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2) Fluent in 3 months: how anyone at any age can learn to speak any language from anywhere in the world
Author
Pub. Date
2014.
Language
English
Formats
Description
A new blueprint for fast language learning. Lewis argues that you don't need a great memory or "the language gene" to learn a language quickly, and debunks a number of long-held beliefs, such as adults not being as good of language learners as children. --
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
An offbeat natural history of language takes readers from the educational and cultural innovators of Sumeria, to the resilience of Chinese, to the global spread of English, in a volume that offers linguistic perspectives on numerous past and present civilizations.
Author
Language
English
Description
The ultimate rapid language-learning guide! For those who've despaired of ever learning a foreign language, here, finally, is a book that will make the words stick. At thirty years old, Gabriel Wyner speaks six languages fluently. He didn't learn them in school -- who does? -- rather, he learned them in the past few years, working on his own and practicing on the subway, using simple techniques and free online resources. In Fluent Forever Wyner reveals...
Author
Pub. Date
2007.
Language
English
Formats
Description
This New York Times bestseller is an exciting and fearless investigation of language from the author of Rationality, The Better Angels of Our Nature and The Sense of Style and Enlightenment Now.
"Curious, inventive, fearless, naughty."
—The New York Times Book Review
Bestselling author Steven Pinker possesses that rare combination of scientific aptitude and verbal eloquence...
"Curious, inventive, fearless, naughty."
—The New York Times Book Review
Bestselling author Steven Pinker possesses that rare combination of scientific aptitude and verbal eloquence...
Author
Publisher
Viking
Pub. Date
2007.
Language
English
Description
The search for the origin of human language has finally come of age. For centuries, progress in Ur-language research was slow and spasmodic; many scientists came to believe that there was no definitive way to answer its central questions. Then, in the past 20 years, everything changed. Linguist Kenneally shows how linguists, cognitive scientists, animal researchers, biologists, and geneticists have all contributed valuable new insights into language...
Author
Publisher
W. W. Norton & Company
Pub. Date
2020.
Language
English
Description
"Everyone likes to think they know a bit about language: There are some words that you simply can't translate into English. The origin of a word tells you how it should be used. A dialect is inferior to a language. The problem is, none of these statements are true. In Don't Believe a Word, linguist David Shariatmadari explodes nine common myths about language and introduces us to some of the fundamental insights of modern linguistics. By the end of...
Author
Publisher
Henry Holt and Co
Pub. Date
2016.
Language
English
Description
"A bestselling linguist takes us on a lively tour of how the English language is evolving before our eyes and why we should embrace this transformation and not fight it. Language is always changing -- but we tend not to like it. We understand that new words must be created for new things, but the way English is spoken today rubs many of us the wrong way. Whether its the use of literally to mean "figuratively" rather than "by the letter" or the way...
Author
Publisher
Basic Books
Pub. Date
2022.
Language
English
Description
"Think about the game charades. Its rules are simple: no talking, of course, and little else. Each time we play with a new group, we have to figure each other out, with our different styles, backgrounds, and senses of the world, as we struggle to connect how we would act out something (say, Christopher Columbus crossing the Atlantic) with how other people might understand it. But as we play, a lingo can develop-with time, an upheld hand, bobbing along,...
Author
Publisher
Basic Books
Pub. Date
[2001]
Language
English
Description
Whether all human languages are fundamentally the same or different has been the subject of debate for ages. This problem has deep philosophical implications: If languages are all the same, it implies a fundamental commonality-and thus mutual intelligibility-of human thought. We are now on the verge of solving this problem. In this lively and accessible book, Mark C. Baker shows how researchers have used the theory of one of the world's greatest linguists,...
Author
Publisher
Public Affairs
Pub. Date
[2018]
Language
English
Description
"Language is a wild thing. It is vague and anarchic. Style, meaning, and usage are continually on the move. Throughout history, for every mutation, idiosyncrasy, and ubiquitous mistake, there have been countervailing rules, pronouncements and systems making some attempt to bring language to heel. From the utopian language-builder to the stereotypical grammatical stickler to the programmer trying to teach a computer to translate, Lane Greene takes...
Author
Publisher
The University of Chicago Press
Pub. Date
2017.
Language
English
Description
Evolutionary science has long viewed language as, basically, a fortunate accident--a crossing of wires that happened to be extraordinarily useful, setting humans apart from other animals and onto a trajectory that would see their brains (and the products of those brains) become increasingly complex. But as Michael C. Corballis shows in 'The Truth about Language', it's time to reconsider those assumptions. Language, he argues, is not the product of...
Author
Publisher
Firefly Books
Pub. Date
2018.
Language
English
Description
This book looks at how language has evolved around the globe from ancestral proto-languages to our recognisable modern tongues. It demonstrates how language has been shaped by social and cultural influences, and even explains how our anatomy affects the articulation, and therefore evolution, of words. Discover the surprising stories behind the origin of the written word, the difficulties of decipherment and the challenge of inventing from scratch...
Author
Publisher
Dover
Pub. Date
1952.
Language
English
Description
"First published in 1936, this first full-length presentation in English of the Logical Positivism of Carnap, Neurath, and others has gone through many printings to become a classic of thought and communication. It not only surveys one of the most important areas of modern thought; it also shows the confusion that arises from imperfect understanding of the uses of language. A first-rate antidote for fuzzy thought and muddled writing, this remarkable...
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