any Spanish.
The reasons why he feels like he was unsuccessful, because he was lacking the passion to learn and also didn’t speak the language to native speakers, are his main suggestions for language learning in this book.
“When it comes to language learning, there is no room for doubt: you decide your own success.” pg 24
Beyond those two main tips, Lewis shares shortcuts for learning tons of vocabulary quickly (visualization methods) and practicing immersion without going to the actual country. The latter, as he points out, has been made much easier since technology has brought distant countries into the comfort of your own home.
Through Skype calls or internet programs or even Netflix, language learners can interact with and immerse themselves in their target language.
“You must speak the language with other human beings.” pg 87
The task facing language learners has now become putting in the work to do so rather than traveling the distance for the opportunity.
I think Lewis is on to something with his insistence on speaking your target language from the start.
“As a result of speaking the language right away, students start to acquire the language rather than learn it as they would other academic subjects.” pg 6
I have a friend who’s niece majored in Spanish. But when they visited Spain together, she lacked the confidence to speak it when ordering dinner.
If, from the first stages, learners were able to clear that initial hurdle, day-to-day use, and the successive ones of perfectionism or uncertainty, I agree that the whole language learning process would flow more easily.
Because, as Lewis points out, language is meant for communication with others. We’re rather missing the point if we acquire skills on paper that can’t be put to real life use.
Highly recommended for language learners of any age.
I did not speed read Tony Buzan’s The Speed Reading Book because I found it to be rather a slog. There is useful information in here about the physical capabilities of your eyes and brain, methods for training your eyes how to move, the benefits of improving your vocabulary, how to recognize patterns in the way paragraphs are structured, and the basics of logic.
However, it’s interspersed with information that I felt was better presented in Use Your Head.
“Quite apart from important improvements in the technique of learning how to read fast which are set forth in this book, what I wish to emphasize in my system is that understanding and remembering factual material is not nearly as important as knowing how to relate new material to what you already know. This is the all-important ‘integrative factor’, or if you will, learning how to learn.” pgs 12-13
He re-hashes the proper way to make a mind-map and the importance of previewing all reading material, even mystery novels, which I felt was silly. I can’t speak for the whole world, but I read mysteries to be entertained, not create a template into which I fit important details as I go along.
“The purpose of the preview is to develop a structure into which the mind can more easily fit the smaller details of that structure. … Previewing should be applied whatever kind of material you are going to read, which it be letters, reports, novels or articles.” pg 115
Though he did backpedal on his “preview everything” stance somewhat in a chapter about reading poetry: “When reading literature and poetry, bring to bear all your knowledge and judgment, and if you feel that it is the kind of writing you wish to treasure forever, forget about speed reading through it and reserve it for those occasions when time is not so pressing.” pgs 167-168
Perhaps part of my problem with this book is that it revealed to me just how slowly I read and assimilate non-fiction, because Buzan offers the reader information about the absolute limitlessness of human capability.
“Theoretically, the human visual system can photograph an entire page of print in one-twentieth of a second, and thus a standard length book in between six and twenty-five seconds, and the entire Encyclopaedia Britannica in less than an hour. Advanced skinning and scanning skills take you on the first step of that incredible and inevitable journey.” pg 70
Let’s say I have much room for improvement.
The book also showed its age somewhat during a chapter on the importance of organizing how you take in information from newspapers: “Newspapers are so much a part of our everyday life that we seldom stop to think that they are a very recent development.” pg 148
The book ends on a high note and, of course, I plan to continue practicing and improving my skills: “Your continuing success in all fields of speed reading depends on your personal decision to continue the course you have begun, and on the capacity of your brain to read, assimilate, comprehend, recall, communicate and create, abilities which we know approach the infinite. Your success is therefore guaranteed.” pg 177
But if you’re only going to read one book by Tony Buzan, I recommend Use Your Head.
Lost in Translation is a slim volume of doodles with accompanying definitions of untranslatable words from many languages around the globe. It’s a treat.
There are words for feelings that I’m certain everyone has experienced… we just lacked the language to describe it appropriately.
This book showed me how universal emotions and perceptions can be and the difficulty of capturing the indescribable in words.
I liked the words that described fleeting moments of beauty in nature the most. All of the following are from Lost in Translation but the pages are un-numbered so you’ll just have to trust me that they’re in there:
Komorebi: (Japanese noun) The sunlight that filters through the leaves of the trees.
Waldeninsamkeit: (German noun) The feeling of being alone in the woods, an easy solitude and a connectedness to nature.
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