Best alphabet books according to redditors
We found 49 Reddit comments discussing the best alphabet books. We ranked the 30 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
We found 49 Reddit comments discussing the best alphabet books. We ranked the 30 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
There is definitely a "gay voice" and it's the subject of much study in sociolinguistics. One of my professors has studied gay speakers of Javanese and Indonesian. And one of my friends is doing his thesis on the sociolinguistics of gay speakers in Melbourne.
Of course the OP was unlikely to get a good answer in /r/askreddit. If he was genuinely curious, he should have come to /r/linguistics.
There are two routes you can go. If you are trained in linguistics, or know somebody who is, you can investigate language differences across sexualities directly, which in my opinion, is the best way to learn and become an expert on the subject. If not, there are a few written resources you can check out such as:
You'd probably be better off giving them the Handbook for the IPA. IPA flashcards would be cool, but the IPA is pretty straightforward, and I would fear that the IPA flashcards would become obsolete a week in. The Handbook basically includes phonologies for every language and is wonderfully useful in the future for ESL classes since you can look up the phonology of an ESL student's native tongue and get some more perspective.
>but for the life of me I can't remember writting characters like I recognize them and can read it.
Don't feel bad, this happens to native and non-native speakers alike.
>I could definitely finish out the class like this but I want to actually learn the language.
If you want to actually learn this aspect of the language, then you need to understand how Chinese characters work. To this end I recommend that you take a component-centric approach to understanding them. This is the approach advocated by Outlier Linguistics. You can learn more about them on their website. They sell a great dictionary available for purchase in Pleco, and offer a Chinese character "master class". Even if you don't purchase any of their materials, the component-centric approach they advocate is worth adopting.
>But I cannot write them from memory.
Many advanced speakers will tell you that their handwriting recall was better when they were in the beginning stages of learning the language, because during that period they wrote by hand every day (e.g., when taking a course). But due to modern technology (e.g., typing) and limited time to study, handwriting inevitably fell by the wayside. Most accept this but don't feel great about it (who feels good about forgetting how to write even basic characters? No one.) So, if you want to improve your handwriting recall, you need to invest time in writing by hand.
Below is a copy/paste with handwriting and penmanship information. I suggest that if you are going to practice handwriting to improve your recall, then also try to improve you penmanship too. This might make the handwriting practice more enjoyable (and who doesn't want to have great penmanship?)
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Handwriting Resources
Stacked X Graph Paper PDF Generator, Strokes, Chinese Character Worksheet Generator; or just Google "Chinese character practice worksheet"
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Penmanship Resources
Also search thie subreddit on various combinations of the terms 「正楷、楷書、字帖、下載」.
Below are examples of practice books, in traditional characters, that you can find on a site like http://books.com.tw:
For example《最新三題書寫習字帖》shows a regular 楷體 character at the stop of each column, then handwritten examples in 楷體,行書,and 草書.
Also check out "Regular Script Graphemics: How Chinese Characters Are Written" by Harvey Dam.
I’m very familiar. Here are some good resources:
https://smile.amazon.com/TAi-Hsuan-Ching-Hidden-Classic/dp/0850303117
https://smile.amazon.com/Elemental-Changes-Commentaries-translated-Philosophy/dp/0791416283
https://smile.amazon.com/Canon-Supreme-Mystery-Yang-Hsiung/dp/0791413969
It’s not the Tai Xuan Jing, but I also recommend
https://smile.amazon.com/Maze-Game-Diana-Reed-Slattery-ebook/dp/B007UJZWC0
I also have my own work built on three forces > nine elements > 27 variants > 81 pairs > 729 triads.
Not sure about that, but in the meantime, if you want to start learning the script, I can recommend this book: https://www.amazon.com/Arabic-Script-Hacking-learning-alphabet/dp/1473679699
I got it from a friend who didnt want her copy, just to give it a try, and it is brilliant. If you want you could smash it out in a weekend and end up with a good ability to sound out Arabic words, even if you don't understand them. I have used it to impress and make friends with the owners of the local middle eastern grocery :)
Yes, men and women are different, of course, but logically, men and women are literally as similar as you get. There is nothing more similar to a man than a woman. A male lion? A male fly? A truck? I think we would all agree that a woman shares much more similarities with a man than anything else in the world. We can also agree that there is nothing more "common" about being a man than being a woman. Yet, our culture would make you think there are simply more men in the world. The world caters to men.
I approach the topic with theories about Othering in mind. The idea is that there is something we consider the "norm"-- that which is not named, that which is invisible, exnominated. We consider "maleness" to be "the norm." Let's take the film industry as an example: most speaking roles in movies are offered to men.. I found one study that examined perceptions of gender equality in film, too. (I cannot find it now-- apologies.) When a crowd is composed of 50% males and 50% females, the audience perception is that there are way more females than males-- we are not used to seeing equal representation.
Hell, even in our language, we assume male to be the norm (take the words mister and mistress, for example. Linguistically, "mister" is the base word, and the "ess" is the "something extra...also, the words used to have similar meanings but, like many words, the female-centered word acquired negative meaning over time). As another example, "they" used to be the correct gender-neutral pronoun, whether singular or plural. In 1850, a group of all male grammarians decided to change the official rule so that "he" would be the gender-neutral pronoun because, by the all-male group logic, males were the “more comprehensive” gender.
Hey you can use any or all of the below mentioned resources:
WEBSITES:
BOOKS:
Hope this helps. If liked, please don't forget to up-vote. And all the best for your preparation and test.
Anyone who likes this kind of stuff should check out Letter Perfect: The Marvelous History of Our Alphabet from A to Z by David Sacks
Dying Words by Nick Evans is great.
So 3 days late ... only just found this sub
BSL teach yourself book & DVD is fantastic in my opinion. It really helped and explained a lot that I struggled with while taking level one last year. It's a good representation between how English is spoken and BSL is structured and what the cut out and simplify.
Most other things I've found are quite outdated but I can't remember anything from that book that aren't still relevant
Kaplan has some good materials you should check out, including books, courses and online resources (with the online practice tests the most helpful)
However, if you want to specifically work on your vocab, check out verbal advantage if you want to compliment your vocab studying with an outside source.
Verbal Advantage at Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Maze-Game-Diana-Reed-Slattery/dp/1889471100
This is one of the most powerful books I've read, and is criminally underrated.
Just looking at images of the Nepali alphabet, it appears to be the same as that used for Hindi. As you may expect though, it will be used in slightly different ways, like the latin alphabet for European languages. I'm learning Hindi and to learn the alphabet I basically just memorized it by writing out each letter and pronouncing it 5 at a time.
You could use Richard Snell's Read and Write Hindi script if you like (https://www.amazon.ca/write-Hindi-script-Rupert-Snell/dp/1444103911/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1495039659) but I think you'd do fine using the various web resources available through google, like this one: http://www.omniglot.com/writing/nepali.htm
Of course, real practice comes with exposure to words after you've memorized, so I suggest getting into the actual course as soon as you can. For the first while you'll be doing lots of cross-referencing but that goes away with time and effort.
I am also a Hindi learner and not a native speaker, but I can try to answer your questions.
ऋ is a vowel which can be transliterated as ri or r with a dot below it. It is used in words like कृष्णा (Krishna). You can see that the word Krishna also uses ष (sh) and ण (n). These letters are somewhat uncommon but you still see them, especially in names and Sanskrit loan words. ङ and ञ are less common than ष and ण in my opinion.
ळ is not used in Hindi. It is used in Marathi though. I think it might be a retroflex L. You don't need to know this for Hindi. ऩ ऱ य़ do not exist in Hindi as far as I know. Seems like you already know that some letters do have an added dot(?) to give it a different sound ( क़ ख़ ग़ ज़ फ़ ढ़ ). न र य are not such letters from what I understand.
ॻ ॼ ॾ ॿ - I have never seen these characters with the line beneath them. Either they are old forms or something else. I wouldn't worry about them.
My suggestion is to get some other learning resources. Read and Write Hindi Script is a useful book. I also liked Elementary Hindi and the accompanying workbook.
Yes, English has the largest vocabulary of any language. And whether to study vocabulary has long been the subject of debate. The confusion lies in that the pre-2016 SAT tested directly less common words. BUT, the 2016 SAT tests vocabulary in the form of Vocabulary in Context and focuses on more common words with their less common definitions or uses. However, the passages may use more difficult words, and if you don't understand those words, you may misunderstand the passage.
Memorizing long lists of words and definitions has always been problematic because that is not how English works. Many words have multiple definitions and even uses outside of those definitions.
You need to read more and pay attention to unfamiliar words and familiar words used in unfamiliar ways. Keep track of those words and work on integrating them into your own vocabulary. There is no fast and easy method of doing this unfortunately. College Panda has a word list that is useful, and Erica Meltzer has a vocabulary book that alerts you to the types of vocabulary you need to understand.
I don't think it's necessary, no. But if you're the kind of person that benefits from this kind of thing, it can be beneficial. Sorry for being tautological =)
If you was about to learn new swimming styles, are you the kind of person who would go to the library and research on books about sports science as applied to swimming? If learning the guitar, do you brush up on music theory and try to understand the patterns of notes and chords in the fretboard? Before reading poetry, do you study about metrical forms and the history of styles? If you're that kind of person, you might have fun studying some linguistics and then trying to apply it to the languages you learn. Ocasionally it might even be useful!
As for book recommendations, I think one of the most useful areas you can investigate is phonetics and phonology, the study of linguistic sounds. Spoken languages are made of sounds that you hear, and you decode writing into sort-of "mental sounds" (assuming you're not congenitally deaf). Unfortunately these two processes have complications.
Due to personal experience, I'm a supporter of the theory that this can be remedied by explicitly learning to notice the different sounds (Schmidt's Noticing Hypothesis). That means you need to understand how you yourself produce linguistic sounds, so that you can adapt your vocal gestures to those of other languages.
To be able to do that, first of all, you have to learn the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). No, seriously, you need it. The Wikipedia articles are quite decent, and so is IPA's own handbook. Wikipedia also has recordings for all sounds—and so does this interactive table. Some beginners think of IPA as a writing system, and try to learn to "read" it as a whole. This is a mistake. Think of it as a table of possible sounds, classified on various dimensions (in the case of consonants, which are easier to introspect, there are three: place, manner, and voice). Once you understand how each dimension explains part of a gesture, the values of each symbol become a recipe of how to produce it: do this with my tongue here, turn on voice, and… voilà!
If you're familiar with language X, look at the Wikipedia article "Phonology of X", and try to refer to the table and understand it by reproducing the sounds. (In the case of English, be sure to locate your own dialect/accent). Then try to understand the corresponding articles for the languages you're learning. You don't need to care about the rest of the table.
As you get familiar with the IPA, try to learn the basics of articulatory phonetics and phonology. Online articles are probably good enough to help with language learning, but if you like technical books and want to dig deeper, I benefited a lot this and this and this one. If and only if you like physics, then this too.
The best solution to this is to make sure you get lots and lots and lots of exposure to the spoken language. If you can learn the spoken language before writing, so much the better (it's how natives learn, after all). If you're curious about how writing systems work, I'd recommend Rogers as a first stop, but I think the Cree/Blackfoot sillabaries shouldn't give you any trouble.
it's called, "Remembering the Hanzi". Here's the link to book 1 and book 2 if you're learning simplified characters. For the traditional character books, here is book 1 and book 2. Also, if you don't want to buy a hard copy, here is a link to the 1st simplified book in PDF format.
I think the first study might be from Dale Spender's Man-Made Language:
http://gunpowder-tea.tumblr.com/post/74924297126/madmaudlingoes-bropakpro-touch-my-cuboner
Great book that covers the history and design for each letter in our alphabet, Letter Perfect by David Sacks
Does it count if I updated my list just pre-Christmas? Hand't done it in like a year before that... and seemed a good time to do it! I'll add other things now just in case!
So I added the Sign Language teach yourself because it's one of those things I've always wanted to learn for some reason (though I have no idea who i'd practise on), and the headphones because I and to go though them pretty quickly and I love my music. I make up little stories to go with whatever song I'm listening to. I'll write them into real stories eventually. The clothes I added because I've recently lost weight and have no clothes my size anymore and I love superdry.
I took out the face creams I added because of random skincare addiction reddit threads. I can't afford them and really moisturiser is all I actually use. I'm so bad at that sort of thing. Took out some of the more obscure boardgames I'd added because we barely play the ones we have (wish I could encourage my so to play more!). Took out the health stuff (creatine) because i've just bought some from a different site. Also took off the sugar free chocolate because I found some much much nicer in an actual real life store for a surprisingly reasonable price!
Incase those don't count I also added this blender because my bf killed the one we'd had for just a week by putting it onto a hot ring of the stove... it melted and wouldn't hook back up the the base. This happened 2 months ago... I miss my cauliflower mash :(
(I came first in jiggery pokery, what about you?)
If you're interested in that sort of thing, you might like "Letter Perfect" by David Sacks.
For a comprehensive look at this, check out this book by James Lipton:
http://www.amazon.com/Exaltation-Larks-The-Veneral-Game/dp/B0068THIVQ
I'm reading a great book called alphabetical.
It goes through each letter of the alphabet and gives a really in depth history, entomology, phonetical history. It also fleshes out things I had never heard of like the phonetic principle and ... Ah it's just so fascinating. Recommended.
http://www.amazon.com/Alphabetical-Every-Letter-Tells-Story/dp/1848548869
Don't waste your time with that crap, unless that is effective for you. For me, whenever I read I gloss over words I don't know or can't pronounce. If you do this at all then reading won't increase your vocabulary.
For me, what worked was creating a mental picture of the definition based on the pronunciation of the word. The more personalized and outrageous the better. That last part on being personalized and crazy is key.
For example, truculent means "eager or quick to argue or fight; aggressively defiant." To me it sounds like "truck-you-lent" so I picture a guy driving a semi truck which costs like 400K who owns the truck, but works for a shipping company. He lends his truck out, but the guy doesn't give it back and so the big burly truck driver is pissed and eager to fight and argue.
I practice recalling the key phrase "truck-you-lent" and associated picture incorporating the definition. After three times I just know the definition without really being able to articulate it well. Its just in there, but it takes struggling and recalling it ~3 times over a 2 week period.
I have a database of GRE words with descriptions of pictures that I have been working on in hopes of writing a book based on the above idea someday. PM if you want me to send it to you.
Also, check out these books for ideas and even words. They tend to be simple SAT words but you need to know them as well for the GRE.
GRE Vocab Capacity: Over 900 Powerful Memory Tricks and Mnemonics to Widen your Lexicon
Vocabulary Cartoons II, SAT Word Power
Vocabulary Cartoons: Sat Word Power
Vocabulary Cartoons II: SAT Word Power
Picture These SAT Words!
Picture These SAT Words in a Flash
Vocabulary Cartoons: Word Power Made Easy
Vocabulary Cartoons: SAT Word Power
How to Build a Better Vocabulary
Verbal Advantage: 10 Steps to a Powerful Vocabulary
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMjtkHI7CKM
https://www.amazon.com/write-Hindi-script-Teach-Yourself/dp/1444103911/
https://www.amazon.com/Crash-Course-Learn-Devanagari-Script/dp/1484015118/
vocabulary flash cards. You learn a new word, think you never heard it before. But after you learn it, if you read much, you start seeing it, as if for the first time. On the other hand, if you don't read much, maybe there isn't much point in expanding your vocabulary.
The Writing Revolution by Amalia Gnanadesikan is a solid introduction to writing systems, their history, and their underlying principles.
Duolingo is great for vocabulary. The biggest barrier to learning Hebrew is the Alphabet though. People are intimidated by any non Latin Alphabet. There's a great book that teaches Hebrew reading with fun memory tricks available on kindle or in paperback:
https://www.amazon.com/Learn-Read-Hebrew-6-Weeks/dp/0997867507/
Heisig-ist here. I get the criticism but people always gloss over that there's an entire separate book for tackling the readings.
The isolation of these 2 elements is very intentional. It just also means that a feeling of actual pay-off is very delayed.
There are other successful ways to learn kanji of course, but Heisig's method is completely effective if fully followed through.