(Part 3) Best reference books according to redditors
We found 16,058 Reddit comments discussing the best reference books. We ranked the 6,500 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the products ranked 41-60. You can also go back to the previous section.
55. Essentials of Swedish Grammar: A Practical Guide to the Mastery of Swedish
17 mentions
McGraw-Hill
Had this read to me in 4th grade, and I absolutely loved it.
But then, in 5th grade I read Hatchet by Gary Paulsen. It's the same premise, but... much darker (for a kid's book). If you liked My Side of the Mountain, then I recommend Hatchet. It's the gritty re-boot.
I dunno guys. It could be summer, and there might be a boy who escaped from that crash with nothing but his trusty hatchet.
Sorry about that, here you go:
Just took the test on Saturday and got 170V/168Q. Let me tell you a few things about prep:
1)DO NOT waste your time or money with Kaplan/Princeton/Barron's etc.. they are inadequate and full of distracting typos.
2)Do use Magoosh.com and/or the Manhattan course. They both come with top-notch instruction and lots of practice tests/questions. I actually used both. For even more practice questions (which you probably won't have time for at this point) check out the 5 lb book of questions.
3) Definitely memorize every word on the free Magoosh vocab flashcards. Knowing these words saved my verbal score.
4) For the love of all that is holy please use the official GRE book that is put out by ETS.
5) Do not ignore the essay. It requires a very specific type of writing. Even if you are a "good" writer you will be disappointed in your score unless you write the way they want you to. What you may not know is that every essay is graded by one computer reader and one human reader. For $13 you can actually have 2 essays graded by the exact algorithm the computer reader uses and you'll get an idea of where you stand.
Keep powering on young man! You don't have to be successful to be great. Life's greatest challenges are picking yourself up again after falling down. And you seem to be doing that really well.
Can I recommend a book to you? It's called Iron John. It's an easy ready, but it's designed to help people find strength in themselves. Don't rush though it! Take each chapter slowly and think about it from your own perspective.
Edit: link to paperback on Amazon: less than $6 after shipping
https://www.amazon.com/Iron-John-Book-About-Men/dp/0306813769
Good job learning plant families! That's an excellent and valuable start. Next I would recommend finding a taxonomic key (flora) for your area - it's a comprehensive, organized guide to all the species. Learn to identify plants by the key, and you'll be well on your way to being a pro! If a flora is hard to come by, see what kinds of field guides you can get your hands on. Often they are cheaper, but not as comprehensive.
 
If you don't already grow plants, start a little garden of your own. You can learn different propagating methods (cuttings, layering, dividing rhizomes) as well as seasonal phenology. If this isn't an option, get in the habit of observing the same plant every day (ex: your favorite tree by your house or work).
 
Keep a journal of phenology events in your garden/routine: when did your tree leaf out in spring? When did it flower? How big were the fruits?, etc. Note how much rain/snow fell, temperature min/max, or what insects you observed. Over time, you'll see patterns develop which will be invaluable to seed collecting, planting cycles, or just damn interesting! There is so much to botany, but being able to see the changes that occur throughout the season is a critical skill. It's all the more personal when you grow your own plants, and if you're into ethnobotany I'd say being in touch (ha!) with the plants is paramount. :)
 
One more thought: if there are any native plant societies, consider joining. Small, local chapters usually have nominal fees, are a great way to meet other botanists, and depending on the organization you learn some really neat, detailed stuff that you might not get from a book (examples: local uses of plants, genetic diversity of alpine communities, important pollinators in your area).
 
Check out these resources:
 
Hope these ideas get you going! :)
Good luck!
 
Edit: added thoughts & resources; formatting
Noam Chomsky is the author of Profit Over People: Neoliberalism & Global Order, What Uncle Sam Really Wants, and countless others.
Naomi Wolf is the author of The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot, Give Me Liberty: A Handbook for American Revolutionaries, and others.
Chris Hedges is the author of "Someone You Love: Coming to a Gulag Near You", The World As It Is: Dispatches on the Myth of Human Progress, Death of the Liberal Class, and others
Daniel Ellsberg @ http://www.ellsberg.net/articles
Cornel West @ http://www.cornelwest.com/
Birgitta Jónsdóttir's website & twitter
Alexa O'Brien's website & twitter
Kai Wargalla's twitter account.
Tangerine Bolen @ RevolutionTruth; website & twitter
Actually, most "professional academic linguists" don't create language learning tools at all. Theoretical linguists are busy analyzing data and coming up with theories about language. Experimental linguists are busy designing and running experiments to test these theories in the lab. Field linguists are off collecting more data to invigorate this cycle (and to document languages). And so on and so forth.
So (most) language learning books are not written by linguists in the standard, academic sense. In other words, "linguist" means something more specific than just language learning/teaching enthusiast, even though some (maybe many) linguists do enjoy learning and teaching languages.
What some professional linguists do, which may be of interest to you, is publish comprehensive descriptive grammars. They're not necessarily meant for learning a language; they're more for reference (for language learners and linguists alike). One book that comes to mind is the Cambridge Grammar of the English Language by Huddleston and Pullum (both linguists). Only problem is that, most likely, any descriptive grammar will actually be written in that very language, so for a beginner, it's unrealistic as a learning tool.
tl;dr Basically, as far as I can tell, the people best trained for creating language learning tools (linguists) actually don't because they're busy with (or interested in) other stuff, so the tools that are created are often created by people with insufficient training (and who probably do it mostly for the money), hence the poor quality. So it's not linguists who are dropping the ball!
And that's how Hatchet started.
Hello,
I found myself in a similar situation as you not too long ago. As a former democrat smitten with the idea of making things "fair" for everyone, reading Ron Paul's books and ideology really got me thinking. I have never put more time, thought, and effort into politics and social structure before, but after this much-needed reflection after my introduction to RP's very... different points of view, I find that his are the only true "fair" policies.
To address your concern over wealth eventually and inevitably consolidating into the hands of the few at expense of the many, I would stop short of declaring such a Malthusian outcome. Do situations such as you described with the cash register machine occur in Capitalism? Absolutely, and like you said, they are a blessing for society. The world now needs less cashiers, this is true, but now the world needs more engineers to design the machines, mechanics to fix them when they break, computer programmers to code the software they use, and security guards and managers to make sure the machines are being used properly.
But, you say, the person who invented this machine is going to get RICH! That's not fair! However, the very essence of capitalism is that this is indeed the most fair outcome. The man had a brilliant idea and put in the work needed to realize his vision of completing the Cashier-tron 3000. Good for him. His reward in the form of economic success and material wealth is what will motivate the relatively poor college engineering student to start dreaming up plans and designs for the Cash-o-Matic 4000.
As technology progresses, the structure of the economy will inevitably change. It happened before in in the mid-20th century, from an agriculturally based economy to a manufacturing-based economy. Currently, the US economy is transitioning from a manufacturing base to a services based structure, and it is true that these transition periods can indeed be painful. But this is how the free market and economies have to work, and trying to interfere with the process through wealth redistribution, money printing, and corrupt regulatory agencies is not only unfair, but quite often counter-productive.
I do not claim to know everything, my friend, and I love to see people asking questions such as yours. I am merely giving you my perspective after pondering similar issues myself. As long as we keep asking these questions, and seeking these answers, I am confident that the right ideology will make it to the top.
edit: also, as for corporate person-hood, Ron Paul has stated many times in his books and in speeches that he firmly believes that rights belong to individuals, and not groups. The logical conclusion of this line of thought would lead me to believe he does not support corporate person-hood in any way, shape, or form.
edit2: I highly recommend that if you are interested in learning more about the intellectual foundation of Ron Paul's policy positions that you pick up a copy of his book Liberty Defined. It is a quick read and it is written expressly for the purpose of covering 50 fundamental issues and providing his rationale for thinking the way he does about it.
In The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot, published in 2007, Naomi Wolf talks about the ongoing "fascist shift" in America. Things like this and the NSA "revelations" (quotation marks used because, while we knew about it from the likes of Binney, we hadn't seen any official documents until the Snowden leaks) are examples of what a fascist shift looks like.
At one point, while I was reading today, I came across the phrase, "Spying is the fuel of fascism." It may sound alarmist, but she gives historical examples from 1920s Italy, 1920s-30s Germany, etc., and she's dead on. Depending upon what you use as your litmus test, we are either swiftly descending into global fascism or already there.
A few, in no particular order:
The Way of the Superior Man: A Spiritual Guide to Mastering the Challenges of Women, Work, and Sexual Desire
http://amzn.com/1591792576
Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (Collins Business Essentials)
http://amzn.com/006124189X
Mastering Your Hidden Self: A Guide to the Huna Way (A Quest Book)
http://amzn.com/0835605914
My Secret Garden: Women's Sexual Fantasies
http://amzn.com/0671019872
Introducing NLP: Psychological Skills for Understanding and Influencing People (Neuro-Linguistic Programming)
http://amzn.com/1573244988
What Every BODY is Saying: An Ex-FBI Agent's Guide to Speed-Reading People
http://amzn.com/0061438294
The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature
http://amzn.com/0060556579
Outliers: The Story of Success
http://amzn.com/0316017930
Iron John: A Book About Men
http://amzn.com/0306813769
Try this little experiment: Browse around reddit for a bit. Note how you seem to be talking to yourself - commenting on things, remembering to add milk to your grocery list, etc. If you actually sat down and transcribed every little thought you were having, using complete sentences, I bet a couple of days later you still wouldn't be done. Personally, when I think something like, "Oh, I should run down the the 7-11 later to get some milk," the words "oh" and "run" might pop up in my head, but I simply visualize a 7-11 and maybe some milk, and I just "know" within about a second that the concept of "out of milk" and "needing" and "buying" (and maybe "buying extra things like ramen") and "coming back home" are all implied. I don't need to actively think about those concepts separately, since my brain has already thought them. This is very much like how babies think.
There are some theories going around about the concept of mentalese (which is separate from the concept of language) and universal grammar that discuss this concept that all human beings have a universal way of thinking about things, which get "translated" into language when we think or speak.
You may be interested in reading The Unfolding of Language by Guy Deutscher. It goes into how language may have started out, and how it evolved into the complex communication system we have today. (It's written for people who don't know anything about linguistics, so you won't get bogged down with technical terms.)
I would very much like for the three Dictionaries of Japanese Grammar (Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced) to be digitized to make searching easier.
Similar field report :
In high school, I had a major (lasting for years) oneitis for a girl in my class.
We dated for about 1 month when we were 15 - and then she broke it up. Which broke my heart pretty bad at the time. We didn't have sex but fooled around (full naked).
Fast forward about 18 years. I'm married, with a kid. She got married and got divorced after a while. We've been friends on Facebook, but no real conversations apart from saying happy birthday on her wall etc.
Anyways - I play in a band as a 2nd job and we had a gig in the town where she lives. I invite her (and a +1 if she wants to). She comes and stays till the end, and we chat for about 20 minutes before our tour bus heads back on the road.
Since then (about a year ago) she initiates chats over FB at least once a week. She even has dropped numerous hints about hooking up etc. We had a talk about how we used to fool around etc.
At one time we had a gig in Germany and she told me to take her with me, and when I said something to the effect of "weekend getaway with a married man? Scandalous" she merely laughed and made smiley faces etc.
She's still single with no LTR at the moment.
My take on this :
Even as a kid, the needy type (who loves them to the skies and will do anything to gain their favour) will get the kick on the butt.
Being married does not really stop women from making advances - it probably even creates a "chase" and "competition" feeling so they can say "he's married, but he still could not say no to me" in the end.
I probably won't go for a "close". I'm reading Iron John at the moment and I'd hate to be "the father who fooled around and left his family" and screw up the chance of my son becoming a proper man.
I’ve been using the Integrated Korean textbooks by Klear. They have lots of grammar and vocabulary, plus they have workbooks you can get (which I recommend) to practice all the stuff you just learned. They’re like 25$ each on amazon. Here’s a link for Beginning 1
It's always good to see someone else interested in Nordic languages! Here are a couple resources I use for Swedish, but I'm sure you can adapt them or find equivalents for Norwegian or Danish.
Vocab:
Grammar:
Other:
This is everything I have for now, I'll update this list if I think of anymore.
If you like learning about how languages develop and change, this book will probably have a big effect on the way you see language shifts. It's an entry-level summary of the basic language evolution principles that allow, for example, modern linguists to reverse engineer ancient languages with scant records.
The book jumped to mind because, if you understood some of these concepts, you'd never argue that people will descend to pointing and grunting. Using intense words to describe relatively mundane phenomena (e.g. "awesome") is something people often bemoan, but as those words become banal people continually seek new ways to make their communication - their very voices - stand out from the crowd in its intensity. That's a bit of a treadmill, but it's not necessarily one that actively lacks virtue.
Using "lazy" language like contractions, malapropisms, nonstandard spellings, metatheses, and so on isn't necessarily "destructive" to a language in a holistic sense, either. If certain terms or formations lose their specificity in a miasma of misuse, the need for that specificity doesn't necessarily go away. As long as people have need to communicate with specificity, they will reach for ways to do so when the moment requires it. Language is the tool we all use to convey meaning, and we're tool-makers at the very core of our collective being.
There are some "errors" I actively object to because they interfere with my speedy comprehension of written material in a jarring way. Some of that, I'm sure, is my own conditioned outrage. (For example, a sentence like "it's suppose to be this way," is jarring to me, but it's tough to make a sound semantic argument why "supposed to" and "intended to" should have identical meaning that precludes the use of "suppose to" without feeling like you're throwing good linguistics after bad.) Some of it I feel has genuine utility in easing comprehension, e.g. they're/there/their, its/it's.
Some corrections, such as less/fewer and further/farther, I feel are pedantic. As you might gather from my username, I have a certain appreciation for the pedantic, and I'm aware that I'm not alone in that capacity. I don't think that's any great sin, in and of itself! I will often correct people on matters of pedantry on the off chance that they, too, appreciate a good bit of pedantry. Overall, I try to control the image and tone of that communication carefully, though, because of something my Aunt, a professor of linguistics at University of Texas, told me a long time ago:
"One person can't hurt a language, but they can hurt feelings. Act accordingly."
This is a professor whose career's work was in recording and preserving endangered languages in the Yucatan.
So yeah - lighten up, there, son. Ain't none of these people gonna hurt English none, so long as folks've got stuff to say and use English to do it. If something trips you up, decide if it's because of a specificity/fluency barrier or just a learned "correctness fetish," and then do the needful.
I know this isn't what you want to hear, but you can't learn a language without learning its grammar. Your request is like someone who wants to be a surgeon saying he doesn't want to bother with studying anatomy. It just doesn't work like that.
Sure, with Duolingo or Youtube or a smart phone app, you could probably pick up some vocabulary and maybe even a few stand-alone phrases. Without understanding the grammar, though, you'll never be able to put those words together into meaningful sentences and arrange those sentences into meaningful conversations.
It would be like listening to someone in English who always says things like "Me want store please to go." Sure, a native English speaker will probably understand that you really meant "I want to go to the store, please." However, after two minutes of a conversation like that, the native speaker will be mentally exhausted.
So, as someone who himself didn't start learning German until he was 18, please believe me when I tell you that you will be doing yourself a huge favor in the long run if you take it slow here at the beginning and don't try to jump ahead until you get a firm grasp on the grammar. This won't necessarily be easy, and it won't necessarily be thrilling, but it *is* necessary. Having a large vocabulary and knowing cool slang words don't mean anything if you can't put them together correctly to make sentences.
Finally, you mentioned that you don't know English grammar very well. This is part of the problem, too. How can you learn the grammar of a foreign language if you don't have a frame of reference via the grammar of your own language? A grammar guide that was used in the German department where I studied might be helpful. It's relatively inexpensive on its own, but you might even be able to find it for free at a local public or university library, if you have access to one.
Finally, don't hesitate to ask grammar questions here (but help us help you by not asking 20 different grammar questions in the same post).
Viel Spaß und viel Erfolg!
[An Illustrated Book of Bad Arguments] (http://www.amazon.com/Illustrated-Book-Bad-Arguments/dp/1615192255/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1462815567&sr=8-1&keywords=illustrated+fallacies)
>Have any of you gone through a big crisis like this and if so what helped you get through it?
The realization that (regardless of family, friends) I was, like everyone else will ultimately be at some time or another, really "alone" and "on my own" in this world -- but that THAT can be a good and wonderful thing rather than a depressing one -- that I needed to make my OWN way in life, and learn to endure through the various "shitstorms" to experience the periods of PURE JOY that will also be found at points in time in my life... but of course to do that, I had to still be alive, and be open to SEEING those things, which one can't do when you're curled up in a ball in some corner having a self-pity-party.
--
You want some concrete recommendation?
--
OK, ggo fetch a book or two about some man (or more likely boy) who has -- somehow or another -- become a "castaway" lost somewhere & unlikely to be rescued, bereft of comforts, bereft of supplies and even of any "friend" to help them. Such a person invariably (and truly) does through a major and deep stage of depression, where suicidal thoughts and even multiple attempts are NOT uncommon... but nevertheless in learning how to survive, one learns the REAL reason and purpose of life... which is the LIVING of it.
There are quite a few such stories -- whether it is the classic "Robinson Crusoe" or the true life story of the man that character was based on, Alexander Selkirk -- and most of those are in the public domain, available for free (in a variety of formats) at Project Gutenberg & other online resources; but of course many of those are written in a language and style that make for rather difficult reading to us, and the world that they came from (prior to being castaway) well it isn't exactly related to the modern world WE live in.
--
Which is why I would recommend instead a much more RECENT book (actually series of books) written in modern English, about a modern character, from our present (or recent past) world -- the "Brian's Saga" series by Gary Paulsen, about a boy who becomes "lost" and "castaway" in the middle of the Canadian backwoods -- and particularly relevant to you and your state of mind, will be the first book in that series, entitled simply:
"Hatchet"
--
I mean seriously, it's a relatively CHEAP book -- even if you're nearly broke you can probably afford to buy the Kindle copy (and if you don't have a Kindle you can use the Kindle reader on any computer, and you obviously HAVE some kind of a computer else you couldn't post here, right?). Plus, most likely your local public library will have a copy you could borrow for free -- I dare you; no I double-dog-dare you (or anyone really) to read that book and not be better off for it.
And besides, before you "off yourself" well, isn't reading ONE little fiction story worth a try?
--
Helluva lot less expensive, painful or awkward than going through "counseling" or getting prescriptions for a bunch of mind & mood altering drugs (not to mention the side effects).
Hatchet
I only say to wait this long before using a textbook, because the most suggested book -is- Integrated Korean, and I found jumping into it did not help me. (aside from maybe the Hangul lesson at the beginning, but even that was a bit much.) I found the lessons to take a much different course than other languages that I have learned in the past. I really feel basic communication (Hello, Thank You) and the verb "to be" should be included in the very first lessons you take. They kind of jump right in without great explanations.
I hope that's a good starting point. Its basically how I've gone about it, without all the stumbling around aimlessly trying to figure out what works for me, what didn't work, and lots of wasted time studying things I wouldn't fully comprehend until I had a better foundation of knowledge.
I find to get the most out of Anki you end up putting lots of time into creating decks, which can be a bit overwhelming or complicated.
Edited for clarification.
Read "Teach Like a Champion" (link) It's all about classroom management and keeping kids engaged.
Bad seeing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronomical_seeing
Take a look at this site:
http://cleardarksky.com/csk/
Find a location nearest your place. Look at the third row in the diagram, the one called "Seeing". It's a seeing forecast. Try and look again at Antares when the little squares in that row are dark blue. Then it should look much better.
Also, pick another big star at the same elevation (distance to horizon) and compare it with Antares. It should be the same. Now look at a big star closer to horizon. It should look worse. That's just seeing.
---
BTW, Antares is actually a double star. Its companion is very small and pretty close to the primary, but it could be seen in at least 6" of aperture in good seeing. It looks "faded green-ish" to most people, although that's probably just due to contrast with the red primary (there are no green stars). Try and locate the companion - if seeing is good enough you should be able to see it. Perhaps, part of what you're seeing is the ghost of the companion bouncing around the image of the primary in bad seeing (but most of it should be just the primary distorted by seeing).
If you can't see the companion in a 15" scope, seeing must be pretty bad, or there's some problem with the optics.
Make sure the telescope is well collimated. If collimation is a problem, the image distortion would be static, it would not bounce around, but it's always worth checking it, to make sure the scope is in top shape.
http://www.cloudynights.com/documents/primer.pdf
http://www.stark-labs.com/craig/llcc/llcc.html
http://legault.perso.sfr.fr/collim.html
A 15" reflector would certainly benefit from active cooling:
http://www.garyseronik.com/?q=node/55
http://www.garyseronik.com/?q=node/69
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To remove any doubt as to the location of Antares, perhaps you should get some paper-based charts. The electronic stuff is useful for quick and rough identification, but paper can actually be more precise. A simple planisphere would give you an instant confirmation for big objects like Antares:
http://www.amazon.com/Guide-Stars-Ken-Graun/dp/1928771017/
A more detailed atlas can be useful for smaller things:
http://www.amazon.com/Sky-Telescopes-Pocket-Atlas/dp/1931559317/
This is a very broad topic, and difficult to encapsulate in a few lines, but I'll give it a go. I spent about eight years of my life dedicated to this pursuit. I got a degree in bio and worked as a field botanist for years. I tutored it, etc etc.
There is a lot of conflicting information out there, even within the confines of structured and scientific botany. Species aren't neat little packages that many would like to believe, there are hybrid complexes and recent, yet unstable, specialization events that lead to distinct morphologies but the ability to interbreed.
Practically, you want to discern species A from B so that you may harvest one for a particular purpose. Some groups of plants are easy to ID (e.g. Brassicaceae), and relatively safe to utilize, where others (e.g. Apiaceae) contain both extremely beneficial AND deadly toxic species.
Yet, to get to the level of comfort and mastery where you can discern a poisonous plant from a nutritional plant that differs only in the number of stamens or the position of the ovule, it takes years of dedication. Ask yourself how committed to this you are? The consequences of mis-identification can be severe.
Now, past the disclaimer.
To begin this pursuit, you must, odviously, start with the basics. That is learning plant groups. Start coarse and work your way into more fine distinctions. Begin with this text book. It is well written and gives you all of the primary info. It is well written and concise and one of the few text books you that is highly readable. Botany is laden with terminology, and this book is invaluable for that.
Next, you need a flora. Just a quick search (i live in a different biota) yields this website / information. This is a group that you can trust. If you live near, you may attend some of their field trips or lectures. This is the inner circle of botanists in your area and the ones that probably have the info you are looking into. But, most botanists are in it for intellectual masturbation, so keep the uses out of the discussion or you will be shunned (some are more accepting than others).
A couple of other books that are credible, exhaustive, and useful for your purposes are this and this. Lets face it, the indigenous cultures of this continent knew what they were doing long before we Europeanized the landscape. Also try this and this is the definitive guide for European transplants (many of which are naturalized and invasive but nonetheless useful to us).
Any questions, I'd be happy to answer to the best of my ability.
I got asked to teach Sunday school in early December when the lady running it was on vacation...... I couldn't help myself and did a lesson on logic. Used this book http://www.amazon.com/An-Illustrated-Book-Bad-Arguments/dp/1615192255. Had 8 13 year olds going home talking about logical fallacies.... I was removed from the class before the next service.... Grin.
It was [The Illustrated Book of Bad Arguments] (https://www.amazon.com/Illustrated-Book-Bad-Arguments/dp/1615192255/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1520019165&sr=8-2&keywords=illustrated+logical+fallacies). It doesn't cover every fallacy out there, but it's a great beginning. Good for teenagers and college kids, too.
I started with this illustrated book of bad arguments from Amazon. http://amzn.com/1615192255
I just let them read it and give them real life examples on the way to school. My wife rolled her eyes hard and laughed the first time our son told me my goofy comment was a poorly formed argument and illogical. Kids are smart as hell, they just need to be cut loose. I also used a book called raising freethinkers for ideas.
I would say that the best thing that you can probably do is to join a local astronomy club. They're more than likely going to have "star parties" where they all bring different telescopes and look at different things in the night sky. It should give you a good taste of what you can see, the pros and cons of different telescopes, and real world experience. You're also going to have a ton of experienced observers who you can ask questions and talk with.
Besides that, I would probably pick up a book called Turn Left at Orion and a star atlas (my personal favorite is Sky and telescope Pocket Sky Atlas). Turn Left at Orion is essentially a beginners guide to amateur astronomy. It tells you what the best things to observe are during different times of the year, descriptions of them, how to find them, and other things. A star atlas is essentially a map of the night sky. I would also look into Stellarium. It's a free program that shows you what your night sky looks like based on your date, time, and where you live. It's pretty much an interactive star atlas. Also, if you have any book money left over, you might consider getting RASC's 2017 Observer's Hand. It tells you, in detail, what important things are going to be going on above our heads in 2017. It also has some nice articles for beginning astronomers, a bunch of nice maps, and a lot of helpful charts. I wouldn't call it a necessity, but it's really nice to have.
I would also recommend joining an online astronomy forum. Cloudy Nights is my favorite. The folks there are all passionate about astronomy, very nice, and very knowledgeable.
Lastly, and this is the most important piece of advice I can give, is to just get out there and start observing. You don't need a telescope or even binoculars. Go out and try to find constellations or try to find where the planets currently are or see if you can see some of the brighter Deep Sky Objects (those are essentially anything that isn't a planet or the moon). The Pleiades and the Orion Nebula are great first things to look for, for instance. Just enjoy being out there under the stars. It's a great feeling.
Clear Skies!
If you need some help, there's a planetarium program called Stellarium that shows you most objects in the night sky. You can put information like your telescope and eyepiece to simulate your field of view and magnification.
You can also buy a sky atlas, such as the Sky and Telescope's Pocket Atlas. I've used the Pocket Atlas to find the crab nebula and some small galaxies with my 10 inch dobsonian, so it really helps.
If you liked Hunger Games, try Divergent and Insurgent by Veronica Roth. It's a trilogy, the third one isn't out yet. This series has similar themes and a very similar tone to Hunger Games.
Good luck my friend. My first year teaching was in an urban school in NYC as well! I was working for a charter school that was extremely strict. I was told in advance to check out Doug Lemov's Teach Like a Champion and Daniel T. Willingham's Why Don't Students Like School.
I highly recommend both of them. Though they're great reads, but in terms of classroom management - I had to sort of make the mistakes on my own. It's sort of hard to explain, but reading about these topics in a book didn't quite give me a thorough enough understanding. I'm happy to chat more about my experiences if you'd like.
Better tell the linguists:
>The use of they with a singular antecedent goes back to Middle English, and in spite of criticism since the earliest prescriptive grammars it has continued to be very common in informal style... The prescriptive objection to examples like [25v] and [29] is that they is a plural pronoun, and that such examples therefore violate the rule of agreement between antecedent and pronoun. The view taken here is that they, like you, can be either plural or singular. Plural is of course the primary sense, but the use we are concerned with here involves a secondary, extended sense, just as purportedly sex-neutral he involves a secondary, extended sense of he. The extension to a singular sense has not been reflected in subject-verb agreement, just as the historical extension of you from plural to singular (replacing thou) did not have any effect on the form of the verb. With they we therefore have a conflict between the number it has as an agreement target (plural or singular) and the number it has a source for subject-verb agreement (plural only): the former is more semantically oriented.
The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language, pp. 493-494
See also: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?cat=27
This book has good resources for kanji etymology.
걸어서 30분 is the easiest webtoon i've found and this is my favorite textbook. there's also a workbook that goes with it and it goes until intermediate 2
>increase my likelihood of getting hired abroad
Getting hired doing what? Where abroad?
Why do you want a minor in French? There are at least a few million other Haitians who are bilingual in French, so how are you bringing extra value to the marketplace with that minor? Wouldn't a Spanish/German/Russian/Chinese/etc. - Haitian bilingual be a rarer commodity?
This all really depends on where you want to go and what you want to do.
As for books:
My intro to ling. class used the book Language Files.
The Language Instinct is pretty good.
I really liked The Unfolding of Language.
The Power of Babel doesn't get too technical, but is an introduction to language change.
Well this one's kind of an interesting possible case of language change. See, lol started, of course, meaning "laugh out loud". Eventually, though, it's taken on its own status as a general term to indicate something is funny. It no longer necessarily means the person is actually "laughing out loud". One piece of evidence for this includes that it has its own pronunciations (/lɑl/ as in "lawl" or /lol/ as in "lohl" or approximately "Lowell", where the vowel rhymes with "pole") apart from pronouncing the initialism (that is, "ell oh ell"). Another piece of evidence is that it has its own derivations relating to this more general concept, as in doing it for the lulz. Applying the original literal meaning to this idiom would suggest this be read as *doing it for the laugh out louds or *doing it for the laughs out loud or something else that is just essentially nonsensible.
So, how does this apply to lol out loud? Consider the relatively famous case of the evolution of the word "today" from Latin to French. The Latin word for "today" is hodie (similar to hoy in Spanish). hodie is reduced from hoc ("this") + die ("day"). Derived from this, in Old French people thus said hui for "today", which more or less meant "this day". Eventually, though, this wasn't enough, and people eventually came to say au jour de hui, which literally means "on the day of this day". This was reduced to aujourd'hui. Finally, in modern times, some people now apparently colloquially say a jour d'ajourd'hui, or "on the day of on the day of this day". (source, see also Deutscher's Unfolding of Language for more details). So, hopefully you can see a connection: even though lol may in some cases literally mean "laughing out loud", it is not out of the realm of language change for people to eventually start saying lolling out loud unironically, as the original form gets reduced and/or loses its original literal connotation.
The book remembering the hanzi from what I understand is pretty much this but an entire book. I dont know if this book is anygood tho because I have never had it.
I have the japanese version remembering the kanji and its the most usefull book ive ever had for learning a language.
Actually their grammer is fairly good. Just make sure you read the notes before you start each skill (available on website-version not the apps).
Comments are quite informative too (not available in iOS app).
There are a lot of grammer books.
Here is a good simple book
Here are some links from the sidebar:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Svenska/comments/y76c3/modthe_official_swedish_links_thread/
http://www.reddit.com/r/Svenska/comments/yc67u/modthe_official_toolsresources_thread/
As I understarnd it, this one is pretty good:
http://www.amazon.com/Essentials-Swedish-Grammar-Practical-Mastery/dp/0844285390/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1381010462&sr=8-2&keywords=swedish
Also, we got a skype group for learners when you are good enough to start reading/writing. PM /u/Estre for that.
Good luck!
As someone who was almost eaten alive their first year with fifth graders You need to pick up a copy of this, and this. Children need to be taught how to act and yelling sometimes can add fuel to the fire. Give them very specific instructions about how you want them to behave during an activity. When problem behaviors occur I have a "practice academy" until it's done exactly how I want it done. For instance when I taught low socioeconomic 5th graders I noticed that they didn't respond to me being "nice" or when I chewed them out (most are used to being yelled at when at home, what freaks them out is calm, direct, and un-phased). But, when I kept a calm voice (sometimes I have to repeat and repeat) and directed them that's when things got better. Don't use a nice sing song voice develop that I'm calm but serious voice. So, if they came into my room like wild things and ignored my directions I would stop everybody and tell them that we need to try this again. Go through my expectations "When you enter my room you are at a voice level one, you get your journal and have a seat and immediately go to your seat and start your bell ringer". "Now everyone up we are going to practice coming in the room the correct way" when you leave the room together and enter watch for any negative behavior and say " No sorry we've got to start over because we were still too noisy entering the room" repeat expectations and try again and again. I did this about five times one day because they kept running to get in line for lunch saying "whoops we still can't get in line correctly go back to your seat and we will try this again" explain procedure and give them another chance to show you the correct way. They even start policing each other because they hate to practice over and over. Have a procedure for everything and make them practice it until it is done correctly. Even if it's something simple like picking up around their desks. If one in particular is causing a lot of trouble ask them to step out into the hall, direct your class through the procedure and then have a private conversation with the problem student about what you expect them to be doing and that it is not a choice. Have a consequence you can enforce, empty threats just give them more control over you because they know you won't do anything. Our school has a card system, They get a yellow card on their desk as a non-verbal warning, then a red card for a second warning when they aren't following expectations, then a white card and they are sent either in the hall or to a corner to fill out a form about why they are making bad choices, and they are brought back and given one last chance to come back and act correctly. If they mess up again they are given a green card for "Go to the office". I made notes on a clip board to document behavior in case I needed to call parents or talk to admin about problems with a student. I also used the class dojo site to deal out individual points for kids that they could earn for good behavior. I gave daily points for good behavior, then points for bringing homework on time, and points for reading and responding with a book report. You could do tickets or bucks if you don't want to involve technology. On Friday's I would go through and give passes for points. I think I did 20 points a piece. I had a bean bag pass where they could do work on a clipboard and sit in a bean bag, I had a "Stinky feet" pass where they could take off their shoes ( I would use this for a whole class reward too), I had a computer pass where they could go to cool math and play games when they finished their work, Teacher helper pass, Thursdays movie during lunch pass, homework pass, and a draw on a white board pass. Anything I could think of that I could provide pretty much for free because I was spending so much on a prize box my first year and the rewards weren't as meaningful because they like having a little bit of attention from their peers from it (pencils and toys get them like 3 secs of attention but 30 mins of bean bag have their classmates green with envy). Use a prize box as an extra special reward for birthdays and when someone really goes above and beyond to be helpful then bring out the secret special treasure box. For getting participation in a positive way I had an "answer ball"( a squishy koosh ball) I would toss to the person who answered my question and I would only toss it to someone who is quiet and has their hands raised. They also loved getting stamps or stickers on their hands or for the real attention seekers on their face. I would walk around the room and give them out to participators. A few hard lessons I learned: until you get them completely trained don't "desk sit" because you have a lot more proximity control if your up quietly correcting behavior, share things about yourself to help your kids get to know you better they'll do more for you if they don't consider you some random big person in the room, and absolutely never back down to be nice all I learned was that my kids would completely walk all over me when I wouldn't make good on my threats. If you threaten to make them write 50 sentences about talking to much for the sub than you better be prepared to make them do that when they didn't meet expectations and the same with positive rewards if you say they need to be at a voice level zero to get a reward that day don't give them the reward if they didn't meet the expectation .....sorry for the essay but these things helped me.
I think the word, "great teacher" is a little like the word "genius". It shouldn't be thrown around too often, as they're so completely rare. When I think of great teaching I think of a couple of teachers at my school that are amazing.
I could say much much more on the subject, I'm sure.
Taxonomy is the practice of describing, identifying, naming, and classifying life. The best way to start with plants is probably to start learning vocabulary. Plant Identification Terminology is a good book to get started. From there, learning the major plant families and the distinguishing characteristics of each family is great while keeping in mind the orders these major families are in. From there you can start focusing on genera within the families. I took a plant taxonomy course at my university and it was more or less structured in this way.
Well first you have to look at what the subscores are; if you're doing 26/40 on Reading/Writing, then my advice will obviously be to focus on Reading. For argument's sake, let's say you're at 33/33. This suggests you probably know both Reading and Writing pretty intuitively and just need some gaps filled up and additional practice.
For Reading, Erica Meltzer is recommended, but I would suggest sticking to practice tests and doing deep analyses of your mistakes and all the answer choices (know WHY every wrong answer is incorrect). Reading is a lot less concept-heavy than Writing or Math, so you'll benefit more from exposure to the way the CollegeBoard asks questions. Train yourself from the beginning to look for an answer 100% supported by the text; you MUST NOT introduce outside assumptions EVEN when a question is asking about an "inference" or "suggestion." If you're afraid of running out of the tests, maybe use PSATs in the beginning.
For Writing, you've got Erica Meltzer if you want a very thorough writing style or College Panda if you like things more to-the-point. Meltzer also has a separate workbook of practice tests for after you're done drilling concepts. Give yourself an official section every few concepts to see how much of it you are retaining when forced to deal with the concepts all together without the benefit of being told what to look for. Know your grammar concepts cold but also realize that this section tests some reading too; you'll need to draw from context to determine the best place to put a sentence, identify the most relevant details, or even determine what word is most appropriate. As with Reading, analyze your errors thoroughly; take particular care in trying to tie back errors to concepts.
On the online resource front, you can use Khan Academy (free) for different types of reading passages and grammar concepts and Uworld (requires subscription) solely as a question bank. Feel free to also download the free official SAT Question of the Day App for daily questions (every other day will have an English question).
You can obtain good explanations of practice tests with 1600.io (only first 4 tests are free).
Good luck!
Top score is a 1600, lowest score is a 400. Theres 3 sections (Math, Reading, & Writing/Language) and an optional essay (max score is a 24). The average score is a 1060, most colleges are okay with just about anything between an 1100-1300, though more selective colleges will have an average of 1350, and top colleges usually have an average of 1520 or so.
Practice is always the best way to prepare: The Official SAT Study Guide is the most realistic practice you're going to get. It includes 8 full-length tests (though you can get those for free on the CollegeBoard website) and review of all the topics on the test.
I'm going to be taking the June SAT tomorrow and I've been using Erica L Meltzer's Grammar and Reading Guides (which are worshiped on this subreddit, for good reason), as well as the QAS Released Tests on this subreddit (scroll down and you'll see "Prep Materials" on the right-hand side. They're real tests!)
One thing that helps is identifying my mistakes and reviewing them, making sure they don't happen again the next time I practice. Typically a (responsible) person will begin preparing for the SAT about 3 months in advance, and they'll take the test about 3 times.
I hope this helps!
​
Erica Meltzer: https://www.amazon.com/Critical-Reader-3rd-Complete-Reading/dp/0997517875/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_t_0?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=3QJ7NNDCFZME1YAVRHE4
​
https://www.amazon.com/4th-Ultimate-Guide-SAT-Grammar/dp/0997517867/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_2/143-3214858-8357969?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0997517867&pd_rd_r=a2f63509-83e3-11e9-b0f3-5fc5494b71c2&pd_rd_w=5Oxt6&pd_rd_wg=XSG76&pf_rd_p=a2006322-0bc0-4db9-a08e-d168c18ce6f0&pf_rd_r=961V20KBVK1215JA12QN&psc=1&refRID=961V20KBVK1215JA12QN
A $50 first telescope is a great thing. You've got a minimal investment in it so you don't have to worry about messing things up.
You get to learn a bunch of things (e.g., how to balance the scope, how an equatorial mount works, how to collimate a Newtonian telescope, etc.) This guy has lots of great helpful video. Some are more advanced but he covers balancing a scope and cleaning mirrors. He even covers making a finder scope. Here's an excellent tutorial for beginners and those new to equatorial mounts.
The scope is 900mm focal length and 114mm in diameter. This means, if it were a camera lens, it would be about f/7.9 (900/114=7.895). This is a pretty standard f-ratio for a Newtonian.
The bottom most adjustment should have degrees listed for latitude. You say you're in central AL, so you'll set it to something close to 33 degrees (Birmingham, AL). You can then roughly polar align the mount and then you'll be moving in right ascension and declination somewhat accurately.
Now that you're polar aligned, you will be able to find objects listed in various star charts. I highly recommend Sky & Telescope's Pocket Sky Atlas. It's about $15 and everybody (beginner through advanced) I met at a recent star party had one in their kit.
Most important, have fun and enjoy. As I mentioned initially, you've only got $50 invested so don't be afraid to experiment a bit. Soon enough you'll be prepared to drop $500 on a new scope/mount!
On OWS:
Ron Paul has said that there is some good in the OWS movement. But you are more likely to see him bite down on crony capitalism and Federal Reserve policy than redistribute wealth. The Fed and Legislators pick the winners and losers in the market with their subsidies, bailouts, tax breaks, government contracts, special land access (miss use of "right-of-way"), and other privileges granted to them by government.
On Social Programs:
Take social security for example. Even though Ron Paul doesn't support it, he has suggested to allow people 25 and younger to opt out of the program, but that the govt should still make good on their promises to the rest. You can bet that he wont increase the benefits though.
On war:
RP is the only candidate in both parties that actually wants to support the troops by bringing them home. He might not have a Nobel Peace prize but he would bring about peace.
In General:
Please read his most recent short book Liberty Defined. He describes 50 topics and how they affect freedom. If you have a question on any stance of his on any topic, its in there.
OK. Here it is in shorter sentences with annotations:
You have no real concept of the history of tyranny? (How does tyranny tend to develop in a once free society from a historical context?)
You have no real concept of how tyranny has been able to destroy liberty?
(What are the necessary mechanical underpinnings of tyranny and how does a state implement them? I recommend The End of America by Naomi WolfBook;Film (for free)
Of course the question that is then begged is: How do a free people retain their freedoms in an expanding police state?
> and I think is almost the same as Croatian
It is, even though plenty of people will take every chance to say that's not the case.
It's sometimes referred to as "BCS" (Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian).
If you want the actual derivations of the kanji,
http://www.amazon.com/A-Guide-Remembering-Japanese-Characters/dp/0804820384
is the go-to book
http://i.imgur.com/xjW6pox.png
for this character's derivation.
n.b. Henshall's book ordered in Heisig's simple -> complex is the best way to tackle the kanji IMO.
* edit but don't use Henshall's mnemonics, they suck
Try Guy Deutscher's The Unfolding of Language. Beautifully written as well as expert.
I highly suggest you read the book The Unfolding of Language
It is one of my favorite books, readable to a layman yet delving into some pretty complex stuff in terms of grammatical complexity, phonology etc. It is basically an introduction to linguistics and morphology class nicely encapsulated in one very well-written book.
And it deals specifically with your question.
The author of the book analyzes linguistic creative destruction, that is, what we perceive to be the "erosion" of grammatical structures actually helps to build new ones over time. A good example he gives is the latin verb conjugation giving way to that in the romance languages. Latin loses the structures like amavero, I will love, whereas French takes the infinitive amare --> aimer and adds the verb avoir, have. So we get the complex French conjugation system wherein the future is denoted by "aimerai", "i will love", for example.
Anyway, I highly recommend that book if you ever have a few lazy days to read through it.
I tried Rosetta Stone in Korean briefly. It sucked. Like really, really sucked. It wasn't just that it did a bad job of teaching things, it taught some things in a way that was incredibly misleading and would result in you speaking some pretty absurd Korean. If you didn't know any better (I did, but obviously a complete beginner wouldn't), it would actually be harmful to your acquisition process if you used Rosetta Stone. It doesn't go up to a very advanced level either.
So now that that's out of the way:
Just to give you a benchmark, the words you listed are ones I would consider low-intermediate level. Think about what age American children learn words like 'smile' and 'art museum'. Then think about the English vocabulary you learned in middle and high school - I would consider those 'high intermediate' and 'low-mid advanced' respectively. I would guess that your grammar is pretty close to the same level, maybe a bit higher, compared with your vocabulary. Also, It's easy to overestimate how much we understand when listening or reading in the target language. Try translating what you hear in real time and you'll get an idea of where you are. If you really want to be sure, take a practice TOPIK test and see how it turns out.
The reason I tell you this is to try to give you a realistic outlook about your level and give you an idea about what kind of resources you might look into.
If you're enjoying TTMIK and it's not too boring, I would definitely keep up with that. You'll breeze through the beginner stuff and correct any small errors along the way, and then be able to slow down once you get to stuff closer to your level. Generally their material is really natural, accurate, and useful. I would give anything for a resource like that in Romanian or Finnish ㅠㅠ
I also recommend the Korean Grammar In Use series to brush up on grammar. It's easy to use and effective. I suggest starting with the beginning level just because that's my preference as a language learner and as an ESL teacher - review almost never hurts, and can help a lot, filling in gaps and increasing fluency and confidence.
For other textbooks I recommend:
So that's grammar, usage, and guided practice covered. As far as vocabulary, I can't recommend using a flashcard service enough. I really like iKnow because I can create my own courses and I like how it quizzes you on audio, reading, spelling, you name it. I haven't looked at many other options though so you may want to investigate. I strongly recommend inputting every single unknown word you come across in your Korean study into this program and using it as often as you can (daily if possible). Listening to the news, reading practice, etc. are also valuable but you don't need to include vocab from that yet unless it's a word you're particularly interested in for whatever reason. Once you're at the advanced stage where you're comfortably reading newspapers, textbooks, etc. I would start in with that kind of advanced vocab study. Also, starting now, consider using it for grammar/sentence practice and not just vocabulary - sometimes I find that's the best way to drill new constructions into my head, although it can be a bit time-consuming.
Unlike the majority of language teachers it seems, I do NOT recommend trying to be more productive with the language than your level allows. Writing when you're not sure of the correct grammar or vocab, forcing yourself to speak, etc. is not the best path to increasing skill or fluency - only familiarity and drilling are. That said, it's definitely not useless, and you should try to practice when you're with native speakers. But I would recommend against putting too much emphasis on that. The epidemic of Koreans who can pass English tests but not speak is not due to lack of practice, as is common belief there, but more due to the fact that the majority of their English study is geared toward multiple choice tests and very narrow language use rather than natural language. You can tell that's true because they also have trouble understanding TV/movies, reading novels, etc. in English. As a native English speaker and ESL teacher with a degree in linguistics, I would not be able to get a perfect score on their English exams. So don't believe the myth that "conversation practice" is an essential component to fluency - it's valuable, but not the main component.
Once you get through TTMIK and the textbooks I listed, and have made vocabulary practice a regular part of your life, you should be at least a low-advanced level, which is likely more than enough to communicate most things in your daily life with family etc. In the meantime you can also practice translating songs, young adult novels, etc. from Korean into English. Once you've reached the advanced level I would recommend investing more in your conversational skills, perhaps hiring a tutor, doing a language exchange, taking a trip, etc. as well as doing some of the TOPIK textbooks (just an example; haven't tried that one) and doing more advanced vocabulary.
OH! And as for slang and independent vocabulary work, spend some time playing around with endic.naver.com. Probably the best source for natural language, although of course there are still some errors and mistranslations. But for the most part that will be your best bet.
I really hope this has been helpful for you! If you have any other questions or would like any other advice just let me know. :)
I found this book quite helpful. The one I have has a different cover, but has the same title and author, so I'm guessing it's the same book.
EDIT: Found the one with the same cover as mine here.
These languages form a dialect continuum and are largely intelligible. This is a case of "the same language" being called different languages due to language ideologies more than linguistic structures.
There is one book I see all the time which (supposedly) teaches all three: Bosnian, Croation, and Serbian, a Textbook: With Exercises and Basic Grammar and its accompanying CD. There is also a grammar.
Logically speaking, there should not be any difference in the "one" you choose to learn, and there may be advantages to learning them simultaneously and considering any variation as possible outputs for a given situation depending on the social context (e.g., the same as considering "I'm gonna" == "I will").
Note: I have not used any of these books nor do I speak any of these languages. Just a linguist with ties to multiple language departments at my university. Do additional research to choose your resource.
u/WavesWashSands made some good suggestions, but they're are focused on linguistic theory rather than the grammar of English. Many of the concepts they cover apply to English too, but they might not do exactly what you want. You would also need a good grammar of English. I have heard good things about this one:
https://www.amazon.com/Cambridge-Grammar-English-Language/dp/0521431468
This is a descriptive grammar, which means that its purpose is to describe English. It's not a lesson book that tells you how to improve your English.
If you're worried about your grammar - well, it's fine. I looked over your post history and you don't look like you have any issues that need language learning help. You know this stuff, intuitively, as a speaker of English. I suspect that what you're really worried about is your ability to use (sensible, logical, coherent) rhetoric and an appropriate writing style. This is largely outside of the realm of linguistics. You'd want to look at resources on rhetoric and composition.
From a personal standpoint, I think basic training/learning in philosophy is a very good way to learn the principles of logical argumentation - that may also be something to pursue.
That's not to say you shouldn't learn about grammar! I think it's very useful and interesting.
If you want to learn more about kanji etymology, check out A Guide to Remembering Japanese Kanji by Henshall. A lot of them are pretty interesting.
My attempt to intervene in this discussion with examples of unconscious change:
Short answer: Have a triliteral for "speak", then answer questions like
Some cautionary advice: give some thought to the shape of the language before triliteral roots developed and what sound changes created the sense in the speakers' minds that three letters chosen from within the word would carry meaning as opposed to a whole root - your language will come out better for it. The Unfolding of Language has a pretty good overview of the process in Semitic - if you're not careful you'll end up creating something not interestingly different from Arabic.
> I've read that you should learn like a child
Your brain is not like child's brain, you have adult's brain. You can try to imitate the environment but you can't replicate what goes on in child's brain/mind. Take "learn like a child" advice with grain of salt. As for children's books, IMHO these are far from ideal for learning because for and adult it may be difficult to relate to the stories and they rarely elicit emotional response that would facilitate remembering.
Integrated Korean is widely used popular textbook series, you might want to look into that, perhaps your library has a copy.
I used Duolingo to get the basics before I moved here. It's absolutely not perfect, but I found it was very good for giving you a fairly decent vocabulary and explaining the basic grammar rules.
If you try working your way through the course a little bit every day, and keeping a notebook with any new words you come across, you should be off to a very good start.
I then also got this book to get the hang of the grammar a little more - it's much more in-depth than Duolingo, but still explains things in quite a simple way, good for getting quick answers if you come across a construction you don't recognise.
Apart from that, the rest of my Swedish I got simply by living here and speaking, reading, hearing it every day, and also taking weekly classes. But I guess that's harder for you to do in the US! Watching Swedish movies with English subtitles (and later Swedish subtitles, once you get better) would help a lot, as well as listening to the radio, watching Swedish YouTubers etc. It can be a slow process, but you'll get better with time.
There's also 'lättläst' (easy-reading) books available - basically condensed versions of popular books written in simple Swedish. They help a lot with reading practice. There's also 8 Sidor, which is a news site/app with all the articles written in simple Swedish. Reading them and looking up any words/expressions you don't know can be a good way to expand your vocabulary.
Here are a few free resources I use:
Klartext: simplified Swedish news with audio! They also have a podcast.
FSI: The student text has exercises in grammar! Unfortunately, the phrases are rather formal and dated.
I also have this book, which has been very useful.
Edit: formatting. bah.
Here is a book for beginners
Here is a book with grammar
Memrise has some good sets of Swedish vocab.
If you're serious about it, I think you'd be crazy not to supplement your study with a class/lessons, whether it be in your area or via Skype.
I found English Grammar for Students of German to be very helpful when I was taking German. It is light on vocabulary but goes pretty in depth with cases, tenses, and sentence structure.
https://www.amazon.com/Plant-Identification-Terminology-Illustrated-Glossary/dp/0964022168
This is a go-to for many people.
This book has a lot of b/w line drawings of leave types like your example with about 15 pages on terminology just of leaves.
https://www.amazon.com/Plant-Identification-Terminology-Illustrated-Glossary/dp/0964022168/ref=sr_1_1?crid=CQR1ENGRKHZ6&keywords=plant+identification+terminology&qid=1557949176&s=gateway&sprefix=plant+identification+te%2Caps%2C127&sr=8-1
You may be interested in my favorite illustrated glossary
I have personally only used Meltzer's english book, CP's english book, and CP's math book and can vouch that all of these are amazing, but others on this sub also recommend other books. Here is a list of many of them. I hope they serve you well :] (Edit: I apologize for how huge this post is, lol)
English
https://www.amazon.com/4th-Ultimate-Guide-SAT-Grammar/dp/0997517867/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1519610454&sr=1-1&keywords=erica+meltzer+sat+writing
https://www.amazon.com/College-Pandas-SAT-Writing-Advanced/dp/0989496430/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1519610514&sr=1-1&keywords=college+panda+writing&dpID=41iRh%252BJb19L&preST=_SX218_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch
Reading
https://www.amazon.com/Critical-Reader-3rd-Complete-Reading/dp/0997517875/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1519610443&sr=8-1&keywords=erica+meltzer+sat+reading&dpID=51cR4Uh0YBL&preST=_SX218_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch
Math
https://www.amazon.com/College-Pandas-SAT-Math-Advanced/dp/0989496422/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1519610506&sr=1-1&keywords=college+panda+math
https://www.amazon.com/Dr-John-Chungs-Math-Fourth/dp/197452602X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1519610536&sr=1-1&keywords=dr+chungs+sat+math&dpID=51gqq9mu0XL&preST=_SX218_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch
For Reading: https://www.amazon.com/Critical-Reader-3rd-Complete-Reading/dp/0997517875
For Writing: https://www.amazon.com/College-Pandas-SAT-Writing-Advanced/dp/098949649X/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?keywords=college+panda+sat+writing&qid=1563901164&s=gateway&sprefix=college+panda&sr=8-3 or https://www.amazon.com/4th-Ultimate-Guide-SAT-Grammar/dp/0997517867/ref=pd_aw_fbt_14_img_2/133-6279214-8476330?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0997517867&pd_rd_r=b1b3ba1b-4d03-4aef-8534-fb724df88793&pd_rd_w=tVeGd&pd_rd_wg=AG0DL&pf_rd_p=3ecc74bd-d08f-44bd-96f3-d0c2b89f563a&pf_rd_r=S0E4J8G00TRD6F0ZY1ZK&psc=1&refRID=S0E4J8G00TRD6F0ZY1ZK
For Math: https://www.amazon.com/College-Pandas-SAT-Math-Advanced/dp/0989496422/ref=pd_aw_fbt_14_img_2/133-6279214-8476330?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0989496422&pd_rd_r=6bc275dd-8dee-497b-aa49-17576266463e&pd_rd_w=YjIig&pd_rd_wg=Pc71l&pf_rd_p=3ecc74bd-d08f-44bd-96f3-d0c2b89f563a&pf_rd_r=P3X7H8SAQZT59M5F6FNV&psc=1&refRID=P3X7H8SAQZT59M5F6FNV or https://www.amazon.com/PWN-SAT-Guide-Mike-McClenathan/dp/1523963573/ref=mp_s_a_1_1_sspa?keywords=pwn+sat+math&qid=1563901232&s=gateway&sprefix=pwn+sa&sr=8-1-spons&psc=1
For Essay (if you’re taking it): https://www.amazon.com/College-Pandas-SAT-Essay-Battle-tested/dp/0989496465/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?keywords=college+panda+essay&qid=1563901277&s=gateway&sr=8-3
For General Strategy: https://www.amazon.com/SAT-Prep-Black-Book-Strategies/dp/0692916164/ref=mp_s_a_1_1_sspa?keywords=sat+black+book&qid=1563901330&s=gateway&sprefix=sat+bla&sr=8-1-spons&psc=1
For Practice Tests: https://www.amazon.com/Official-SAT-Study-Guide-2020/dp/1457312190/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?keywords=college+board+sat+2020&qid=1563901505&s=gateway&sprefix=college+board+&sr=8-3 (NOTE: These practice tests are available online but I prefer having them on paper, which is why I bought this book.) and https://amp.reddit.com/r/Sat/comments/9544rw/all_qas_tests_and_scoring_in_pdf_form/
Good online resources include Khan Academy, UWorld, and 1600.io. Also, I recommend taking a timed practice test often to follow along with your progress and see what you need to work on. Make sure to do the practice test all at once (don’t break it up into section) and try to do it in the morning like you would in the real SAT. Then, go over your mistakes very carefully (this is VERY IMPORTANT) until you truly understand the mistake so that you won’t make it again in the future. This is the most important step. If you skip this, it’s unlikely that you see any meaningful score improvement. Also, It’s up to you which resources you buy/use based on what sections you need help with. Good luck!
The first place is definitely: http://www.ronpaul2012.com/the-issues/
And if you want more indepth information, I recommend his book Liberty Defined
I don't think there are many "one-line slams" that wouldn't draw attention. Focus on teaching your kids critical thinking, and be a kind, loving parent. IDK the situation with your spouse, but if you can, be honest (and respectful) when your kids ask what you believe. Show them that you and spouse can have different beliefs and still love each other.
Depending on their ages, the [Illustrated Book of Bad Arguments] (https://www.amazon.com/Illustrated-Book-Bad-Arguments/dp/1615192255/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1541178668&sr=8-1&keywords=illustrated+book+of+bad+arguments) could be a fun way to help them recognize logical fallacies. It's not directly about the church, but that helps keep your efforts under-the-radar, and the concepts can help them in many areas of life.
Great choice! You won't be disappointed. Have a look at this site to get a primer on how to use your scope: http://eyesonthesky.com/Blog/tabid/80/EntryId/179/The-Ultimate-Beginners-Guide-to-Telescopes-and-Amateur-Astronomy.aspx
You'll most likely want to get yourself a star chart too, I recommend the Pocket Sky Atlas: http://www.amazon.com/Sky-Telescopes-Pocket-Atlas/dp/1931559317
And finally, here's a couple articles I wrote about getting the most out of your telescope, both for high-power (planetary) and deep-space observing (there are different techniques for each):
I think Sky and Telescope's pocket atlas is a good resource.
read this book written by a conservative judge spelling out exactly how the Bush administration was shredding the Constitution and the people went along with it. .. then look at how much of that (The Patriot Act for example) has changed since the Democrats got the majority in Congress and the white house. ....
Here's another book written during the Bush administration.. same thing.. read it and see how much of it still applies today.
That will help you understand why Ron Paul Republicans are so upset with the government. Other Republicans?? Who knows...
5lb Manhattan book helped me immensely for the quantitative section. The ETS quantitative reasoning book is also a great resource.
Lastly, use Magoosh if you enjoy studying on the computer. The software Magoosh provides is well worth the money. The ETS website also has a bunch of mock-tests you can take too, so make sure you take those as well.
Good luck!
Yes absolutely. I think ideally it would be cool if there was a BCS Duolingo course for the first 1/4th of the tree, just to get the basics and exposure to the differences between BCS, then you can pick which one you want to advance with later on after understanding the basics. Pretty much exactly like the BCS Textbook teaches it. I think this would draw more widespread attraction to BCS learning, and would eliminate some confusion for people traveling to holiday to Croatia/Bosnia/Serbia. I would guess that most people don't know just how similar the languages are.
https://www.amazon.de/Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian-Textbook-Exercises/dp/0299236544
Example Page of BCS Textbook
With that being said, I am extremely excited about this course. I've been hoping for a Croatian one for a LONG time, and been working my way through my BCS textbooks in my spare time. Super pumped!
And count me in for Alpha Testing!
The controversial Iron John. Might be a little over the top for your needs, but it's very good.
The following book is chock full of insightful and often overlooked techniques to empower a class. Definitely give it a read.
http://www.amazon.com/Teach-Like-Champion-Techniques-Students/dp/0470550473
This book really helped me set down an action plan to better my class structure: Teach Like a Champion - http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0470550473.
If you'd like to talk more about this and getting adapted to teaching, feel free to PM me.
The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language is essentially the gold standard here, but it is pretty overwhelming.
Instead, the same authors have a much smaller and more manageable guide, A Student's Introduction to English Grammar, which I highly recommend. It's geared toward beginners and covers pretty much everything your average English speaker needs to know.
Quirk et al is good but Huddleston & Pullum is better: https://www.amazon.com/Cambridge-Grammar-English-Language/dp/0521431468
> [Strunk and White is] a horrid little compendium of unmotivated prejudices (don't use ongoing), arbitrary stipulations (don't begin a sentence with however), and fatuous advice ("Be clear"), ridiculously out of date in its positions on appropriate choices among grammatical variants, deeply suspect in its style advice and grotesquely wrong in most of the grammatical advice it gives.
— Geoffrey Pullum (one of the authors of The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language, so he sort-of knows his stuff)
I can't believe nobody mentioned A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar (and the Intermediate and Advanced books that follows it)
http://www.amazon.com/Dictionary-Basic-Japanese-Grammar/dp/4789004546/
Use Genki, skip the grammar descriptions in the book and instead look them up in A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar (and read all the sections in the book before the dictionary part)
As linguist you should be aware of second language acquisition theory and therefore sympathise with / understand / appreciate how the teaching of the language progress through a normal textbook. You can't learn a language just by understanding its structure, you need practice and exposure.
For Kanji you can look at A Guide to Remembering Japanese Characters, which will go through the etymology of the most common ~2100 characters as historically correct as any other work of etymology on these things can get. You can supplement with http://www.kanjinetworks.com
http://www.amazon.com/Guide-Remembering-Japanese-Characters/dp/0804820384/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1418734675&sr=8-2&keywords=guide+to+remembering+kanji
I think something like Core 2k decks for anki (or the paid version, know.jp) is good enough for practicing listening and reading comprehension, even for a linguist.
I actually asked this exact question, using your exact examples. And as per the other people in this thread, languages simplify and increase in complexity simultaneously, although there are particular trends of simplification and complexity, and they deal predominantly with increasing proximity between languages.
The book that will answer all your questions, is this one.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Unfolding-Language-Evolutionary-Invention/dp/0805080120/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1370377912&sr=8-1&keywords=the+unfolding+of+language
Read this and this. Those two books are probably why I decided to major in linguistics. Both well written, and not at all dry
To learn them. For Japanese, this is great and widely considered one of the best ways to learn the kanji (and some vocab along the way); for Chinese, this (Traditional) and this (Simplified) are two of your options. Another is to just learn them out of whichever textbook you get and while studying vocabulary separatedly. There are probably some other hanzi books too; you might wanna have a look over in /r/chineselanguage for that sort of thing.
However, I suggest getting a good base in one of the two character sets (Japanese or Chinese) before you start with the other, to minimise any confusion. I knew probably 1.3k kanji (as in, I could recognise them and sort of figure out the meaning; I couldn't pronounce all of them) when I tried learning Chinese as well, so I didn't have any problems with that.
I started learning to read and write Korean with Hangul Master, then the basics with the Integrated Korean series. Because Korean grammar can be no bueno, I used Korean Grammar in Use as well. All of those books were super worth the price and really helped me understand how the language worked.
If you're looking for something free, Talk To Me In Korean is always a good option, or if you wanna learn Hangul on your own, YouTube has a lot of good videos!
Good luck!
Do you have access to amazon? There’s tons on there for very cheap and if you don’t like them you can return them.
Unfortunately the only Swedish textbook I ever used was made for foreigners already in Sweden, I’ve never seen it online or anything like that
This one is almost 5 stars and is cheap. As for actual workbooks there’s a few on there but they either have only one or none reviews
Your textbooks don't explain what nominative, genitive, dative and accusative are?
The book I normally recommend is English Grammar for Students of German, but I can't guarantee it's better than what you already have.
There are four grammatical cases in German: Nominative, Accusative, Dative, and Genitive - these are pretty much equated with, respectively, the subject, direct object, indirect object, and possessive in English.
The nominative forms of the definite articles (der, die, das) and the indefinite articles (ein, eine, ein) that indicate gender will change to indicate what the role of each element in the utterance is:
-'Der Apfel ist rot.' - the apple is the subject and, therefore, the nominative 'der' is used.
But:
-"Ich kaufe den Apfel" - the apple becomes the direct object, as it is being acted upon by the subject, 'ich'. the nominative masculine form 'der' has been inflected to the accusative masculine form 'den'.
Then:
-"Ich gebe ihm den Apfel" - now, the apple that is being acted upon, through the act of giving remains in the accusative as the direct object. But we now have an indirect object in 'ihm' the dative masculine form of the nominative 'er'.
Now, this is just a basic gloss of what the accusative and dative cases functions are, but it should answer what you've asked.
Since you didn't ask about genitive I'm not getting into that, as getting the accusative and dative down can be a task in itself.
Here are a couple of links to great resources for grammar:
Schaum's Outline of German Grammar
Also, English Grammar for Students of German
Schreiben Lernen was helpful, as was Deutsch: Na Klar!
Also consider using lots of flashcards, because building up a vocab is going to be really helpful.
For grammatical structure try: English Grammar for students of German.
Viel Glück!
Was just going to say!
https://www.amazon.ca/Plant-Identification-Terminology-Illustrated-Glossary/dp/0964022168
Location is really important for this question. The majority of quality books for plant ID are very region or state specific. If you are just looking for terminology and basics like that, they will be a little more universal. For that last one, I'd recommend Plant Identification Terminology: An Illustrated Glossary.
German is one of the most widely spoken languages on the internet, so you're able to find a lot of grammar and other info. If you do decide to teach yourself, I'd highly recommend the book English Grammar for Students of German (assuming your native language is English). It might help you to get set up something where you're speaking German with someone via skype.
Fwiw, I'm really good at grammar. For me, it's a puzzle begging you to solve it.
Edit: I also highly recommend this site. It's really good and I've used it before as well for clarification on some of the more obscure grammar points.
There is a book called "Pant Identification Terminology: An Illustrated Glossary" which does not identify any plants directly, but does teach you (and show you) how they are described. You will learn leaf shapes, flower types, different kinds of fruit and so on. Knowing these terms makes it easier to identify plants on your own, as you can describe the plant you found using the proper biological terms. It will also serve as a guide to decipher words found in technical botanical texts. I highly recommend this book!
Plant Identification Terminology: An Illustrated Glossary
and
Mabberley's Plant-book: A Portable Dictionary of Plants, their Classification and Uses
They're both nice reference books.
Last Stands and Gathering Moss are fun reads. If there's a particular type of plant you like try finding books that talk about them.
For about $20, pick up this book: http://www.amazon.com/Plant-Identification-Terminology-Illustrated-Glossary/dp/0964022168.
This will help with a lot of the jargon you will run into when using technical keys.
@OP If you are truly interested in plant taxonomy see about enrolling in a plant tax class at a university. You should also find out a good key for your local flora (if you let me know your area I can attempt a suggestion) and just get out and start keying. At first you will struggle and it will be painful, but as with anything, you get better with practice.
Oh, also consider getting a hand lens. I suggest something 10x or 14x.
The botanical definition of fleshy is "thick and pulpy; succulent." Dry is used the same way anyone uses that word (not wet, lacking water).
When a botanist says dry/fleshy they mean "dry/fleshy at the time of maturity." As in right before or right after the fruit would naturally ripen/detach/disperse. Dry fruits are often fleshy when still developing. Fleshy fruits can eventually dry out.
It can definitely be confusing. Legumes (peas, beans, etc) for example are dry fruits. They naturally stay on the plant til the pods dry out, split open, and spread the dry seeds. For eating, people love to pick whole pods off the plant when they are still developing. The seem "fleshy" and are still wet when we get them at the store. However, botanically we classify them based on their natural time of maturity which in this case is when they are dry.
.
.
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Do you want a database of types of fruits or every single fruit?
A database of every single fruit would would have to include all 250,000+ angiosperms (and possibly many other lower plants and fungi depending on how liberal you are with the word fruit).
A list of types of fruit would be much easier, but dry/fleshy don't cover every possible fruit type.
Botanists would typically use a more speficic fruit type to describe a fruit. Plant Identification Terminology lists "Common Fruit Types."
The dry ones are:
achene, caryopsis, capsule, legume, loment, nut, nutlet, samara, schizocarp, silicle, silique, and utricle
The fleshy ones are:
berry, drupe, drupelet, pome, and pepo
The ones that can be either are:
accessory, aggregate, hip, multiple, and synconium
The book itself includes a key, definitions, and diagrams for each type.
Regardless of what you want to focus upon Plant Identification Terminology will come in handy.
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.
Haha it's ok, I'm not a native English speaker myself.
r/W: I got Erica Meltzer's Reading and Writing guides. I got the writing workbook but the practices inside are lackluster compared to UWorld or Khan.
Maf: Can't really help, my practice materials are in Chinese, but feel free to PM me for details if you can understand the bloody language.
I did get the Official SAT Guide but it sucks & I only used it for the practice tests, which are free to download from Khan/Collegeboard.
Barron's book for SAT I is shit. Do NOT get them. Their questions are off topic.
The best tip I can give you is to study as much as you can and understand your mistakes. You're not doing a part-time job here so studying for hours without thinking is useless: you'll just repeat your mistakes. I jot down the reasons for choosing the incorrect answers each time I found one wrong. I literally wrote careless mistakes if I made one, it sounds stupid but trust me, it helps.
Also, use practice tests as benchmarks for your progress and take it in real settings (e.g. same break time as real tests.) They're pretty accurate. I got 1410 on my first practice test and 1400 on my first real test.
If you don't have time, try doing bits by bits on the smartphone app. It's not ideal but at least you can do them when using public transportations or have bits and pieces of free time.
Edit: go subscribe to a newspaper, I recommend The New York Times. Read them when you want to take a break from questions and just do some normal reading. I think frequently reading is one of the main reasons I'm able to score 750.
Edit: fuck the new Reddit comment box
Thrilled to see a copy of Hatchet in there - I loved that book as a pre-teen/teen and still re-read it every now & again. Amazing YA book.
Hmmm... fiction? Non-fiction? First-person meaning told through a first-person narrative style, or just generally following a single person fighting for survival?
Fiction-wise, I'm a fan of To The White Sea by James Dickey. I've also always heard universally good things about the young adult novel Hatchet by Gary Paulsen, but have yet to read it myself.
In the realm of non-fiction, Touching The Void is a pretty incredible story, and was made into a stellar documentary film. Also, anything about the Shackleton expedition to Antarctica is worth checking out, so there you've got Endurance by Alfred Lansing, as well as Shackleton's own account, South: The Endurance Expedition.
My favs:
Read Liberty Defined.
Don't know how old your kids are. Maybe try these?
If you're looking to get them into general critical thinking (which would help in the long run surely), I've always held that having this book lying around can get some juice flowing.
Here you are!
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1615192255/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1526416437&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=an+illustrated+book+of+bad+arguments&dpPl=1&dpID=61-3bJwurUL&ref=plSrch
By far my favorite area of the sky to explore with binoculars is Sagittarius, as another commenter said below.
Buy yourself a good sky atlas (the de facto standard for my club is http://www.amazon.com/Sky-Telescopes-Pocket-Atlas/dp/1931559317) and get to know how the charts map to the sky. That book is good because it holds up to the elements, is spiral-bound, and if you hold it at arm's length, the distance scale should be about the same as what you see in the sky.
Cruise around the sky and find some of the easier objects and that will give you a good feel for star-hopping and what you can expect to see from your equipment.
Clear skies!
To follow up on my earlier comment: in the atlas I referenced, a 5-degree FOV is nearly identical to the diameter of a quarter - so if you go this route, use a quarter to form your circle of wire.
Also -- from my suburban neighborhood (orange according to your map, but probably more likely yellow at the small scale), last year I was able to barely see the Leo Triplet with my 8" Dob so it is possible under your conditions. Just don't expect more than a fuzzy blip for the non-Messier member.
well you may have to actually do some learning, but here you go: http://www.amazon.com/End-America-Letter-Warning-Patriot/dp/1933392797
Yes, I took it on July 5th. I used this book for practice tests mostly the week before the GRE. Every day I used this 5 lb. book of practice problems to go over math concepts I needed extra work on and these flashcards for vocab. It seems a little overkill in retrospect, but I was damn determined not to take it twice. All of these helped me enormously, probably about equally. By combining them I was able to raise my scores about 25 percentile points each between my diagnostic test to actual test day.
Best of luck! Just study hard and keep your cool and you'll do just fine.
Text extraction is easy. You can find programs that read the in-game text as you play the game.
As for text replacement: Grab a hold of someone who is either familiar with VN engines or a reverse engineer.
As for translation at your level: Knowledge of Japanese grammar is more important that Kanji recognition since you can look things up. If you want to learn more grammar, I would recommend picking up these three grammar dictionaries ([1], [2], [3]) and reading through them.
[1]: http://www.amazon.com/Dictionary-Basic-Japanese-Grammar/dp/4789004546
[2]: http://www.amazon.com/Dictionary-Intermediate-Japanese-Grammar-Seiichi/dp/4789007758
[3]: http://www.amazon.com/Dictionary-Advanced-Japanese-Grammar/dp/4789012956
>This is Google Translate's idea.
Here's your problem.
Go buy this :
https://www.amazon.com/Dictionary-Basic-Japanese-Grammar/dp/4789004546
https://www.amazon.com/Dictionary-Intermediate-Japanese-Grammar-Seiichi/dp/4789007758
Hello,
I recently took the GRE, and after not getting the scores I wanted, continued my search for a better book to study. I have a few friends that studied using Kaplan, and got mediocre scores (not blaming it on Kaplan..fully anyways), and I used "Cracking the GRE". From what I've picked up from myself and others, these books teach you how to "game the developers", which isn't the correct way to go about it. Gaming the test isn't going to help you when you simply need to have a better understanding of the material.
I bought this book and have been going through it. Each chapter is a specific topic of questions, with about ~100 of each. For example: 1 chapter for Algebra, one for Inequalities, etc. It also has a practice section at the beginning to help you determine where you can further focus.
5lb Book of GRE Practice Problems
They have the answers and good explanations at the end of each chapter as well.
It's big and heavy, and a little intimidating, but you'll work through it. I know I am, slowly but surely.
~というよりは
is also a possibility.
["A Dictionary of Intermediate Japanese Grammar"](http://www.amazon.com/Dictionary-Intermediate-Japanese-Grammar/dp/4789007758 by Makino and Tsutsui) uses both versions.
I accidentally drank a HUGE drink from what I thought was my can of soda. Turns out it was a makeshift ashtray that everyone was dropping their cigarette butts in. Ugh, disgusting!
If I win I'd love to start reading some Veronica Roth!
Thanks for the contest!
I had fun reading through this BCS textbook. I keep meaning to go back through and do the exercises and use the workbook, but I've been tied up. It's fun seeing all three presented side-by-side-by-side, though, and you could certainly focus on one (I was particularly interested in Croatian).
I moved to Belgrade 2 months ago and I'm currently learning the language, too. I have some language lessons in Belgrade. The best way to really learn the language is to live in the actual country, it helps a lot just to hear people talk Serbian every day.
I can also recommend two books, which are really good and go in depth into the grammar, too.
Anki/memrise.
Also, there is a very good croatian textbook on amazon that is only like 40 bucks used: https://www.amazon.com/Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian-Textbook-Exercises/dp/0299236544
Memrise on laptop/phone is free and pretty efficient just for vocab.
Do you have any advice for learning croatian for someone who is in diaspora and didn't grow up speaking it in the home.
Here’s the textbook I used: https://www.amazon.com/Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian-Textbook-Exercises/dp/0299236544
It alone could do the trick if you’re industrious, but pairing it with classes or some kind of spoken session would probably be a good idea.
They have Croatian on Memrise.
You can also get these books: 1, 2
You need both because the red one doesn't do grammar, which is the hardest part.
Maybe there's a Croatian Catholic church if you live in a big city. Or a Serbian Orthodox one. (The languages are different, but a lot is the same, except that Serbian uses Cyrillic too.) They probably have classes.
Also visit /r/croatian, /r/Serbian
Really it's not that hard! goes back to studying noun declensions of the genitive case
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0299236544/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1487088409&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=serbian
This is a book I am using. I have a Serbian girlfriend as well. If you are good at teaching yourself languages, this book is amazing. I also have her help me with examples that I can use newly learned words or phrases in. I also use uTalk which is a free app in the play store to help learn useful phrases.
Niceness can often be an insecure thirst for approval from women that masquerades as politeness and thoughtfulness. It lacks courage, and sometimes even lacks a willingness to tell the truth brazenly with compassion or to ACT with integrity instead of eternally seeking permission.
I earnestly suggest reading the book Iron John for a wholesome, holistic, multi-culturally rooted sense of what real manliness means. (The book was truly helpful for me, at least.)
http://www.amazon.com/Iron-John-Book-About-Men/dp/0306813769
No book will prepare you for law enforcement, it has to be touched, smelled, heard, and seen. If you're already a cop then the best thing you can do to be better is to be a well rounded human being and books can help with that.
Here's the recommended reading from some of the prior threads I was able to find in the sub.
I've read a good portion of the above listed. I highly recommend Emotional Survival and going to see one of Gilmartin's talks if he's in your area. Below are a few of my personal suggestions.
Thanks, good additions as well.
Iron John - https://www.amazon.com/Iron-John-Book-About-Men/dp/0306813769
> Perhaps a love and affection they have never experienced, but can only imagine? As one would imagine heaven. Or some other end state, when there are no end states.
Yes absolutely. For me, as an INFP personality type, I have an inner knowing of an idealized form of love. It's like a union of the divine masculine/feminine. In orgasm, it's like touching the void - getting a glimpse of heaven. I'm also attracted to BDSM where they are consciously exploring altered states of consciousness through sex. So perhaps NiceGuys are just more sensitive/intuitive type of men who through nature/nurture have a proclivity to want a more transcendent experience of love.
> They do seem to have an intense need to be seen as better than other men. But at the same time they are men, so they are not better than other men, in a generic sense. We are all men. We all share male desires. Lacking or pretending to lack male desire, does not make you better than other men. It makes you a eunuch.
Yes. It stems from a belief that they are flawed and not good enough as they are (like most humans). Once he begins to accept his own darkness, normalcy, and most hated parts of himself, he will begin to ground himself in reality. It won't actually remove his idealistic nature of love, it will actually just make him a lot less anxious and needy. He won't need a woman to validate his existence, but he can still enjoy their company.
> Fall from grace? The grace of denial?
Yeah that's one way of describing it. To accept their inner evil so to speak. I'm still healing from this fall which started happening years ago. So I can't say what it looks like on the other side. But I just know it will be ok.
you sound young a naive, not receiving or perhaps accepting the respect and acknowledgment of your families love - not realizing it yet, that love of the self and life. Really loving life. Maybe because you have not come close to death, I mean really close to cold, dark, death. More so, you sound like all fresh and stupid young boys do right when they leave high school; assured of their understanding of the world, an understanding that drastically changes every three to five years. Until one day, thirty years from now you look back and say, "I knew nothing when I was young". It's then that you realize this was all a feeling. One long feeling you had, that lasted days and years, as time seemed to slip by so painfully slow. Where a gut feeling of needed mobility took over and forced your fate into a position that only forgiveness and toughing it out can save for. A feeling of longing; Longing for adventure and a chance to prove oneself - a man's journey or hero quest. This feeling in men (and women) has been known since ancient times, only they had positive ways of promoting such innate human drives. Today, we have fraternities and the military, the factory or gangs. All shadow concepts of masculinity, all captivities shaded in brotherhood and silly concepts of sacrifice.
This is what the US military hopes for, besides all the other young and stupid children who knocked up a girlfriend and need money, or inner city kids who need a direction outside of gang life. The world you live in has been designed this way. To take the poor and wanting, and to place them in the machine. You're not going to fight for freedom, that fight belongs at a poll, and in protest, in letters to senators and special interest groups. The only freedom you'll find toting a gun in some foreign land is the same freedom men from constitutional nations always find, a small stipend to spend while corporations colonize foreign markets and people who would never sit by you at a table bank on your ignorance and hard work. You will be yelled at and broken, all for bits of ribbon or a tab. Told you're finally a man now, that you have found discipline, that you gained 'leadership skills'. All the while these traits were inside you, never on the outside, waiting to be emboldened and brought out of you; waiting for a moment of maturity and expression.
The only thing you seek in the military is a chance at expression, for something that is already there, just waiting for an outlet. If you don't want to die, don't be a soldier. If you're patriotic, then your nearest fight for liberty is at home against corruption and greed. If you want to be a man, become one of peace - because I assure you wholeheartedly, there are plenty of ex soldiers who are now men in pieces. Broken, berated and disturbed by the horrors that is war and a tighter bottom line.
Coast guard, if you must. But remember, all your life you will be searching for some semblance of inner peace, and that will never be found holding a weapon.
Works to consider: http://www.amazon.com/King-Warrior-Magician-Lover-Rediscovering/dp/0062506064
http://www.amazon.com/Fire-Belly-Being-Sam-Keen/dp/0553351370/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1373858243&sr=1-1&keywords=fire+in+the+belly
http://www.amazon.com/Iron-John-Book-About-Men/dp/0306813769/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1373858269&sr=1-1&keywords=iron+john
http://www.amazon.com/Killing-Psychological-Cost-Learning-Society/dp/0316040932/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1373858285&sr=1-1&keywords=on+killing
I would also strongly suggest Teach Like a Champion. It has great ideas and tips and also has a DVD with it so you can see the teaching practices in action.
Teach Like a Champion
Read The First Days of School front to back, and if you have the extra time, Teach Like A Champion.
Teach Like a Champion by Doug Lemov is the best book in the world for managing a classroom.
I can not turn a single page without thinking to myself, "Yes, I need to incorporate this into my classroom." It's brilliant.
The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language is pretty good, but expensive.
Introducing English Grammar by Borjars and Burridge is a great overview of English grammar for someone without much background in linguistics.
The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language by Huddleston and Pullum is VERY comprehensive, but also significantly more difficult.
Also, check out this introduction to English linguistics
Very nice survey of the options, thanks.
Some years ago I used Henshall's book and recommended it on another forum as an alternative to Heisig/RtK. I liked Henshall's mnemonics and etymologies, though he never got popular like Heisig/RtK did. I've not heard of Conning's book, it seems to be quite new, so I'm guessing it must be really good if you recommend it over Henshall.
Another +1 for the Core10k deck, though I'm only studying the words that have high frequency according to a particular frequency list I'm using. I've heard there's quite a bit of low-frequency, newspaper-ish vocab in it.
http://www.amazon.com/A-Guide-Remembering-Japanese-Characters/dp/0804820384
http://books.google.com/books?id=3ZHD9wdspXgC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA32#v=onepage&q&f=false
This is actually a very good book that shows you all of the development stages for the "Official" Kanji (the ones most commonly used/expected to know when you get out of High School) if you're really interested/bored.
WaniKani or other "Learn Kanji via the Radicals" methods actually make learning Kanji a lot easier and more fun. WaniKani doesn't always use the "real" meaning of the radicals, which takes away some of your ability to figure out what unknown kanji may mean, but it the method is fantastic for learning kanji. www.amazon.com/Guide-Remembering-Japanese-Characters/dp/0804820384/ is really good if you need to learn a certain set of Kanji (via a class or something) and want to learn/use the radicals as wanikani picks your kanji for you.
I loved The Unfolding of Language by Guy Deutscher.
Recommended these a while back, great, assessable reads.
The Language Instinct by Stephen Pinker
http://www.amazon.com/The-Language-Instinct-Mind-Creates/dp/0061336467/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1343383543&sr=8-1&keywords=the+language+instinct
Patterns in the Mind by Ray Jackendoff
http://www.amazon.com/Patterns-Mind-Language-Human-Nature/dp/0465054625/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1343383561&sr=1-1&keywords=patterns+in+the+mind
And if you are into etymology, check out
The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way, by Bill Bryson
http://www.amazon.com/Mother-Tongue-English-How-That/dp/0380715430/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1343383614&sr=1-1&keywords=the+mother+tongue
The Unfolding of Language: An Evolutionary Tour Through Mankind's Greatest Invention, by Guy Deutscher
http://www.amazon.com/The-Unfolding-Language-Evolutionary-Invention/dp/0805080120/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1343383676&sr=1-2-fkmr0&keywords=guy+deucher+language
Again, all superb books.
There's actually a book series that made memorizing characters really easy. I'm learning Japanese, and with it I was able to commit 2000 kanji to memory in a bit over a month. It doesn't go over readings at all, but you can at least write everything without issue.
And Chinese grammar is great, it takes all those things like conjugation and irregular verbs and noun genders and just laughs at them
EDIT:
Books I used was this for Japanese
Chinese equivalent
I would definitely ask r/Korean as many people there are longtime Korean learners and can offer good suggestions. However, imho the Integrated Korean books are great, specifically Integrated Korean Beginning 1 is a good start as it teaches you Hangul, grammar, and new vocab words with every lesson. I myself use it for self teaching and it's been working great! I also recommend purchasing the accompanying workbook as it gives you more practice. Best of luck!
I haven't used Lingodeer since it went to a paid model, but for an app it's pretty good. Starting out, https://www.talktomeinkorean.com/ is pretty good too IMO
The majority of my studying has come from this textbook series though: Integrated Korean
Don't worry it's one of the most popular on Amazon so it's easy to find there. Here it is.
I would also suggest looking up How to Speak in Korean. It's a website that was written by a guy who taught himself to speak Korean and wanted to create a resource that has everything for beginners to become fluent for FREE.
Just started reading this the other day. Fairly straightforward explanations: Essentials of Swedish Grammar: A Practical Guide to the Mastery of Swedish https://www.amazon.com/dp/0844285390/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_U2WVCbPT4K42M
Here you go, man. This has been so useful in my studies, it's worth the 15 or so dollars for it gives you a massive leg up in grammar and such. Give it a THOROUGH read, find a good partner on /r/language_exchange, and get yourself some decent courses on memrise. As a bonus, feel free to PM with any questions or even to practice your speaking. I'm not a native speaker, but have a pretty decent grasp on the language. Lycka till!
If English is your first language I recommend this book: https://www.amazon.com/English-Grammar-Students-German-Learning/dp/0934034389 (buy a used copy)
I use:
Starter Kit
Understanding Grammar
(https://www.amazon.com/English-Grammar-Students-German-Learning/dp/0934034389/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1540389052&sr=8-2&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=german+for+english+speakers&dpPl=1&dpID=41RAyW9uzAL&ref=plSrch)
Verb overview with full conjugations and sample sentences
Grammar exercises (this is great but in 100% German)
I have some online resources but prefer books. I also think these don’t „expire“ too soon and you can use them into A2. If you find used versions, it’s not too expensive.
My dad raised my 3 sisters and I by himself. He was both mom and dad since I was 6. I love him for his patience and how much he taught me growing up. Because of him I can install a door, work on plumbing, electrical, and a car, and garden.
Link
Hey Bean! (Bean is my favorite in Ender's Game)
You're so lovely for doing this in her honor.
I love everything about my mom, she is one of the strongest, most giving people I have ever met. I love that she is the type of person who will never, ever turn down a person in need. Throughout my life we often had friends and family living with us for random periods of time because she will not allow someone she loves to not have a place to live/eat/bathe etc.
She has been wanting to read Divergent together so I added it to my wishlist. 2 copies for under $10!
Hey Bean!
How about Divergent With the movie coming out and all -
Check out, Divergent, by Veronica Roth.
It takes place in a future, semi-post-apocalyptic Chicago where all people have been divided up into 5 different "factions" based on core principles of "goodness", aka: Bravery, Honesty, Kindness, Selflessness, Knowledge.
But of course, people can only stay good for so long...
Mwuahaha! It's such a great book, and it's a 3 book series. A film of the first book comes out in a few months too.
Just want to put this out there because I've studied young adult lit and I'll never grow too old to love it: YA is an incredibly fascinating genre. It's an absolute goldmine if you're looking for character development. Even the books with horrible photoshop-vomit covers often have merit if you give them a chance, and the fact that something appeals to teenage girls does not invalidate its quality.
If anyone is interested in reading good young adult fiction, I'd recommend the following:
Okay - then to start, I will recommend Oryx and Crake and Year of the Flood, both by Margaret Atwood. They're part of a trilogy, the third book is due out this fall. Atwood defines them as speculative fiction; they're set in the not-to-distant future, and follow the downfall of civilization. I like Year of the Flood better, but both are pretty awesome.
For fantasy, I really like The Fionavar Tapestry by Guy Gavriel Kay. It's a blend of celtic mythology, fantasy, and arthurian legend. Some people don't like that it's basically an homage to LOTR, but it's one of my absolutely alll-time favourites.
For YA dystopian fiction, I'd suggest Divergent and Insurgent - also a trilogy, not sure when the third one is due out, off-hand.
One of my favourite sci-fi series is Phule's Company and the following books, by Robert Asprin. I also love Time Scout by him and Linda Evans. His writing is ridiculously clever and witty, and he's one of last century's greatest writers, in my opinion.
And finally, I love anything by Terry Pratchett - his Discworld series is amazing. So very very British and hilarious.
Find old school books prewar, or new ones
Or maybe try BCS
Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian, a Textbook: With Exercises and Basic Grammar https://www.amazon.com/dp/0299236544/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_DZdtDb82ZG2N0
Your choices as a foreigner to get going are between titles that contain either "Croatian" or "Serbian" (if you find older material, it'll be likely advertised as "Serbo-Croatian"). "Bosnian" stuff is still pretty much restricted to this book which might actually be overkill as a total beginner learning independently.
The most important thing is to get started with a decent course. Teach Yourself Serbian, Beginner's Croatian and Beginner's Serbian are good starting points if you're really motivated (FWIW, I've used all three). You could also get a taste of the language(s) in everyday life by watching short videos involving Croats and Serbs.
If you learn the basics of any of Bosnian, Croatian or Serbian, you'll be able to start communicating with him. If he plays along and speaks to you in his native tongue, he might adjust somewhat by using fewer features/words characteristic of Montenegrin or speaking more slowly or clearly and using a slightly more formal register than he would when he's with his friends or family.
https://www.amazon.com/Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian-Textbook-Exercises/dp/0299236544/
​
https://www.amazon.com/Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian-Grammar-Sociolinguistic/dp/0299211940
Link to free serbian flash cards
https://ankiweb.net/shared/decks/serbian
Link to android app for these flash cards (iOS also exists): https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ichi2.anki
Probably the best book for learning the language: http://www.amazon.com/Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian-Textbook-Exercises/dp/0299236544/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1417903285&sr=8-1&keywords=bosnian+croatian+serbian+a+textbook+with+exercises+and+basic+grammar
But if you're really serious I'm sure you can find a local school or culture center that has classes.
Here is the mobile version of your link
Another fantastic read is Iron John by Robert Bly--who was heavily influenced by Marie-Louise von Franz
I think a primary issue is not that they don't exist but are often subject to socio-political debate and even ridicule due to male dominance in society. There was a well known (and highly satirized, certainly in the US) mythopoetic movement that was popular throughout the 1980s and 90s,
"The movement avoided political and social advocacy in favor of therapeutic workshops and wilderness retreats, often appropriating Native American rituals such as drumming, chanting, and sweat lodges, in which the mostly middle-class, middle-aged male participants sought to connect spiritually with a lost, 'deep' masculine essence." -wikipedia
The most noted elements being the poet Robert Bly and the influence of his [in]famous "Iron John: A Book About Men", and for its various New Agey spiritual retreats which were often simultaneouslyseriously written about and parodied in pop culture.
According to recent articles (2016, 2017), the movement is experiencing a resurgence, complete with detractors:
The Trouble with Gender in the Mythopoetic Men’s Movement.
Why The ‘New Masculine’ Movement Is Just As Toxic As The Old One by Erin Innes
Related reading:
It did seem like there weren't many solo ways to induce stress. I agree that meditation retreats (likely by Asians) are the best way to stimulate breakdowns in a controlled way. An issue may be that they'll focus more or compassion than strength for rebuilding the broken person.
A few years ago I read about several mens groups that attempt to offer a kind of modern manhood ritual for adults who feel they never had a transition to becoming men. As I recall many of these places were based on the book Iron John, which is based on the heroes journey concept. One place was called the Mankind project. As I recall the Mankind project was very coordinated to induce fear. The staff dress in black with black face paint and put you through a long talk to wear you down. During the talk if you need to use the restroom you have to use a trash can in the back of the room. At the end of the talk you're force to run out into the woods by yourself. At least this is what I've read on a few cult watch forums (it's considered a cult). Perhaps I will participate in it some time to research their techniques.
What you're talking about is more or less in line with a psychoanalytic / Jungian interpretation. There's a lot of history and some disagreement^1, but generally the idea is that religion was instituted to codify morality into an easy-to-digest way (ie, making up stories that teach us how to behave morally) and to give a general model of human behavior and interaction, a sort of primitive social science.
I'm coming mostly from Carl Jung (Text 1 / Text 2 / Wiki), Jacques Lacan (Text / Wiki), Joseph Campbell (Text / Wiki), and Erich Fromm (Text / Wiki), but these anthologies give a decent scope of study: Ways of Being Religious and Religion, Society and Psychoanalysis.
There's also an entire sub-genre of what amount to self-help books based on mythology, interpreting myths to teach you how to be a better person: Myths to Live By, Iron John.
^1 One of the big disagreements between Freud and Jung was the role of religion in the mind of a subject. Freud believed it was a fantasy we use to bolster our own sense of importance and impart some sense of order onto the world that isn't there. Jung believed, while that may be true of fundamentalists or the neurotic/pathological, generally speaking it was a positive thing, that it created or strengthened social bonds, that it taught us things about ourselves and humanity.
I agree with everything that you've written. There are some decent studies out there, but they are really hard to find. ERIC is flooded with research that has been bought and paid for by proponents of various systems.
There are a couple of books that I'd like to recommend, if you haven't read them: Teach Like a Champion and Why Don't Students Like School. In fact, I generally like everything by Daniel Willingham.
I think you're already way ahead of the game if you've taught in your own classroom before. Good luck in this next stage of your life.
Two very, very good books - head and shoulders above the rest - on teaching and managing kids are "Teach Like a Champion" and "Tools for Teaching." They should be part of any teacher's library, particularly for middle school and up.
I found this site useful when I was subbing. It covers a lot of the nuts and bolts - and you'll need a lot of them.
Subbing in multiple districts is very smart in many ways. Mainly it lets you evaluate any school better, because you'll know what alternatives look like. A surprising number of teachers have experience in only 1 or 2 schools, or just one district.
What else....remember that it's your classroom that day. You're responsible for what happens in there and you have a harder job than most, including the person you're subbing for. Walk in like you own the place, because you do.
I've found this handbook pretty helpful for understanding patterns and methods for classroom management: http://www.amazon.com/Teach-Like-Champion-Techniques-Students/dp/0470550473
Bio teacher in a low income, high poverty school with about 75% Hispanic students, quite a few are from Honduras.
As far as how my students grasp concepts here seems to be the trend with them
Hard concepts: Cell bio, prokaryote vs eukaryote, some organelles(cell wall vs cell membrane, lysosome, ERs), viruses and their life cycle, DNA replication, transcription/translation, mitosis vs meiosis, 6 kingdoms(Animalia/plantae are easy, protista, fungi/archaebacteria/eubacteria are hard), sex linked inheritance, DNA/genetics some parts
Easier concepts: Plant anatomy/structure/function, photosynthesis vs cellular respiration, ecology, human body systems, punnett squares, mendelian inheritence, some organelles(Chloroplast, nucelus, ribosome, cytoplasm, cytoskeleton)
Honestly though the content is only like 5% the battle. If you have never been in a classroom before I would observe all I could before I started.
I suggest reading
Harry Wong's "The First Day of School" - Helped me for the first day and having my shit together
Fred Jones' "Tools for Teachers" - Helped me in random areas of my teaching I had not totally thought of, like getting kids into higher levels of thinking
and finally Doug Lemov's "Teach Like a Champion" - THIS BOOK! I Love this book! Some of the ideas in it are fairly simple and some are even "no duh!" moments but they have helped me out tremendously. Ideas like no opt out, 100%, and other questioning techniques really helped me out.
Know what you are doing for the next 3-5 days at least otherwise you will end up being swamped and doing more work than necessary. Be tough, be consistent, have a clear set of rules and consequences when the rules are impeded, have high expectations even if they are the stupidest kids you've ever seen. On the high expectations note, it is amazing how even the worst underachiever starts to tread water on his/her own. But only when high/tough but reachable goals with rewards that matter to the individual are set before them.
Feel free to pm me if you have any questions that arise. Also I'd be willing to send you an extra copy of Fred Jones' "Tools for Teachers" if you want it, pm me your address if you do. I bought one before my first job to read over the summer with Harry Wong and then the school district provided me one for free.
Teach Like a Champion by Lemov and The Skillful Teacher by Saphier are great resources to study. They'll provide you with techniques and tips on teaching. We used them in my Masters of Education course work. Extensively. It's worth it to note that in earning yourself a TEFL certificate, such as a CELTA, you'll be taught the rudimentaries of the profession.
Other than that, if you're really worried about it you could try taking some college courses on Education, either Applied Linguistics or Elementary, to get a broader idea of techniques and expectations. I wouldn't worry about it too much though. I went to China to teach knowing nothing except small bits of info from my CELTA course, and I got along just fine.
Dumbing Us Down by John Taylor Gatto
The opening essay of this short read is a condemnation of traditional schooling techniques---and it's also the speech he delivered when he (again) won the NY Teacher of the Year award. Gatto gets at the heart of why public schools consistently produce pencil pushers, not leaders. Every teacher should read this book.
How to Survive in Your Native Land by James Herndon
If Dumbing Us Down is the manifesto in favor of a more liberal pedagogy, Herdon's book is a memoir of someone trying to put that pedagogy in action. It's also a simple, beautiful easy to read book, the kind that is so good it reminds us just how good a book can be. I've read the teaching memoir that made Jonahton Kozol famous, this one is better.
The Montessori Method by Maria Montessori
In the early 1900s, Maria Montessori taught literacy to children that society had otherwise assumed were unreachable. She did this by using the scientific method to study each child's learning style. Some of what she introduced has been widely incorporated (like child-sized furniture) and some of it seems great but unworkable in overcrowded schools. The bottom line is that the Montessori method was one of the first pedagogical techniques that was backed by real results: both in test scores and in growing kids that thrive on learning and participation.
"Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?": A Psychologist Explains the Development of Racial Identity by Beverly Daniel Tatum
While not precisely a book on how to teach, this book is incredibly helpful to any teacher working with a diverse student population, or one where the race they are teaching differs from their own. It explains the process that white, black, and children of other races go through in identifying themselves as part of a particular race. In the US, race is possibly the most taboo subject, so it is rare to find a book this honest and straightforward on a subject most educators try not to talk about at all. I highly recommend this book.
If there is any chance you will be teaching history, definitely read:
Lies My Teacher Told Me and A People's History of the United States (the latter book is a classic and, personally, changed my life).
Also recommend: The Multi-player Classroom by Lee Sheldon and Teach Like a Champion by Doug Lemov
Finally, anyone who plans to teach math should read this essay, "Lockhart's Lament" [PDF at the bottom of the page].
PS, I was tempted to use Amazon affiliate links, but my conscious wouldn't let me.
I teach middle school math - 8th Standard and honors algebra this year, but I've also done 6th and 7th in the past.
I really struggled with behavior management when I started out. I really found [ http://www.fredjones.com/books-video/Positive-Discipline-book.html](Positive Classroom Discipline by Fred Jones) to be extremely helpful in practical advice that I could use immediately. I discovered that I was not utilizing body language effectively. Now I don't speak as much, am so much more effective, and students see me as more empathetic.
Two other books I found particularly helpful were [ http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0470550473?pc_redir=1407308994&robot_redir=1](Teacher Like a Champion by Doug Lemov), [ http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1416612947?pc_redir=1407558335&robot_redir=1](Total Participation Techniques by Pérsida Himmele & William Himmele).
Get to know your co-workers in your building and district.
-Within my department we plan together, slit the creating materials workload, and discussed what did/didn't work. For honors algebra there is only one teacher at each building so we get together once or twice a month at Starbucks to catch up and plan.
-Beyond your department it's nice to know others that work with your student so you are able to get a more complete picture of that student. In my building we frequently seek out a teacher that has a good connection with a kid to informally mentor him/her in other areas. Also you are then able to share accomplishments to other teachers; they are so excited when another teacher comments about something awesome that happened in a different class.
Kids are less likely to misbehave when they are constantly engaged. Choose activities that put the work burden on them and allow for movement/discussion.
-There are a ton of excellent, free resources out there. Some of my favorites are MARS tasks, NCTM Illuminations, and the Engage NY curriculum.
-Kagan Cooperative Learning (website and books) are easy to implement activities that turn any worksheet into a game and kids love it.
Don't forget to take some time for yourself. I used to eat lunch at my desk so I would have less work to take home. Now I find I'm more productive when working if I take a break and socialize with the other grownups for 20 minutes.
Good luck!
I learned traditional grammar when I learned Latin and Ancient Greek. As others
have said, learning a foreign language (especially a dead one) is a great way
to bulk up on grammatical knowledge in general... at least as long as the
foreign language is sufficiently similar to English. (For example, I'm not sure
if learning Mandarin would help your knowledge of English as much as learning,
say, German or Latin would, but maybe.)
That being said, if you want to learn standard, traditional, but up-to-date,
descriptive English grammar, I suggest Huddleston and Pullum's A Student's
Introduction to English
Grammar.
It's written by two highly respected and prolific linguists/grammarians. It's
based on their much more comprehensive tome The Cambridge Grammar of the
English
Language.
If you are interested in mnemonics based on the true etymology of kanji, try Henshall's book.
Here's an Anki deck: https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/2081001609
He tracks the form and meaning of each kanji down to the original ancient inscriptions. Kanji are not just random symbols attached to meanings. They contain the wisdom of centuries.
I might be the only one, but I like the Henshall book. Reading a little paragraph about how a particular kanji evolved really stuck with me. It also makes for decent trivia sometimes.
Since you know a fair number of Kanji already, what you're doing seems to work for you. Henshall is basically just learning radicals, but not by their proper names in Japanese, and it comes with a neat little explanation of where the kanji came from. I used to just read the entries for any new kanji as I came across them studying in context, and it helped me fix them in my mind. Sometimes I'd make flashcards for his mnemonics if I was having trouble with a character.
The Unfolding of Language by Guy Deutscher
if you're interested in book recommendations, I've been been reading the unfolding of language, which has some good discussion about the sort of processes that cause inflections to appear and disappear. I've found it to be a very easy and interesting read!
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.
Pleco http://pleco.com.
Popup Chinese http://popupchinese.
Heisig and Richardson http://www.amazon.com/Remembering-Simplified-Hanzi-Meaning-Characters/dp/0824833236/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_y + Anki http://ankisrs.net/.
He really ought to have mentioned that their actually is a fast and easy way to learn characters
Here's a few tips, although this is without knowing your level and your aims:
There you go, hope this helps! 加油！
Just wanted to add in that if you went with Heisig's method, it wouldn't have to be rewritten for Chinese. He's made books for that as well (for both traditional and simplified.)
I'd start with memrise. Memrise has four courses on Hakka. I browsed them all, and this one looks like the only one worth your time: https://www.memrise.com/course/51837/hacking-hakka/
There's one Hakka T.V. station, Hakka TV: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdqg95tSArchPfQaAWquDwg It's worth watching just to get the sound of the language down.
If you have money, definitely try to find a tutor online. I searched for "Hakka" in iTalki and got nothing, but you could probably put an ad out or find a friend-of-family or something.
If I understand it right, Hakka is usually written in Chinese characters. Heisig's books teach you how to read Chinese without learning how to talk in Chinese, so they may of may not be worth your time: https://www.amazon.com/Remembering-Simplified-Hanzi-Meaning-Characters/dp/0824833236
Te recomiendo éste libro: Remembering Simplified Hanzi: Book 1 . Es un método de enseñanza muy controversial, pero a mi me sirvió mucho.
I just started learning Mandarin with Anki, and here's what I'm doing.
Characters: I'm working through Heisig's Remembering Simplified Hanzi. His strategy (which Japanese kanji learners seem to be a big fan of) is to associate a unique English keyword with every character to serve as a prompt. He orders characters in a rational way, so that you learn radicals first that are used to build other characters later.
For each character, I look it up on Wiktionary to try and find a gif of stroke order (if Wiktionary fails, I use Google images). Then I create cards both from [character] —> [keyword] and from [keyword] —> [character gif]. The second one is where the money is at: I trace out the character on my phone's screen with my finger to answer keyword prompts, and to learn new ones I trace my finger along with the gif to practice.
For example, you can grab a gif for 九 here: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E4%B9%9D#Translingual
Pronunciation I'm still working this out. But I like using audio, so I've started making one-way cards from [character] —> [audio + pinyin] (ex. 九 —> audio + jiǔ). Wiktionary is also a great source of audio clips for individual characters.
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Everything else: as usual for any other language. Personally, I make large numbers of audio cards for words, phrases, and practice sentence fragments using my own voice (right now Duolingo is my main source of vocab and example sentences—bonus that it has audio I can mimic carefully when recording my own voice). I write both the hanzi and pinyin on the cards in case I need to refer to them, but I rely on the audio most of the time (and I pretty much "think" in pinyin).
Unfortunately there's nothing out there like this for Chinese. Heisig does have a Remembering the Hanzi book series though.
I use these books but I also had a year's worth of instruction in one year. So I'm not picking it up from scratch. I still have all my Yonsei University textbooks, too.
I think it depends on what you want to get out of it, honestly. Chinese is going to be more "practical" since more people speak the language. Also, I find that even just a little Chinese knowledge can be fairly interesting and exciting, such as being able to read a Chinese sign in the background of a movie, etc. There's a lot of Chinese study abroad students, so I'm sure that could open up some cool possibilities, like meeting people in on-campus clubs like the International Student Organization. A decent amount of Chinese customs could also be applied as customs in Korea, so in a way Chinese can provide you part of the culture background. On the other hand, Korean is very unique in the sense that there's a smaller base of people that speak it, however Korean modern popular culture has been slowly influencing a lot more people, in addition to it being such a newer language. It's amazing to see how much thought was put into Hangeul and it's impressive to look at in-depth from a linguistics point-of-view.
I'd look into both a bit. With Chinese, you're going to learn pinyin and also Chinese characters aka Hanyu. Chinese characters have a base pronunciation, and a tone associated with them. Chinese doesn't have any conjugations, and for the most part when speaking, you'll refer to a time that you're talking about. It does have the use of one particle for past-tense or indication that a situation has changed, but that's about it for any kind of tenses. Korean you'll have to learn Hangeul which you could honestly learn and memorize in an hour. However, Korean has a lot of grammar particles (는/은 for marking subjects, 을/를 for marking complements, etc) in addition to verb conjugation for tenses, etc.
If you really wanted to know which would be easiest, I would argue Chinese. While you'll have to remember many characters, you won't have to deal with conjugation. Oral quizzes in Chinese don't require you to know the characters since it's all spoken, and with written tests, if you can identify the character, there's probably a 60% chance it's printed somewhere already in the test in another question. Chinese grammar is a lot like English grammar, unlike Korean where the verbs are always at the end. While there's not too many resources for Chinese or Korean that are a complete course, KoreanClass101.com and TalkToMeInKorean.com can be used as independent-study aids in addition to a textbook like Integrated Korean.
Hope this wall of text helped. :)
I've been using KLEAR Integrated Korean textbooks to learn Korean this summer. It's actually really great and I've been making progress. There are the textbooks and workbooks, plus all the audio files that accompany it can be downloaded online for free. I definitely recommend it.
http://www.amazon.com/Integrated-Korean-Beginning-Textbooks-Language/dp/0824834402/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1313630860&sr=8-1
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0824834402/ref=pe_385040_30332200_TE_item
http://www.amazon.com/dp/082483450X/ref=pe_385040_30332200_TE_item
Currently using this myself. Came highly recommended from friends who have worked in Korea and picked up the language.
https://www.amazon.com/Integrated-Korean-Beginning-Textbooks-Language/dp/0824834402/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1494272044&sr=8-1&keywords=integrated+korean+beginning+1
This is the textbook they use for Korean 101 at the uni I'll be going to.
It's not crazy. I'm a fluent English speaker who has learned conversational Korean over the course of two years, albeit in a classroom setting. I've found it to be a pretty simple language when compared to other East Asian languages such as Chinese and Japanese. The best thing to do is get some books and learn the grammar patterns. I recommend [these] (http://www.amazon.com/Integrated-Korean-Beginning-Textbooks-Language/dp/0824834402/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1419721377&sr=8-2&keywords=klear+korean) because they come with listening resources and teach you the basics well. Once you get the basic grammar patterns and memorize the elementary vocabulary I would recommend getting yourself to the intermediate level with the same line of books. Supplement your education by listening to Korean pop music and watching Korean dramas (super fun). There are also many websites and apps that are willing to connect you with people that speak Korean fluently.
My biggest piece of advice is to focus on reading fluently and getting grammar patterns down. Once you have this down you will only have to learn more vocabulary to expand your grasp on the language. Going to South Korea will also help you learn, although a lot of people will only want to speak English with you. You will have to actively seek out people that are willing to speak Korean to you. If you have any other questions about learning the language or going to Korea, then don't hesitate to PM me.
I highly recommend [Essentials of Swedish Grammar: A Practical Guide to the Mastery of Swedish] (https://www.amazon.com/Essentials-Swedish-Grammar-Practical-Mastery/dp/0844285390/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1468638514&sr=8-1&keywords=swedish+grammar)
Yeah, I've certainly sailed that ship many times, but for Swedish I actually take classes at my college for it. Honestly there aren't that many books out there for Swedish, but one I would recommend is this one http://www.amazon.com/Essentials-Swedish-Grammar-Practical-Mastery/dp/0844285390/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1325031203&sr=8-3
Title : English Grammar for Students of German: The Study Guide for Those Learning German
3rd Edition
Author : Cecile Zorach
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0934034389/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_t1_HHpqDbBHPH31J
This book explains English grammar in a way most of us native speakers fail to understand. English is hard.
For beginners: http://www.amazon.com/English-Grammar-Students-German-Learning/dp/0934034389/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1413161749&sr=1-2&keywords=german+english+grammar
Beginning to intermediate: http://www.amazon.com/Schaums-Outline-German-Grammar-4ed/dp/0071615679/ref=sr_1_6?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1413161727&sr=1-6&keywords=german+grammar
Beginning to intermediate: http://www.amazon.com/Hammers-German-Grammar-Usage-Edition/dp/1444120166
Intermediate to advanced: http://www.amazon.com/Practice-Grammar-German/dp/3190272557/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1413161823&sr=1-1&keywords=hueber+practice+grammar+german
In the same way that die can be either an article or a relative pronoun in German, that can be either a relative pronoun or a simple subordinating conjunction in English. Sometimes the same form fulfills multiple functions in a language. It's simply a different way of dividing up the grammatical work.
Edit: I will point out that we actually can make a distinction here in English, but only for inanimate vs. animate antecedents. If it's a relative pronoun, you can get that or who(m). If it's just a plain subordinating conjunction, you'll only get that.
I know who he is already here.(conjunction, so the form does not change)If you have never been taught basic grammar, you might find this book useful in drawing comparisons between English and German.
I am no sure if a single text can help you achieve your goals for self-study.
However, I have heard great things about the "Erkundungen" and "Begegnungen" Deutsch Als Fremdspreche series from Schubert-Verlag for existing self-study learners, which also has an online site for grammar exercises, http://www.schubert-verlag.de/aufgaben/index.htm
Alternatively, an English and progressive teaching grammar like this well known one may suit you better:
"English Grammar for Students of German"
Botany is incredibly vocabulary heavy so one I really love is the Plant Identification Terminology: An Illustrated Glossary.
It has a ton of botanical terms and is really handy if you have to look something up while keying out a specimen. I didn't know grasses had vaginas before getting this book. Now I do.
If you want hardcore stuff, here is what I use:
Of course! I really appreciate everyone's replies. You never really know what you are going to be greeted with on reddit in response to questions like this. Wikipedia had been an excellent friend. ;)
I am a botany undergrad, who just recently switched over from art, graphic design, etc. So speaking of friends, this book hasn't left my side. I am working on this paper with a professor and another student. It has been a great chance to get my feet wet, and figure out researching various literature in a way I haven't had to do before.
Anyways, I really appreciate everyone's responses!
I'm pretty sure it's from Erica Meltzer's The Ultimate Guide to SAT Grammar.
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https://www.amazon.com/4th-Ultimate-Guide-SAT-Grammar/dp/0997517867
It sounds like you're struggling on the writing part. Use this book https://www.amazon.com/4th-Ultimate-Guide-SAT-Grammar/dp/0997517867 to help. Your English will become better.
I got 3rd edition reading
https://www.amazon.com/Critical-Reader-3rd-Complete-Reading/dp/0997517875
And 4th edition grammar
https://www.amazon.com/4th-Ultimate-Guide-SAT-Grammar/dp/0997517867
Here is the link to the reading book: https://www.amazon.com/Critical-Reader-3rd-Complete-Reading/dp/0997517875
Here is the link to the grammar book: https://www.amazon.com/4th-Ultimate-Guide-SAT-Grammar/dp/0997517867
/u/beloitpiper's link.
A couple fiction books by Gary Paulsen that might interest you. The Hatchet was a particularly memorable read from my childhood.
https://www.amazon.com/Hatchet-Gary-Paulsen/dp/1416936475
https://www.amazon.com/Transall-Saga-Gary-Paulsen/dp/0375873236
Hatchet, by Gary Paulsen
> Sketchy childhood with too many financial close calls? One too many readings of My Side of the Mountain in fourth grade? I've been this way ever since I was a little kid. Always had a Plan B, always interested in security and self-sufficiency.
Add Hatchet and Far North to that list and you've got me exactly.
It's alright. That's why you need to educate yourself and be able to stand up for him. If you choose to defend him on facts rather than emotion you will convince people.
A general comment, read his books revolution, end the fed, and liberty defined. You can even buy them in a bundle.
another great book from a great thinker, andrew napolitano
You don't have to agree with everything these people say to support them. If you understand the core principles and believe in the constitution and free, unalienable rights, then we can at least have educated discussions about these ideas and how to deploy them. And I am writing in generalities... I'm using "you" in a very broad, non-descriptive sense.
Sure, sorry about that. I knew I should have sourced everything, but I was in a bit of a hurry. Here we go:
Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security
> "I would start with military operations overseas ... but you don't have to go and cut health care and Social Security to get our house in order. ... I think the most popular place to cut is all this spending overseas and the corporate welfare in this country because most of the money we spend here that is supposed to help the poor really helps the large corporations, like the housing bubble. Who got helped? See the rich got bailed out both by the congress and the federal reserve, and they were making all the profits. So it's the corporatism that is so bad. ... that is the welfare that is huge compared to the welfare of foodstamps."
> "I never voted to spend one penny of Social Security money. So I’m the one that has saved it. I say take that money -- and I say this constantly -- don’t turn anybody out on the streets ... The only way you can do that is cut spending. If we don’t, they’re all going to be out in the street. Because right now Social Security beneficiaries are getting 2% raises, but their cost of living is going up 10%. A dollar crisis is going to wipe them all out."
Here is is budget plan - Medicare, Medicaid, and SS are intact. Here is a longer post I made about this a while back, with a little more info on his views of the inflation that is actually reducing the purchasing power people who are on these programs have (making the poor and those on SS poorer even though they have the same dollar amount). And how the government is changing their measurements so they don't have to follow through with their obligations on these programs.
Abortion
>It is not a national issue, this is a state issue. ... I still think there are some times when the law doesn't solve the problem. Only the moral character of the people will eventually solve this problem.
> My argument is that the abortion problem is more of a social and moral issue than it is a legal one. In the 1960s, when I was in my OB/GYN residency training, abortions were being done in defiance of the law. Society had changed and the majority agreed the laws should be changed as well. The Supreme Court in 1973 in Roe v. Wade caught up with the changes in moral standards.
So if we are ever to have fewer abortions, society must change again. The law will not accomplish that. However, that does not mean that the states shouldn’t be allowed to write laws dealing with abortion.
>...
>Strangely, given that my moral views are akin to theirs, various national pro-life groups have been hostile to my position on this issue. But I also believe in the Constitution, and therefore, I consider it a state-level responsibility ... I disagree with the nationalization of the issue and reject the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion in all fifty states.
>...
>The pro-life opponents to my approach are less respectful of the rule of law and the Constitution. Instead of admitting that my position allows the states to minimize or ban abortions, they claim that my position supports the legalization of abortion by the states. This is twisted logic. Demanding a national and only a national solution, as some do, gives credence to the very process that made abortions so prevalent. Ending nationally legalized abortions by federal court order is neither a practical answer to the problem nor a constitutionally sound argument.
Here is another video of him discussing abortion. He views it as an act of violence, but Constitutionally the Federal Government has no right to intervene. But they also have no right to force people to support it through taxation.
Competing Currencies vs Gold Standard
As much as he likes gold, and hates the Federal Reserve, he doesn't want the dollar itself to be backed by gold, or the Federal Reserve ended immediately. He wants to allow competing currencies, and hopes that people will voluntarily choose commodity-based money over paper fiat currency. I know there are better sources on this, but this is all I could find right now (sorry, running low on time - if you need some more feel free to msg me or respond to this later).
Financial Plan (EPA)
Here is a link to his Financial Plan which lists the departments he'd like to get rid of (note: All aspects of the departments would not be abolished... some of their major duties would be folded into other departments), and then it shows the remaining departments with their 2006 budgets, including the EPA.
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Hopefully this helped! I hastily put this together, so let me know if you need any more sources, clarification or anything!
That's not entirely true. Read the first chapter of his latest book. He makes it clear that he's against abortion, but he also makes it clear that government prohibition of abortion doesn't work.
I would recommend his book Liberty Defined. They're listed in the table of contents.
Soooooooo a Front Row Motorsports driver losing his entire ride because he was racing for the win and his move happened to fuck over your Penske driver as well as himself? I've got a book for you to read.
An Illustrated Book of Bad Arguments by Ali Almossawi, Alejandro Giraldo (Hardcover) becuase it's frickin hilarious and the art is awesome xD
Getting your first scope is so exciting! I'm very much an amateur and casual observer myself, but my dad and I have been into astronomy for about four years now.
First, I recommend looking into some space/astro societies in your area, there's Tacoma Astronomical Society and Rose City Astronomers in my area for example! Each club has different resources, but they can be super helpful. You can meet locals and see if they have resources you can rent- like telescopes, or books and whatnot. It's saved me a dime or two. Sometimes they have online forums too. I also highly recommend going to star parties, it's where I've learned the most! You can see other people's set ups, ask loads of questions, and get a better sense for what you might want. We did this for about 6 months before getting our first scope, and before that we nabbed a pair of nice binoculars .
Now, you have to consider, when you get a scope you aren't just getting a scope. You're probably getting filters, eye pieces, protective gear, batteries, red lights, etc. etc. and then probably a tool box to carry all of this- which you might want to customize with foam or something to keep everything safe and tidy. It's an Investment. Now, looking at jupiter and saturn won't require much, but eventually you might want to look at the moon (needs filters), or special eyepieces that let have more magnification, or there's even filters that let you see some colors, etc!
I, personally, would highly recommend getting a manual (specifically, Dobsonian *) scope for your first one- not computerized. Learning the sky and it's constellations is part of astronomy, and having to find stuff yourself is really helpful- and rewarding! Plus, computerized scopes require pretty hardy batteries, especially if you want to take it out to darker skies which usually means more rural aka no plugs. They also require certain stars to be be visible to be able to calibrate. Manual scopes require no plugs, no consistent power source, and no learning computer programs-NexStar can be a pain imo, some reading required (plus Jupiter and Saturn are pretty easy to spot with the naked eye anyways). Plus it's fun being able to point out stuff to friends just by knowing where a few stars are. We only got a computerized equatorial mount (meaning it tracks objects) when we wanted to try out long exposure astro- photography. This 8in dob was our first scope, and I still love it- it's the go-to (Craigslist, amazon used, and other shops are worth a gander too).
*I'm 99% sure dobsonian and newtonian telescopes are the same, except for the mounts they're on (newtonian is tripod, dobsonian is a base that can move up down and in a circle)
Also, I consider Sinnott's Sky Atlas a must!
Lmk if you have any questions!
(Edit: sorry if this is repetitive- reddit says there are four comments, but isn't letting see me them atm.)
For a starter book to get the basics of stargazing, I would recommend Nightwatch: A Practical Guide To Viewing the Universe or Turn Left At Orion. They don't have real detailed sky maps, but they give good representations of some of the major constellations and names.
For star maps, I use Sky & Telescope's Pocket Sky Atlas or Orion's DeepView Star Map. These ones are good for more detailed star maps and require a few basics to figure out. Or you can just match the stars up to known stars and just stumble your way around (which is not a bad learning method either).
Wow, I have no idea what that scope is, but it seems like a great deal for $50. Grats!
Definitely collimate it while at home. You'll have to recollimate at your destinations, but hopefully it will be minor, and you don't want to waste precious dark sky time learning how to do it or realizing there's a problem.
As far as gear goes, ergonomics are important! You'll need a good chair, preferably one with some height adjustment. Also, I personally like to use an eye patch for extended viewing sessions. Just pick up a cheap one at a dug store.
Print out a sky map for the month you will travel.
http://www.skymaps.com/downloads.html
Google sky is good, but you should also get a good sky atlas. It's a good investment. Sinnot's Pocket Sky Atlas is excellent:
http://www.amazon.com/Sky-Telescopes-Pocket-Atlas/dp/1931559317
Check the weather report and what the moon will be doing during your trip. And one thing about the desert is that high winds can ruin your viewing (vibrates your scope), so you might want to choose a sheltered camping/viewing spot.
As far as the actual viewing, planets are pretty easy targets in general, even in light polluted places, so I would take advantages of those dark skies to see some DSOs. Then again, it all depends on what the skies will be showing during your trip.
Good luck and have fun!
I can indeed. I did the experiment myself a few months ago as a part of my course so I have the activity handbook. I'll go back and read it again tomorrow my time to refresh my memory and post some details at some point tomorrow. If you don't have one, try to get a star atlas. Stellarium is useful but I find using a book easier.
I use this one:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sky-Telescopes-Pocket-Atlas/dp/1931559317/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1520534912&sr=8-2&keywords=pocket+star+atlas
Will post details of the experiment tomorrow. Am just going out for dinner.
Sky & Telescope's Pocket Sky Atlas is great if you're just looking to identify constellations. Turn Left at Orion is geared towards people with/wanting telescopes but is great for showing you how to navigate your way around the night sky.
Others have already mentioned it but join an astronomy club and download Stellarium. Here's a couple book suggestions:
Turn Left at Orion will get you familiar with some of the more interesting objects to look at in the night's sky. This is definitely a good place to start. You also want to pick up a star atlas to help you navigate the sky and find some of the dimmer objects in the sky. A favorite is Sky and Telescope's Pocket Star Atlas. Another favorite for new astronomers is Nightwatch which will educate you a bit more about astronomical bodies and the night sky.
Let the Right One In
The Irony of American History (rereading/skimming for quotes technically)
The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot (sample)
The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot – Naomi Wolf, 2007
Naomi published the roadmap for us a decade ago. It's 100% relevant today.
The 5 Lb. Book was my primary study resource for the GRE and it helped immensely.
I would recommend purchasing the Dictionary of Japanese Grammar series (Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced), and then entering the plethora of example sentences into Anki.
In my opinion it's harmful to directly memorize grammatical explanations, as it's contrary to the way that a native's cognition works when producing sentences. Instead, one should use grammatical explanations to gain intuition for how the moving parts of the example sentences add together to produce the meaning (as illustrated by the translation), and then forget the specific grammatical explanations while reviewing only the sentences (looking at the translation if necessary but otherwise just trying to visualize the meaning).
Did you mean A Dictionary of Intermediate Japanese Grammar and A Dictionary of Advanced Japanese Grammar? My Basic dictionary is sitting right next to me, so I figured thats what you meant, but wanted to clarify for the OP.
I'm not a fan of textbooks either. I figure if you're at that level and are not particularly interested in passing a specific test, then nix the textbooks and get a grammar reference like the beginning and intermediate levels of this and get a good electronic dictionary and dive straight into novels. When I got into novels earlier this year, and I don't even have the grammar reference... I'm planning on picking those up in a few weeks, things really started taking off for me. So I'd recommend doing that.
5 lb. Book of GRE practice problems + confidence
Yeah, I'm SO happy with the result! No lie I cried a little at the end when it spat out my score and I'm sure it was embarrassing for the lady who helped me check out afterward.
I can't recommend Official Guide to the GRE enough. It's really good at teaching you all the math you need, but I think this ETS math review pdf is the same as in the book? Anyways the good thing about the book is it has two full length, official practice tests that are a similar difficulty as the real test and loads of practice questions. I did every question in here and read the math review like three times.
ETS has two more free official practice tests, same thing as the ones that come with the CD in the book. I did both of these too and half of the Manhattan Prep free practice test to practice quant.
For more practice questions I used the Manhattan GRE and Ready4GRE phone apps. They give you some free and you can pay if you want more. The Ready4 questions felt like good practice to me and the Manhattan ones were a little harder than the ones in the ETS book.
All my friends recommended signing up for Magoosh. I didn't because it is pricey, but sometimes people sell their accounts if they still have time on their subscriptions so check GRE facebook groups or /r/GRE. They have some free things: some video lessons and practice problems, and explanations of problems from the ETS practice tests/practice books. I heard the Princeton Review and Kaplan practice tests and questions are too easy compared to the real thing, but the Manhattan Prep 5lb Book of Practice Problems, official ETS extra quant book and extra verbal book, and Manhattan Prep study guide set are all supposed to be good.
This is my second time taking it. I def did not prep enough for the first one! This time I did a full practice test first for a baseline, wrote down topics I was bad at, read the math review, did the exercises from the book, and did all the practice problems from the book. Then I took another practice test, started doing questions from 3rd parties, and spaced out the rest of the practice tests.
For the writing I read a lot of sample essays that scored a 6 or 5 and made outlines for different essay prompts. I was too lazy to write even one full practice essay though so I might have bombed that part, ahaha. I spent about a month studying and $20 on the ETS official guide.
TBH I might be taking the GMAT now so maybe I'll join you guys. Good luck studying! :)
Found this comment:
Just took the test on Saturday and got 170V/168Q. Let me tell you a few things about prep:
1)DO NOT waste your time or money with Kaplan/Princeton/Barron's etc.. they are inadequate and full of distracting typos.
2)Do use Magoosh.com and/or the Manhattan course. They both come with top-notch instruction and lots of practice tests/questions. I actually used both. For even more practice questions (which you probably won't have time for at this point) check out the 5 lb book of questions.
3) Definitely memorize every word on the free Magoosh vocab flashcards. Knowing these words saved my verbal score.
4) For the love of all that is holy please use the official GRE book that is put out by ETS.
5) Do not ignore the essay. It requires a very specific type of writing. Even if you are a "good" writer you will be disappointed in your score unless you write the way they want you to. What you may not know is that every essay is graded by one computer reader and one human reader. For $13 you can actually have 2 essays graded by the exact algorithm the computer reader uses and you'll get an idea of where you stand.
The various Dictionary of * Japanese Grammar books are all pretty good. They have good explanations and example sentences and if you use Anki, there exist decks that cover all of the example sentences in the books.
The only issue for self-study is that they are laid out like dictionaries, so they go in alphabetical order. I would also recommend the Kanzen Master grammar books if you want something a little more guided.
You know what? You're right. 50 bucks is nothing down the line anyways. Might as well invest. Just to confirm this is the right item?
Hey it's a book by Manhattan Prep which has a LOT of practice questions.
https://www.amazon.com/Lb-Book-GRE-Practice-Problems/dp/1937707296/ref=nodl_
http://www.amazon.com/A-Dictionary-Intermediate-Japanese-Grammar/dp/4789007758
I used a traditional GRE prep book with GRE flash cards which helped me jump 10% in quantitative and 20% in qualitative.
Resources in order of value:
alc.co.jp is free and the dictionary is worth every penny to explain the finer points and get you to use canonical Japanese.
> I don't really care if Hayashi did his homework or if the lady reading the newspaper is Tanaka and neither do the people I want to talk to.
At my undergrad school, I taught the language lab (1 hour per week required intensive practice session where we drilled the students) for three years. I was surprised at how surprised the actual instructors were that the students often wrote very similar criticisms on their course evaluation forms. No one gives a fuck what Hayashi is or is not doing. But, everyone was up on the latest chapter of whatever Shōnen Jump manga was popular at the time.
I'm a huge fan of manga. Even as a first year student I enjoyed plodding along in my favorite story with my trusty denshi jisho, and copies of my Yellow and Blue. (The Red one hadn't come out yet.)
Pick a story and go for it. Even if you have to keep a translated copy nearby to help understand.
Lots of people here are mentioning Tobira, which I don't have any personal experience with, but I just wanted to chip in by saying that my university/universities went from Genki I and II to An Integrated Approach to Intermediate Japanese + its workbook and almost all of the the JLPT N3 books. After that there were a bunch of different textbooks in Japanese; can't remember that well, but I can see if I can dig something up later.
Edit:
One of the Japanese universities used the 中級を学ぼう books which was...okay. But at least the first one could be comparable to the Genki level, though.
They also used this, but that would be for later, when you start wanting to write more advanced reports/essays.
Had a look at someone's 聞いて覚える話し方 日本語生中継 books, which was quite rubbish and/or very basic.
Some also bought these and these but I can't vouch for them.
It's better in the sense that you get a video answer and explanation for every question, but if you have more than 2 months to study, you'll probably run out of questions. You can find a huge book of questions for cheap as a supplement. If you search for it you can probably find an electronic version somewhere. I did all of Magoosh and all of the 5 lb. Book. In the end, I met the minimum score I wanted, so it was worth it because I was accepted into my first choice... but god damn, fuck the GRE. I hope your death is quicker and less painful than mine haha.
Your comment—and the general consensus around here—convinced me that I should get that series of grammar books. However, I'm not sure I found the right series. If there's any chance you could confirm it's these (basic, intermediate and advanced, seems to be all for ￥11,130) it would be highly appreciated. :)
Thank you!
Hey.. Someone recommended you Manhattan GRE book right?
This one? Its on offer on amazon
I'd say the first one. I bought it, it's decent - but somehow I think it'd be better to not buy this basic one. Learn basic grammar in a textbook like Genki and for advanced grammar you can still buy https://www.amazon.com/Dictionary-Intermediate-Japanese-Grammar/dp/4789007758
Because as soon as you finish Genki, you are already very familiar with everything in this basic book.
It's like you're not even reading what I'm saying. I've read that book cover to cover as well as this one. It isn't about whether there is a に or not-- it's about whether or not the topic is dative (a case that is sometimes marked by に in Japanese) and whether or not 好き should be literally translated as "liked" or "likable." You seem to have fixated on one aspect of my speedily written post and decided it was grounds to categorically disqualify everything else contained therein.
OH MY GOODNESS they are so cute!!! :3 I have a little chihuahua/rat terrior mix named Pookie :)
Young Adult is great! I really enjoy dystopias as well! If you're interested in trekking down that path, a few good Young Adult/Dystopias are The Hunger Games, Divergent, and The Giver. I also highly recommend Ready Player One and The Handmaids Tale :D
Been dying to get this.
It's a long shot but this is pretty cool
THANKS FOR THE CONTEST!
Sarah Dessen's books are good summer reads. She just released a book recently, but I would start with The Truth About Forever.
The Divergent series by Veronica Roth was also really good and has a similar feel to The Hunger Games.
I love reading books! If I happen to win, I would love a paperback version of The Giver. Thanks for the contest! :)
Happy Birthday!
Bonus. Did you get the camera?
Happy happy cake day
Tattoos seem to be playing an important part in characterizing the Dauntless faction in Divergent, but urgh. I said I'd read this book, but I want to throw it against a wall.
This book! I love books!
The Divergent series is great, a bit long but a great read. It's kinda like the Hunger Games in that it's targeted towards young adults, and its very actiony and has alot of emotional attachments, but it's a great read for anybody. Here's the first book.
I may be late but I would like to say this one looks amazing! it is 4.90 with prime
I've heard great things about Divergent and I think it would be great for Prime Time reading :D
Colloquial Croatian (textbook by Routledge)
Colloquial Serbian by Routledge
Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian: A Textbook
Le Croate sans peine par Assimil
Naški resources. In some ways Bosnian is between Croatian and Serbian. I’d go with Croatian resources since no real need to learn Serbian alphabet unless you want to... no need to get political but linguistically “BCSM” is one language. But Croatian also has its own words that Bosnian/Serbian usually share... Unfortunately there aren’t as many resources for learning straight up Bosnian. The text with all three is cool because it shows standard Zagreb/Sarajevo/Belgrade versions of the same text so you can see zrakoplov/avion/авион. So it’s like a British/American/Australian textbook.
For me, the most helpful tool has been https://www.hr4eu.hr, although it teaches Croatian. The page has plenty of exercises for grammar and vocabulary, and there are even written assignments that they check for you. Just keep in mind the differences between Serbian and Croatian.
If you're into textbooks, this book is said to be very useful: https://www.amazon.com/Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian-Textbook-Exercises/dp/0299236544
This textbook, combined with the accompanying grammar, provides a pretty comprehensive introduction to the language and with enough study should get you to a satisfactory level. Plus it includes examples of not only Serbian, but Bosnian and Croatian as well, which are pretty much the same with some slight differences in vocabulary and grammar that you'll start to pick up on as you study.
Okay, (obligatory "this isn't a replacement for medical help/attention so pay attention to your needs/get professional help when you see fit") so he said Iron John is a "masterpiece of writing", and also said that Fatherless America is well researched. No one thing will necessarily work for everyone, but they could be a good place to start. He said that both deal with the consequences of not having a father around, so it may not flat out address coping skills/mechanisms, but I think that just having certain aspects of fatherlessness brought to light (like the psychology as you mentioned) can hopefully give you some closure/solid mental framework for you to build on. He's got a couple of good "handouts" that he used to use in his private practice that I can have him email me if you'd like; I was the recipient of countless handouts growing up, all covering various topics, and while I hated them at the time, they're nice to have now to reflect on every now and then. Some of them priceless through the ups and downs. So let me know and I can figure out how to get them to you. Best wishes!
http://www.amazon.com/Iron-John-Book-About-Men/dp/0306813769
short wiki article about it
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_John:_A_Book_About_Men
no religious talk whatsoever. in my language it can be found as freebie not sure how it is with english edition
>I'm not quite happy with my dating life, but I'm not sure there's a way for me to be happier. I still feel like I'm doing the best I can... Which is a sad thought, as I'm not doing very well, of course...
If you want to improve your outcomes, you need to change what you're doing. But I think before you get to that point, you need to adjust how you relate to yourself.
>I try to be honest with myself. I don't quite understand why I would "live in the present," when I know full well that there is a tomorrow. I knew since high school that I wanted to go to law school, and I did it, and it seems to be going well for me. I plan. It's who I am. I'm critical of myself when I have something to criticize, because if I'm not, that's dishonest, isn't it? I should know my weaknesses, and account for them, right?
This is what I mean by intellectualization as a defense mechanism. I know it well. Here's an analogy that helped me. Think about how most really hot girls live their lives. They get by on their looks. They focus on their looks. They invest in their looks by going to the gym, curating an impeccable wardrobe, tanning, spending hours on makeup, growing their hair out, etc.
Sure there are exceptions, but in general most people that are gifted in a specific area, tend to over rely on that talent. This is equally true of intelligent people, who place too much importance on being smart, and not enough importance on being themselves. And there is a distinction between your conscious, higher mind, and you as a person.
Getting in touch with your whole self (your sexuality, your unconscious, your body, your emotions) in the present isn't dishonest. Always living the future is. Because it's an escape from where you really are.
Some good books on this are:
The Mindful Path to Self-Compassion
Healing Your Aloneness
Iron John
Anyway, I know how hard this stuff can be. I've worked on it for years and will likely never be finished. And if you are a smart person it can even be harder because your mind will be able to invent very compelling rationalizations for avoiding growth.
Oh! How good of you to remind me!
http://www.amazon.com/Iron-John-Book-About-Men/dp/0306813769/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1404456474&sr=1-1&keywords=iron+john
Book about the role of men in post-industrial society.
Also, I've heard it said that upon ceasing to be a bachelor, a man's money becomes "Our Money", while the woman's money remains her money.
I'd recommend Iron John: A Book About Men
I feel like I post this every time someone posts about management, but I really mean it. I wish I had read and followed nearly every word of advice in Teach Like a Champion. I attribute all of my success in managing student behavior to this book. It changed my life (very dramatic, but really made me happier day-to-day).
I mean, it's damn complicated. I'm not gonna lie. Grammar is stupid.
First of all, this isn't meant to be cheeky or whatever, but you've already made a grammatical error. You made a comma splice which is a very known error of grammar. That's when you connect two independent clauses with a comma WITHOUT a conjunction.
I bring this up just to state that it's actually completely related to what I said, and there are well established terms for it all.
Also I think you've taken away the wrong idea. You CAN use 'and' to connect two clauses without the comma, but one of them has to be a dependent clause.
But again, I must state, this is all by the [book](
https://www.amazon.com/Cambridge-Grammar-English-Language/dp/0521431468).
Casually, you probably don't have to worry so much. But we got here because the guy I was replying to wanted to know what the deal was. This is the official deal, and that's all. Where it should be applied depends on context.
The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language
by Rodney Huddleston (Author), Geoffrey K. Pullum (Author)
.
[Aside: In "Anne tied a rope around [herself/her]", both options are equally grammatical when they both refer back to "Anne".]
The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Tons of detailed information on how English actually works, much of which will surprise you if you've only been exposed to standard prescriptive "grammar."
Practical English Usage by Michael Swan is the most widely used grammar reference that I have seen.
On the "Elements of Style" by Strunk and White- this is not a grammar book, it is a style guide. That is to say, the intent of this book is to inform people who possess little to no training in document writing with standards in the hope that they will write better.
It should be noted that while William Strunk Jr. was a professor of English, E.B. White was not. White was an author of fiction most remembered for Charlotte's Web and Stuart Little.
Strunk first compiled a style guide for his own students at Cornell in 1918 (presumably in an attempt to head off grammatical errors and poor stylistic choices before they occurred, thereby saving him some headaches with constant error correction- a wise decision).
E.B. White happened to be a former student of Strunk, and after remembering the "little book" of his teacher, was tasked with revising it by his publisher 40 years later. He did, also adding a lot of material which was not in the original 40-odd pages.
E.B. White was not a grammarian, and some of the advice in "the Elements of Style" are just plain wrong (split infinitives, not using "which" to introduce a restrictive relative clause, beginning a sentence with "however"). As a guide to writing style for high-schoolers and some university students, this book is ok. As a definitive grammar book it falls decidedly short and actually does some harm (this book is the reason that many people refuse to say "than me" or "it was given to John and me").
This all discussed in more detail in an article called 50 Years of Stupid Grammar Advice by Geoffrey K. Pullum, a British-American linguist and Professor of General Linguistics at the University of Edinburgh.
Pullman is also co-author of The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language, which I haven't used personally but am sure is a good choice.
The point about me being a theoretician was that I research the theoretical side of the field, as opposed to engaging in French-Academy-style prescriptivism, and thus the fact that I'm a linguist should not bare on whether or not my grammar is atrocious, as I don't profess to have good grammar.
Moving on to your issues:
The sentence you quote is not a run on sentence. Yes, it's somewhat long, but half of that is in a parenthetical and therefore doesn't qualify as part of the sentence proper, and thus-thus doesn't add to its run-on-iness. The length outside of the parenthetical is not all that long, all things consider. Let's compare my horrendously long sentence to a number of sentences found in written English literature:
Mine:
>Yes, English orthography is a bitch, this is undeniable, tho it's not as crazy as people think, given the awesome capacity of the human brain to learn things.
This NYT article
>President Obama and House Democratic leaders on Saturday closed in on the votes needed to pass landmark health care legislation, with the outcome hinging on their efforts to placate a handful of lawmakers who wanted the bill to include tighter limits on insurance coverage for abortions.
The second sentence of Charles Dickens' David Copperfield:
>To begin my life with the beginning of my life, I record that I was born (as I have been informed and believe) on a Friday, at twelve o`clock at night. It was remarked that the clock began to strike, and I began to cry, simultaneously.
You:
>I understand that you aren't interested in following every rule of English, but I expected one who specializes in "the study of human speech" to be familiar with not only the precepts of English but also their necessities.
All three of these examples are longer than mine, and the last one is especially humorous. This point aside, run-on sentences are not ungrammatical, they're stylistically "bad" --- yet another thing that English teachers love to harp on about.
To continue:
>This run-on sentence is also an example of how a misplaced "do" can add confusion to an already unnecessarily complex thought.
Well I'm sorry my thought is too complex for you; I'll try to dumb it down in the future.
>it's just not in good taste to misspell "grammar" in an argument revolving linguistics.
OH NO A TYPO IN A COMMENT THREAD!
>Also, don't try to tell me that these are "silly [non-issues]." You claim to be a fucking linguist, so these kinds of things should be important to you. I understand that you aren't interested in following every rule of English, but I expected one who specializes in "the study of human speech" to be familiar with not only the precepts of English but also their necessities.
The problem with this sort of arrogance is that I am all too familiar with the precepts of English, as well as the fact that noone has any clue what "every rule of English" actually constitutes. The most complete descriptive grammar of English, the Cambridge Grammar of the English Language is a whomping 1860 pages and is incomplete due to the vastness of English. And this doesn't even begin to cover the enormous wealth of dialectal variations, nevermind detailed facts about finer points such as those mentioned above. But forget all that, because what it really comes down to is whether or not, as a linguist, I should care about things like run-on sentences, and the answer is definitively no. You see, firstly, as a linguist, I study what people actually say, not what they "should" say, and therefore if people use run-on sentences well tough like for me. Secondly, run-on sentences are a phenomena that only exist thanks to orthography and, more importantly, punctuation --- in spoken language these sentences, when uttered, invariably have appropriate prosodic contours that distinguish the subclauses. Given that punctuation is so much fashion (consider the central and eastern european use of the comma to set of relative clauses, compared to its use in the English-speaking world), it's no more the job of the linguist to care about it (punctuation, that is) than it is the biologists job to care about what makes a skirt hang nicely off the hips. Thirdly, addressing the "necessities", you and everyone else understood what I said, and so the communicative necessities were met. The necessities that weren't met were those laughable stylistic ones placed on language use by prescriptivists such as yourself. It's easy to write out a list of rules that you proclaim to be "proper English"; any halfwit with a pencil can do that, and many of you have.
And, for what it's worth, studying speech is far and away the minority of actual theoretical linguistics, except in some abstract sense. The big goal of theoretical linguistics, especially in my particular areas of interest, syntax and semantics, is to discover the space of possible human languages and how to best describe their constraints, often in terms of computational complexity on the (refined) Chomsky hierarchy. Speech is merely the necessary raw data, but we no more care about speech than a physicist cares about bubble chamber traces.
> Compared to some other languages, English is already virtually devoid of grammar.
Completely and laughably wrong. Read this. Or for a quicker read, try this. Hell, just read some posts from LanguageLog.
> It's not the occasional typo I mind per se, but the cultural propagation of progressively devolved grammar, gradually reducing the language to a hybrid of hillbilly, valley girl, inner-city slang and various grunts.
Your hysteria is based on superstition and moronic suppositions. Non-standard and non-prestige varieties of language have existed for the entirety of recorded history alongside standard varieties. Sometimes they even make the leap to being standard languages. Ever heard of the Romance languages?
Do some research before you post next time!
It's completely neutral.
In human languages, a sentence typically is made of a verb and its arguments. Very roughly, a sentence describes an event or situation; the verb specifies what kind of event or situation it is, and the arguments are the phrases that describe what the participants were in the situation. So for example, in Joe kicked the door, kicked is the verb, Joe and the door are arguments.
Different participants play a different role in the situation that a sentence describes. In our example, Joe is the "kicker" and the door is the "kicked"; in grammatical theory we say that Joe is agent ("doer") and the door is the patient (the thing that receives the effect of an action).
And in addition to that, there's the concepts of the subject and object of the sentence. In school you may have been taught that the subject is the "doer" of the sentence, but that is in fact incorrect. The subject is a phrase in the sentence that enjoys a number of special properties; in English, some of these properties are that the subject appears before the verb, and that subject pronouns must occur in a special form (I/he/she/we instead of me/him/her/us).
Now, in English, there is a complicated set of rules that determines which of the participants of a sentence is the subject. But to simplify, one of the rules is this: unless the sentence is a passive, the agent is always the subject. So basically the passive is this: a special way of constructing a sentence that allows you to use a participant as the subject when you wouldn't be able to do so in a "normal" sentence.
What good is the passive? Well, something that is very common in languages is that people construct sentences according to something called "topic-comment": sentences typically start by mentioning some thing that has already been discussed in the conversation, and then say something new about that thing—something that hasn't been mentioned earlier about that thing.
In English, the subject of a sentence tends to plays the role of "topic"—a thing that's already been mentioned earlier, and the sentence is saying something new about it. This is the use of the passive in English—to "break" the rule that the agent is always the subject. So for example:
The first sentence introduces Joe as a new topic into the conversation. The second sentence adds some new information about Joe. That second sentence is a passive, because He is both a patient (recipient of the action) and a subject.
Does all that sound very complicated? Well, it is. One of the things you should understand, however, is that the people who go around saying that passives are bad are full of crap, and don't understand even half of all of this. In fact, it's even very common that these people are actually not able to recognize whether a sentence is passive or not. Here are some examples:
So my advice to you is this: the people trying to give you a hard time over it don't know what they're talking about, and if you can ignore them, you should.
>> For questions of usage, one must consult a prescriptive grammar.
> Er, say what?
Here are some definitions and comparisons of prescriptive and descriptive grammars:
google english grammar prescriptive vs descriptive.
From Chapter 1. Preliminaries of The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language that you have been citing:
> The aim of this book
>
> Description versus prescription
>
> Our aim is to describe and not prescribe: we outline and illustrate the principles that govern the construction of words and sentences in the present-day language without recommending or condemning particular usage choices. Although this book may be (and we certainly hope it will be) of use in helping the user decide how to phrase things, it is not designed as a style guide or a usage manual. (emphasis mine) [page 2]
>
> Standard versus non-standard
>
> That is not to say that controversy cannot arise out of points of grammar or usage. There is much dispute, and that is precisely the subject matter for prescriptive usage manuals. (emphasis mine) [page 4]
The authors of the book you have been citing from themselves would seem to think you are misusing their book ("without recommending or condemning particular usage choices"), and would direct you to a prescriptive guide ("precisely the subject matter for prescriptive usage manuals"). The sections I quoted from are visible using Look Inside on Amazon, and as pointed out below, in the online preview of chapter 1
Edit: Added references to the Cambridge
GuideGrammar.Edit2: Corrected the name of the book in question, elaborated on the two quotations, and linked to the online preview.
Some Kanji facts.
There are 1945 Jouyou "Daily Use" kanji. Newspapers use these. Of these, about 1000 are designated Kyouiku "Educational kanji, divided into six grades to be learned by the end of elementary school. You might want to try and learn them in that order.
For reference, Kodansha's The Kanji Learner's Dictionary is unbeatable. It's compact, being almost small enough to fit into your pocket. It uses SKIP, which is the fastest, easiest way to look up characters.
When learning kanji, make sure you memorize the basic rules for stroke order. Enclosures first, left to right, top to bottom, horizontal before vertical, vertical piercings come last. Knowing the stroke order will make your handwriting look authentic.
Radicals each have their own meaning. A Guide to Remembering the Japanese Characters is very good for learning the meanings of each of the radicals and creating a "story" for each character to help you remember them.
One common pitfall with learning kanji is if you neglect to WRITE kanji out by hand, you will be able to READ them, but you will forget how to WRITE them. Just make sure that even if you're using a computer to write out your Japanese by hand.
Try to memorize WORDS instead of CHARACTERS. For example, don't just learn that 続 means "continue" because it's not a word on its own. Instead, learn that 接続 means "connection" and 続く means "to continue".
There's a lot of Kanji. You don't learn them in a few years. It takes Japanese natives over a decade of schooling before they are able to read their own language fluently. And they are immersed in it! Just keep working on them and don't get discouraged.
I learn Kanji with the Kanji Study app and with Henshall. I make my own groups (here's an example). I am nearly done; all common-use are now at least tentatively reviewed.
I am currently learning vocabulary by reading Japanese Graded Readers. I make my own vocabulary lists (example), but I don't really review the list: I make it (thus getting the words/phrases I don't know) and practice by reading the book. When I was doing a textbook, I'd use their vocab lists. The Graded Readers don't provide it, so I make my own. It's good practice.
First off, thank you for sharing your personal background.
If English is not your native language, yet you are striving to learn a third - honestly, I can't send enough kudos your way.
As far as kanji is concerned, I highly recommend A Guide to Remembering the Japanese Characters: https://www.amazon.com/Guide-Remembering-Japanese-Characters/dp/0804820384/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1501029816&sr=8-1&keywords=a+guide+to+learning+the+japanese+characters
"Remembering the Kanji" seems to be far more preferred, but me, I've found that learning the historical basis of the kanji has helped far more than mnemonics that may be counter to their actual origin. Again, that's just me - everyone is different.
tl;dr version - Looks like you've decided to start learning Japanese and join the group that may have other people looking at you weird. Ignore 'em. We're glad to have you. :)
When you say you have studied Japanese for 2.5 years that's really not enough information. Have you been to Japan? Have you been there for an extended amount of time (e.g. several months?). I doubled my number of Kanji while I was staying in Japan, whenever I saw a sign / something written on my milk carton / my aircon remote, I would look it up and learn it that way. While in the subway I would take my time to look up random Kanji I saw in the advertisments.
I would use Kanji flashcards of the kind you can by in 500 box sets and go through a couple of them after a day of life in Japan: some characters I would have seen today but maybe would not remember, so going through the flash cards would help me remember them and clarify their reading. I would not learn with flash cards of Kanji I hadn't ever seen before - a useless exercise for me, I can only remember characters I've seen used in a real-life context. I don't "learn" Kanji programmatically taking them from some list and remembering the on- and kun-readings, I will only ever care about what I need to know in order to understand the text I'm working on. A children's book, song lyrics I got from the internet, texts for learners, Wikipedia articles, NHK news. The real lesson is: in order to get good at reading, you have to read a lot. Today I got a copy of a printed newspaper (読売新聞), you can buy those internationally, I got one from my local retailer at a train station in Germany. Reading an article takes an hour and a PC with a Kanji search by radical and a dictionary site, but I can do it.
For refreshment, I use resources like the amazing etymological dictionary "A Guide to Remembering Japanese Characters" which will tell you the historical evolution and proper decomposition of Kanji, some stories can be really interesting. With this help I can tell that when seeing a character such as 緒, it consists of thread (糸) and the pronunciation しょ/しゃ(者), hence "the word meaning together (=bound by a thread) pronounced kind of like 者)". Next to etymological help you can also use pure visual clues.
When you read real Japanese texts, you quickly realize that 2000 Kanji is not enough. Even children's literature would use characters outside of that official list. 3000 is more realistic. You should have material (dictionaries, flash cards etc.) that covers more than the official list. Don't despair though, actual Japanese native speakers take their time learning them, too! The more Japanese you come in contact with every day, the better.
Depends how you're learning.
I've been liking this book, which I got recommended a while back:
http://www.amazon.com/Remembering-Japanese-Characters-language-library/dp/0804820384
Unlike heisig which is a program in itself, this book can be used to supplement class study which suits me just perfectly.
You Sir, have answered every question I have. A few hours on reddit has equaled a few months of asking people IRL. I think I would definitely go down the road of learning the Kanji in context. It makes a lot more sense to do it that way because it will add to my vocabulary. Henshal it is!
ありがとう！！！
p.s : http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0804820384/ Is this the book?
By Guy Deutscher. Amazon link for the lazy. Ten bucks for Kindle.
This is one of the most informative and entertaining books I have ever read. It discusses how language has changed and keeps changing, and how the so-called "degradation" of language is actually what's responsible for its amazing complexity.
Seeing no better advice yet, I would try italki (what I use, though in my case for Japanese). Particularly in the case of Mandarin you should be able to find native speakers via italki willing to help you 1-on-1 over Skype for less than the cost of any kind of instruction from people living here in North America. If italki is too expensive, I would look for other online options with as small of class sizes as possible to maximize your practice time. If learning Mandarin is anything like learning Japanese (my experience), you will also want to avoid hearing other non-native speakers (ie. students) speaking your target language so you don't pick up their bad pronunciation.
Assuming you go the italki route, check around for vbloggers on YouTube giving away italki promotions before you sign up (or wherever you can find a promo). Usually you can score an extra $10 for your lessons.
If you want to learn Chinese writing, I'd recommend a system like the one used in this book: https://www.amazon.ca/Remembering-Simplified-Hanzi-Book-Characters/dp/0824833236. I used the equivalent by the same guy for Japanese ("RTK"), the idea being that Chinese characters can be broken down into simple parts you can recognize easier. An fast example is that forest (森) uses 3 trees (木), so if you learn 木 first that's easier to remember than the 12 individual strokes... Another quick one, "difficult" (難) can be reduced to 2 components most people call "Sino-" and "turkey", etc... Heisig then uses mnemonics (little stories) to tie them together and help you memorize them.
Anyways best of luck. I've heard getting used to speaking a tonal language is tricky, but that Mandarin grammar is relatively straightforward (compared to Japanese).
I have always used the Chinese Link textbooks. I also see Integrated Chinese everywhere. Also, I highly highly highly recommend all of the Demystified books! I have both the Chinese and German and they are fantastic! Also Heisig's books are really popular and they also come in traditional. Hope this helps! I am pretty experienced in trying out tons of different resources for Mandarin! :)
Thanks! I'm living in the UK at the moment, and about to move to a new city. I think i'll be able to find some chinese students there (it has two universities), so this should really be useful in practicing my mandarin!
Someone earlier recommended this book http://www.amazon.co.uk/Remembering-Simplified-Hanzi-Meaning-Characters/dp/0824833236/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_nC?ie=UTF8&colid=1CVOOAPOKFUGL&coliid=I3KK8RBNU3V7L0
I've been reading the sample version on amazon, and it seems to have a very well-thought out approach to learning chinese symbols; basically showing you the basics first (sun, mouth, companian, old, etc.) and then suggesting how they might alter the meaning of symbols when they form part of a symbol. Then it builds on chapter on chapter. It also comes with neat little stories! Is this the kind of thing you were suggesting?
And your general advice on writing chinese is very good! Once i've nailed a few basic phrases and greetings, i'll give the webchat one a go!
My plan of action is currently to take a listening course. Chinesepod seems to be the one that comes highly recommended, whilst at the same time working my way through the book of characters I posted earlier, and trying to find chinese friends to talk to!
In january I hope to start a proper chinese course at a local college.
Does this sound like a reasonable aim?
Thanks so much for your help. I have been quite overwhelmed by the level of enthusiasm and commitment on this subreddit!
It's not the 214 Kanxi radicals per-se, but for my first 1500 characters I used method in the book Remembering Traditional Hanzi. There's also a Simplified version of the book. I find this method makes it really easy to memorize characters (well enough to write them), but actually one of the biggest benefits of the book I found was the order in which the characters are presented, making them even easier to remember.
Beyond that, if you really just want to memorize the 214 Kanxi radicals, I'd recommend using SRS flashcards like Mnemosyne or Anki. You can use these to memorize anything. Before I moved to Taiwan for instance, I compiled a list of all of the street names in all of Taipei and used Mnemosyne flashcards to memorize them all. It was unbelievably useful to make it easier to remember addresses and to speak to Taxi drivers while I was there.
There are lots of flashcard decks for the Kangxi radicals. Here's one I found with a very quick Google search. I'm sure there are others. Good luck!
Any recommendations? I've heard this one is pretty neat:
http://www.amazon.com/Integrated-Korean-Beginning-Textbooks-Language/dp/0824834402/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1260972037&sr=8-1
Was also considering trying out koreanclass101.com and talktomeinkorean.com, any thoughts on those?
Thanks everyone for the replies / suggestions.
I haven't taken test or seen what's in the test but Ive taken the first year Korean at UT. These are the two books we use for the first year:
Integrated Korean: Beginning 1, 2nd Edition (Klear Textbooks in Korean Language) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0824834402/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_G7bOzbJE8SESN
Integrated Korean: Beginning 2, 2nd Edition (KLEAR Textbooks in Korean Language) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0824835158/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_97bOzbVCJARQ1
If you need some pics of contents of the book to see if you are past the level of Korean year 1, pm me.
This is a great book
I have a background in linguistics as well, and found this grammar book very helpful: Essentials of Swedish Grammar
It's efficient and streamlined. You can read through the whole thing in a sitting or two, and come away with a really good overview of Swedish that helps prime you for further study. So while it's not comprehensive, it's great for diving in to Swedish at the start.
Regarding the Alman Kültür you mentioned, the closest thing I am aware of in Sweden are libraries and other organizations which frequently host what is known as Språkcafe (Language Café) where people gather to learn and practice Swedish.
I started learning a few months ago and i'm doing it slowly because that's what works best for me.
So here it is my routine:
pimsleur - 1 or 2 lessons a day (done)
anki - main resource 20 words a day + 2 times review (every day)
memrise - 25 words a day + review (every day)
swedish grammar book - for some grammar with exercises (not everyday because it becomes boring to me)
watch swedish tv/films/videos- to emulate immersion + motivation tool (every day)
listen to swedish radio - whenever i can (every day)
reading books- starting with childrens books and work my way up (haven't started yet but i have to find the motivation)
I still have to find a conversation partner so i can advance faster. (Doesn't need to be a native speaker but if you want to help i'll be appreciated.)
I have this book: English Grammar for students of German. It compares English and German in lots of areas of grammar in easy terms. I find it pretty helpful.
Also you could probably find a better price for the book but I just linked a better description.
If what you want to achieve is A1 and nothing beyond, you best bet would be getting one of the many course books:
A arguably better alternative would be the free online course offered by Deutsche Welle (http://deutschkurse.dw.de/KursPlattform/WebObjects/KursPlattform.woa/wo/6.1). Do register and try it. Really valuable resource. Together with Deutsch – warum nicht? (http://www.dw.de/deutsch-lernen/deutsch-warum-nicht/s-2163) you can go far. (In case you didn't realise already, both the sound files and pdf notes can be found on the right, featuring four series.)
Maybe the only problem you would encounter is speaking. The speaking test is actually like this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGNd-6pDkEI), and you may panic if you don't already speak in German for a several hours. Try to find someone who speaks German and wants to do a language exchange with you. (http://www.language-exchanges.org/) is one of them. You may as well find one on Reddit.
By the way, if you really want to have a strong command of German sooner or later, there are some good, though popular (popular doesn't always mean bad) books for foundation, apart from your already awesome German for Reading:
If you insist on getting a grammar book, a nice start would be:
And eventually you may want to take down the boss:
Finally I recommend you to take a look at my favourite reading material when I started, Studien und Plaudereien (http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/22160), freely offered by Project Gutenberg.
the books that I have are:
Hammer's German Grammar and Usage - it's a huge comprehensive in-depth look at everything grammatical, breaks everything down completely. good as a reference book but not really to go through and study
English Grammar for Students of German - it's a really brief overview comparing English grammar to German grammar with examples, but doesn't get really specific
Berlitz Self Teacher: German - some of the vocab is a little outdated but it's a cute concise book that's really good to carry on the subway or whatever and read in short spurts. there's special parts dedicated to helping you "think in german" which is important for fluency. it's a pretty good book for beginners I think.
I also have Barron's 501 German verbs but I actually haven't started looking through it yet.
and then if we add an audio section to this list is highly recommend Pimsleur's audio courses, though they're pricey so you may want to try and obtain them ahem another way.
Hammer's German and Usage
Hammer's German and Usage Workbook
German Grammar drills
Secondary grammar book
Personally, Hammer's Grammar book is quite enough. It is around 500 pages of dry grammar. It is very well constructed and very easy to understand, get it with workbook. It is logical, as it teaches you from the most essential and easiest structures. Nouns -> genders, -> cases, that way it is easier to learn.
Secondary Grammar book is not necessary.
Advice her to use Anki, its a very helpful tool i think for the most easiest words to learn. Especially it helps a lot with German genders.
I actually think this is a great book for German learners!
Hi!
The link didn’t load for me. Is it this book by James Harris?
If you are interested in Botanical Terminology (in terms of identification) I would recommend Plant Identification Terminology An Illustrated Glossary which you can get for fairly cheap off of Amazon. Any Peterson Field Guide in regards to plants would also be good as they have good descriptions and pictures. I'd say that learning to identify plants is just as important as learning about how they work. I'll edit this post later, however, to post a few plant biology
books I've read that you might be interested in.
EDIT:
figure out what you're weaknesses are by taking practice tests and target those. here are my book recommendations:
​
Math: Dr. Chung's SAT Math
English: Erica Meltzer's Grammar Book
Reading: Powerscore Reading Bible
​
Also, I feel like if you're prepping for the PSAT you might as well just take the SAT
The Critical Reader, 3rd Edition: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0997517875
​
If you want, you can also get her Grammar one as well, she is just as good in Writing as she is in Reading: https://www.amazon.com/4th-Ultimate-Guide-SAT-Grammar/dp/0997517867/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_2/132-1800003-9892148?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0997517867&pd_rd_r=704ad00b-9cdc-11e9-8f2e-7b657eb7b6fa&pd_rd_w=p9yLW&pd_rd_wg=S9kup&pf_rd_p=a2006322-0bc0-4db9-a08e-d168c18ce6f0&pf_rd_r=D1AEY435E7KTTF4HRTBA&psc=1&refRID=D1AEY435E7KTTF4HRTBA
To improve your writing score, get either Erica Meltzer's Writing or College Panda's SAT Writing
My top 2 SAT grammar books:
https://www.amazon.com/4th-Ultimate-Guide-SAT-Grammar/dp/0997517867/
4th Edition, The Ultimate Guide to SAT Grammar https://www.amazon.com/dp/0997517867/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_2g7SDbCADK738
The Critical Reader, 3rd Edition: The Complete Guide to SAT Reading https://www.amazon.com/dp/0997517875/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_uh7SDb4SK8C3G
These are some rather expensive books but they really do work. Good luck!
The Critical Reader, 3rd Edition: The Complete Guide to SAT Reading by Erica L. Meltzer and if needed,
4th Edition, The Ultimate Guide to SAT Grammar by Erica L. Meltzer
Still is.
There is nothing like reading White Fang or Call of the Wild while in the Alaska backcountry. You start reading, and with no evidence of civilization suddenly it's 1890. Also read the short story, to build a fire.
Get a copy of a book or Robert Service poetry. You have to read the Cremation of Sam McGee at least once around a campfire (our most famous poem), it's even better if you cam manage to recite it from memory.
Here's a YouTube vid of Johnny Cache reciting it.
Here's one I read years ago where the sea breaks it's back it's the story of how captain Vitas Bearing and scientist George Stellar discovered Alaska. A truly harrowing tale.
this book is the memoirs or Dick Proenneke. He lived by himself in a cabin by a lake in remote Alaska for decades. The documentary based off of it (alone in the wilderness) is excellent but I haven't actually read the memoirs myself.
Since you're in the mountains read desperate passage this is an exceptionally well researched and written account of the Donner Party, it's chilling, I read while snow camping in the Chugach, powerful stuff.
Anther great thing to read in the wild, journals of famous adventurers. The Lewis and Clark diaries, for example.
A translation of the Poetic Edda (pretend your living in Viking times)
True Grit always an enjoyable slogging through untamed wilderness read.
Hatchet by Paulson, this book is aimed at a younger audience, but it's a good book for reading when out in the woods.
I'll second song of fire and ice, Alaska is the perfect place to read it and imagine themselves the king in the north, or wandering out beyond The Wall.
Also blood meridian is another good suggestion. Adventure in the wild lands with a big element of the unknown and sleeping under the stars. By that same token I'd recommend Dead Mans Walk by McMurtry, the fist prequel to Lonesome Dove, lots of slogging through the wilderness and mountains.
Those are all I can think of at the moment.
Also a note on into the wild, I've never read it but it a lot of people up here do not like it because it's caused a lot of people to come up and emulate the guy, some of them have died or almost died. So don't tell anything to the effect of that book being your inspiration for coming to alaska.
I'm looking forward to my better paying, stable job in 2015!! Fewer by-the-hour projects, and I'm picking up an actual salary. My god. Salary.
Can I request two smaller items? My son's birthday is coming up in two weeks and I'd like to get him My Side of the Mountain and Hatchet which totals at $12 with Prime shipping.
The Iceberg Hermit
the Hatchet series
Notes From The underground
Walden
A) Money. $20-$100 would be very useful and would get you out of more jams than anything else. Flat tire, out of gas, buying more food or water, paying someone to give you a lift, etc. Most survival situations aren't Hatchet.
B) A few Datrex Water Packs. I usually think these are kind of...a luxury...but if you stick with your idea then having some clean, fresh water could be a life saver. I know you have water purification tablets but there are plenty of climates where water is hard to find at all, and that could be huge for keeping you hydrated enough to eventually find water.
There's plenty of truth in what you wrote, but the whole problem can ultimately be traced back to a government that's too big and too powerful. Thus, the first step in any recovery is going to have to be reducing the size of government and its ability to influence so many aspects of our lives, not just our economy.
Since this thread started with a critique of Ron Paul here's a couple quotes from his latest book Liberty Defined.
>If there were less to buy through influencing campaigns, there would be a lot less incentive to invest so much in the process. [p. 29]
> Powerful special interests rule, and there seems to be no way to fight against them. While the middle class is being destroyed, the poor suffer, the justly rich are being looted, and the unjustly rich are getting richer. The wealth of the country has fallen into the hands of a few at the expense of the many. [p. xiv]
Paul recognizes that there are both "justly" and "unjustly" rich and he is more than aware of special interests wanting to control the process for their own benefit. He also knows how they do it and he's more than prepared to fight them, which is more than I can say for any other major candidate.
As I wrote initially, Paul is by no means perfect and in reading his books I've found much to disagree with, but he's honest and he can address the problems we fact as a nation. That has to be the priority right now.
Tell your friend to read this and STFU.
This is just my speculation, but I think it would depend of the severity and type of pollution/damages involved. I believe this would mostly be addressed in civil suits. However, for public land this would become a more complicated problem as there is no definable victim and criminal penalties would probably be involved. While on the subject, this is a reason Ron Paul is mostly against public land, it tends to complicate matters. I recommend his book Liberty Defined, he goes into much more detail on the matter. (http://www.amazon.com/Liberty-Defined-Essential-Issues-Freedom/dp/145550145X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1322091684&sr=8-1)
Ron Paul's got a brand spanking new book out today that looks like a great overview of how his views on liberty apply to a whole host of current issues. Could be a good place to start (my copy is in the mail!).
Lol I tried to summarize modern markets and how tech giants are formed. I don't reply for you, but anyone who wants to develop their understanding of it. If it's beyond something you choose to understand, no problemo homie, it ain't for everyone. You do you.
If you want to hear my life story, you're gonna have to at least buy me dinner at a truck stop and let me draw you naked.
This is also one that might interest you.
When my brother moved out, he gave me An Illustrated Book of Bad Arguments by Ali Almossawi. It’s a really interesting short book of the different kinds of logical fallacies and false argument strategies. It’s a really cool book that’s perfect for a coffee table with all of these plus more.
> first, they start by reframing the discussion so that A) it looks like a moderate position (public repentance of a wrong is a good thing) is the equivalent of an extreme view (racial violence is encouraged) and B) the other party in the discussion is insincere.
First, I started by pointing out your contradictory words.
>then they introduce the Gish Gallop. The Gish Gallop takes advantage of the fact that the time/effort/difficulty of spewing bullshit is lower than the refutation of said bullshit. for more information check out wikipedia.
Then, since you're not against judgement, I asked which specific judgement you're judging, which you are unable to address except by misusing the term "gish gallop".
>It is helpful to the troll to ignore the fact that multiple things can be true at the same time (in this case, that racism is bad and that acknowledging racist thoughts/actions in ourselves can help fight it).
Then you randomly suggest two unstated things could, maybe, be true, without actually saying either is true - or what you think might be true.
>This is where the "concern" part of "concern trolling" comes in. here /u/redroguetech is saying that /u/Whatsthedealwithit11 (and others who agree) are making problems worse by not dealing with the real problem and that his(?) view is both strategically, and morally, wrong.
Then, in pointing out that you're judging PC warriors judging someone somehow makes some unstated problem somehow worse (despite that two things could be true).
>More Gish Gallop.
More random misuse of a term.
>more misrepresentation. Clearly, the issue /u/whatsthedealwithit11 was disgusted by was "shaming people for admitting to becoming a better person" but out troll twisted that into "poor Neeson"
And lastly, deflection and vague denial that you had a point to begin with.
>Now, the issue is "why would someone do this?" There are 2 answers, either A) /u/redroguetech wants to sew discord into the discourse and generally spread the idea of bad-faith arguments being the norm [lots of international soft-power to be gained by doing this on a largely American and European social media website] or B) /u/redroguetech is an alt-righter trying to show the "problems" with PC-culture and earn cool-points while "owning the libs at their own game." (yes, I know I said Russian at the start, but it could be someone furthering their goals unwittingly.)
Now, the issue is "why would someone do this"? There are two answers, either A) They really are that incapable of basic rationality, and B) They're racist and hate anyone judging people for wanting to murder black people.
The best way for the troll to have a world in which dull racist people are welcome is to make arguments that consist of blah blah whaaa bu-bu-but ad hominem word making.
EDIT: for more information about how this works check out the child's book An Illustrated Guide to Bad Arguments.
NOTE (consperacy theory rant): The russian government and alt-right media has made people so accepting of irrationality and racism to the point where people actually openly support murdering black people, and literally aren't able to see why that might be a problem. This issue is so beyond the ken of right-minded people, it's clear the best we can fight for is to delay the ultimate slide into facism and rampant genocide.
Smart to wait until you moved out and become independent!
As far as a good way to explain it, check out this book. It explains it in plain language with illustrations.
I have the same scope and I use the Telrad as well as the 8x50 included with the scope.
If you can't see any constellations with the naked eye, and you don't plan on doing to darker sites, then the Telrad won't be very useful to you. If the constellations are visible but you can't make out what ones they are, the best advice I can give you is to purchase a star chart like this and use it in conjunction with monthly star charts you can print off. those will help you identify the major constellations visible to you on that particular night and the Telrad can help you move from star to star until you find what you need.
GoTo mounts (counterintuitively) aren't useful until you're somewhat familiar with the sky, but they are absolutely fantastic when trying to share your views with a group.
I'll second the book recommendations above (I own TLAO, and borrowed Night watch). In my opinion, Nightwatch did a better job explaining the hardware, though they're both great.
After going out a few nights, if you enjoy it, I emplore you (and everyone else here for that matter) to pick up Sky and Telescope's Pocket Sky Atlas. When you outgrow the beginner books, and get fed up picking random objects from the GoTo, this thing is absolutely brilliant.
Naomi Wolf predicted this.
I recommend that you check out this book. You may be surprised to know that there are American citizens in detention in Guantanamo Bay. Among approximately 500 prisoners in Guantánamo Bay, only 10 have been tried by the Guantanamo military commission, but all cases have been stayed pending the adjustments being made to comply with the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld.
You or I will not end up in indefinite detention. The issue is that anyone does. You'll see that what I was originally saying is Obama's personable nature doesn't mean he won't ruin lives -- just like W. Bush.
It's all part of the strategy to consolidate power at the top. Step X: use laws to infringe rights of those that most society will not care about. (I paraphrase).
https://www.amazon.com/End-America-Letter-Warning-Patriot/dp/1933392797
i believe this book is relevant to this discussion.
http://www.amazon.com/End-America-Letter-Warning-Patriot/dp/1933392797/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1299188217&sr=8-1
Related (and required) reading.
You bring up a very interesting idea. Peterson does seem to focus almost all of his energy on the importance of speech and how lack of value leads to totalitarianism without noting the other roads. Naomi Wolf, more or less reasonable but still quirky feminist, wrote a really good book a decade or so ago on the ten points of fascism with pretty good documentation: The End of America. She has a chapter on restricting the press, but not really any big points on language itself -- although this was before the whole gender pronoun issue took real force.
I don't think this invalidates Peterson's points, though, because he's looking in a deeper almost sort of metaphysical direction when it comes to language. I think his main concern, though, goes with the legal enforcement of language, and only secondarily with the nihilistic undertones of the language itself. He has no problems with people saying whatever nonsense they want about themselves. And I think when we see that he's emphasizing this legal aspect, then it's more clear how he's really pointing out a danger that has a historical precedent: set up a law vague enough and it'll only increase the odds of much worse stuff getting put into it.
But you're totally right: he doesn't see the elephants that are already in the room with regard to the awful fascistic seeds that have already sprouted in America and Western society generally. That is a little odd.
Never saw the movie, but it was a really amazing book. This is the book that got me back into reading, she does an amazing job covering a large amount of data but without wasting any time. My only complaint is I wish it was longer.
The End of Liberty just came out recently... if you aren't aware of America's heavy handed use of law enforcement (throwing a kid in jail for eating a friend's chicken nuggets, fines for using rainwater that falls on your property, etc.), it'll really be an eye opener.
Oh cool, thanks!!
5lb book: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1937707296/ref=cm_sw_r_udp_awd_yl7jtb0T1P1FK
I can't really think of anything else off of the top of my head - if I do think of or come by anything, I'll be sure to message you! Good luck!
Adventure books are some of my favorites. Here are a few good ones. That should be appropriate to read for a grandma and grandson to enjoy.
3.Eragon This is an adventure but also fantasy. One of my high school favorites.
4.The Staff of Moses This is an Indie treasure hunting novel. Fun and interesting. Definitely reccomend
5.Origin of Legends and the Secrets of the North Another Indie book. This one just came out and is an adventure around mountainous regions of Canada. Has some Norse mythology aspects as well. Has some sci-fi aspects, and humor.
6.Monsters of Elsewhere Last one I'll leave here, also an indie book strange, humorous. A solid adventure book to be sure.
Also the other comments here all have great books listed as well.
here you go: http://www.amazon.com/Liberty-Defined-Essential-Issues-Freedom/dp/145550145X
http://www.amazon.com/Liberty-Defined-Essential-Issues-Freedom/dp/145550145X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1324591747&sr=8-1
True, not sure the comment above me embodies that. Whataboutism is more difficult to identify since it's often easy to fall into as kneejerk reaction to any comparison, though it is very real and happens frequently.
OPs comment was just a classic no true scotsman and that needed to be pointed out.
I strongly recommend the little book of bad arguments.
An Illustrated Book of Bad Arguments https://www.amazon.com/dp/1615192255/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_e.KZBb4XGNVP2
This should be at your grade level. It's got pictures too!
Is it fascism yet?
http://www.amazon.com/End-America-Letter-Warning-Patriot/dp/1933392797/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1302608162&sr=8-1
I'd say don't take a class. You'll be paying a lot of money for a generalized approach intended to strengthen a bunch of peoples' GRE scores, instead of focusing on what you need help with. Suck at verbal and good at quant? A class isn't going to spend more time on verbal just because you suck at it.
I'd recommend hiring a good private tutor and/or joining Magoosh. Magoosh is $80 for six months and it's by far the best prep material I've found. It's all online and has videos teaching you different types of material. Those are like a Khan Academy for GRE prep. They also have questions and a quiz mode, so they throw questions at you and also give you an estimated score range based on how many you get right. The questions are much harder than the real GRE so they prep you really, really well.
I'd say also get the Manhattan Prep 5-lb Book of GRE Problems. They're really good, reasonably challenging, and harder than the real test. They don't teach you "tricks" as much as teach you the actual material you need. Avoid Kaplan and Princeton Review like the plague, since their questions often have a lot of typos and aren't good prep. Also for sure get the Official Guide to the GRE, since it's the only place to get official ETS questions. They resemble the ones on the actual test the most. If you're having trouble with a particular topic, Manhattan Prep also sells guides for individual subjects like word problems and geometry that are really good. ETS also sells books of Quantitative and Verbal questions for extra practice.
Good luck!
You're also completely misrepresenting grammar and language. Try looking into the field of linguistics. Here's a couple book suggestions for you. http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0140260234 And http://www.amazon.com/The-Unfolding-Language-Evolutionary-Invention/dp/0805080120/ref=la_B001JOASIU_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1342795681&sr=1-2
Well, first of all there's the question: What exactly makes the standard register (General American English if you're in America) the correct form? Who gets to decide that? I think we can both agree that it's an arbitrary standard that's just... a thing now. Now, I'm not at all saying standard english (or any standard language) doesn't have a place in the world, don't get me wrong here. It's, imo, very much important to have a standard for things like scientific papers or writing laws where it's important everyone interprets your things the same way. It's also, in our society, a (imo sad) truth that if you don't master the standard, you'll be regarded as stupid in some way. This is where I have a problem. Why? Let me elaborate:
As you grow up, you'll acquire the language of your peers. Children don't have any notion of standard languages, so if a kid grows up in a ghetto, they'll speak like the people surrounding them, even though in the higher classes there's a social stigma against speaking like the poor people. Does this make the child stupid? No, the kid did exactly what every human ever does when they learn their first language, imitate what's around them. And just because (on average) less educated people speak that way doesn't make the language any more complex either. For example, African American Vernacular English arguably has the most complex verb system of all modern Germanic languages (complex in this case meaning "makes the most distinctions explicitly") but is generally associated with the poorer social classes (and mostly black people) of america and thus stigmatized.
You mention that incorrectly pronouncing words is not a positive change. The question is then, how is the current status quo better than what the future holds? Let's make a practical example: Assume I started pronouncing t between two vowels like s. Water becomes waser, letter becomes leser. Are these new forms really objectively worse than the old ones? No, they're not. How could they be when the former were just as arbitrary as the latter? Also, as a note, that sound change I just illustrated happened in German many centuries ago, which is why Germans say Wasser with an s. So if you were to claim that people who were to undergo that change are stupid in some way, then you'd also be calling all Germans stupid.
Now onto the last point. Yes, I do completely embrace the chaos (it's a beautiful thing if you ask me, and very interesting to analyze). However I do realize that in our current societies, standardized languages have a place, and be it just so books have a somewhat uniform appearance. However, I see it so often that people get outright harassed for the way they speak and I find that absolutely unacceptable and on par with racism and classism for things that should just not exist in the world.
Sorry that took a bit to write out everything I wanted to say. If you want to learn some more about how language change actually works, I can wholeheartedly suggest the book The Unfolding of Language by Guy Deutscher (Amazon link). It's an easy read and a very nice introduction into linguistics, with a focus on language change.
First off, my apologies for my earlier posts as you have shown that you aren't another high school kid like I originally thought. I should have given the benefit of the doubt before coming off as a d-bag but after getting called a baby-killer, kidnapper, psychotic murderer and everything else by a bunch of basement dwellers on here, I start to automatically assume the people I disagree with are 16-18 years old. So yes, my apologies.
So, nowhere did I say I accept Ron Paul's definition of liberty as that's something hard to define. Obviously, as based on my posts here, I agree with most of his stances. I was recommending his book so you could get his personal opinion on matters of liberty instead of having me trying to explain it. I obviously understand he's not a judge either. However, when asked about drug use and why he wanted to legalize heroin:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFcuAPjBpiA
He gave a pretty solid answer on why he defines it as liberty. The same would go for the civil rights issue we're arguing, child labor laws, contractual slavery, etc. People aren't going to use/not use a drug based on legality. People aren't going to have racist attitudes based on legality. People might try to exploit child labor laws on legality but the scorn of the community will always be there the same way it's there for heroin use. The federal government isn't preventing any of these problems and the states can do the job themselves. The individual can do the best job when it comes to their own personal choices, except in the cases of children which is why I was arguing the child labor in the first place.
I also understand what contractual slavery is and I understand our history of indentured servitude. I can't speak for Ron Paul but I would bet that his opinion would be that no one is going to do that anymore and if they did, communities would handle it in a heart-beat because no one wants to be associated with it. There are always going to be communes that do but we have that now, even with laws.
I'm also all for you running your private business how you want as that's in line with personal liberty. I'm also all for not using your business if you refuse to hire a black person and I'm sure the local newspaper would find thousands of other people ready to boycott your business for the same reason. Again, local communities can solve problems. When there is a breach of personal liberty, it can go to state courts.
I won't comment on the "We the People Act" because I obviously need to read up on it since I don't really know much about it. Thanks for the link and I'll see what I can find on that.
My apologies again for the initial d-bag approach.
http://www.amazon.com/Liberty-Defined-Essential-Issues-Freedom/dp/145550145X
Even if you don't want to read it, you can look at the top review for what it covers to get an idea.
Goodnight.
I noticed you use the appeal to hypocrisy also known as Tu quoque. Very smart move yet stupid move, in the future I would recommend not using it. I will recommend you a book called "An Illustrated Book of Bad Arguments"
This book is written in a way an elementary student will understand it, hopefully it will help you with your critical thinking skills.
https://www.amazon.com/Illustrated-Book-Bad-Arguments/dp/1615192255
Naomi Wolf might disagree: http://www.amazon.com/End-America-Letter-Warning-Patriot/dp/1933392797
Exactly. You need someone well-read in political theory.
Ron Paul for example has written and published a number of books, mostly on monetary policy and foreign policy:
A Foreign Policy of Freedom: Peace, Commerce, and Honest Friendship
Pillars of Prosperity
The Case for Gold
Gold, Peace, and Prosperity
End the Fed
Liberty Defined: 50 Essential Issues That Affect Our Freedom
He provides READING LISTS to his political opponents, like Rudy Giuliani:
Educating Rudy: The Ron Paul reading list