Readers of PD James, Ann Cleeves and Donna Leon will love this gripping crime thriller full of twists and turns from multi-million copy and SUNDAY TIMES bestselling author Ruth Rendell. 'The most brilliant mystery writer' -- Patricia Cornwell 'Probably the greatest crime writer in the world' -- Ian Rankin 'Totally gripping with superb twist at the end!' -- ***** Reader review 'Fascinating' -- ***** Reader review 'Superb on all counts' -- ***** Reader review 'Keeps the reader rooted to the spot and in the dark till the very end' -- ***** Reader review ************************************************************************************************ Wherever Reggie Wexford goes, death and intrigue are close on his heels. Having just returned from a once-in-a-lifetime holiday in China, Wexford finds himself haunted by memories of the old woman with bound feet who mysteriously followed him from one city to the next and the man who tragically drowned. Now, back in England, he finds himself investigating the murder of a fellow tourist. Knowing that the clue to these three mysteries lies in the East, Wexford turns his investigative skills to that place of unfathomable and sinister depths...

Discover Insider Secrets and specialized strategies to succeed in speaking conversational American English with ease!! Are you a Native Chinese student or professional struggling with trying to achieve the American Accent? Has it been difficult as an English language learner how to correct your pronunciation? 7 weeks to a Better American accent for the Native Mandarin Speaker- vol. 1, is the first series specifically designed for the native Chinese speaker to overcome common language challenges with intonation and American English pronunciation. It is a challenge going from Chinese to English. Speaking English will be easier as you continue to learn English and how to speak English. The Mp3 Audio files are critical for you to get comfortable in how to learn English conversation and pronunciation. This is available at CDbaby (dot) com under the same name as this course. Remember be patient with yourself and know that this is a process that requires patience. It takes persistence to learn English pronunciation and the American Accent. It is possible for Chinese students to learn to speak English. Many native Chinese speakers have difficulty with the mastery of the English language, and want to speak English better for career advancement. This series give Native Chinese speakers specialized strategies to master conversational American English with greater fluency. This fun and exciting new series, is intended primarily for individuals who have basic to intermediate skills regarding English grammar and vocabulary. The program can be useful for Chinese to English translations, Native Chinese professionals who are looking to polish their business English skills, Chinese students who are attending colleges and universities, and English as a second language professionals. This American accent program is self paced, however is designed to be completed in 7 weeks. This initial series (volume 1), consists of a 70 page workbook complete with bonus materials and 16 MP3 Audio files. The MP3 Audio files are a vital component of this program and should not be missed. This workbook does not contain the Audio files (per Amazon rules) and the user must purchase these Audio files separately. The MP3 Audio Files will enable the reader to hear the American accent coach pronunciation using the standard Midwestern American accent. The combination of hearing the speech samples and following the workbook will enable the reader to make rapid progress as they continue the series. Don't forget to pick up the Audio files at CD baby dot com and set at least 30 minutes daily to practice and learn English conversation.

With the arrival of spring, wild geese nest and hatch eggs for the reader to count in this bilingual story that introduces Chinese numbers and other common words.

This portable, user-friendly Chinese language guide, phrasebook and dictionary is the cheapest and easiest way to learn Chinese before and during your trip. If you only want one Chinese language book--Essential Chinese is the way to go. Part of Tuttle Publishing's Essential Phrasebooks Series, it is a great first introduction and beginner guide to the language of China and Taiwan and is also designed as a great Chinese phrasebook, making it the most versatile Chinese language learning tool on the market. Perfect for business people or tourist traveling to China or for students who want to supplement their learning, this book's easy indexing feature allows it to act as a Mandarin phrase book or as English-Chinese Dictionary. A clever "point to" feature allows you to simply point to a phrase translated in Chinese without the need to say a single word or read a single character. You will soon find yourself turning to Essential Chinese again and again when visiting or working in China. In this book you will find: Over 1500 practical sentences for everyday use. A glossary of over 2000 terms and expressions. Terms and phrases covering essential aspects of traveling and living in China. Extensive information about Chinese grammar and pronunciation. This beginner Chinese book will help you quickly and easily learn Chinese. Your ability to read Chinese, write Chinese, speak Chinese, and comprehend Chinese will be vastly improved without having to take an entire Chinese language class. Other titles in this bestselling series of phrasebooks include: Essential Japanese, Essential Arabic, Essential Korean, Essential Tagalog, and Essential Arabic.

Learning Chinese can be frustrating and difficult, partly because it's very different from European languages. Following a teacher, textbook or language course is not enough. They show you the characters, words and grammar you need to become proficient in Chinese, but they don't teach you how to learn them! Regardless of what program you're in (if any), you need to take responsibility for your own learning. If you don't, you will miss many important things that aren't included in the course you're taking. If you study on your own, you need to be even more aware of what you need to do, what you're doing at the moment and the difference between them. Here are some of the questions I have asked and have since been asked many times by students: How do I learn characters efficiently? How do I get the most out of my course or teacher? Which are the best learning tools and resources? How can I become fluent in Mandarin? How can I improve my pronunciation? How do I learn successfully on my own? How can I motivate myself to study more? How can I fit learning Chinese into a busy schedule? The answers I've found to these questions and many others form the core of this book. It took eight years of learning, researching, teaching and writing to figure these things out. Not everybody has the time to do that! I can't go back in time and help myself learn in a better way, but I can help you! This book is meant for normal students and independent language learners alike. While it covers all major areas of learning, you won't learn Chinese just by reading this book. It's like when someone on TV teaches you how to cook: you won't get to eat the delicious dish just by watching the program; you have to do the cooking yourself. That's true for this book as well. When you apply what you learn, it will boost your learning, making every hour you spend count for more, but you still have to do the learning yourself. This is what a few readers have said about the book: "The book had me nodding at a heap of things I'd learnt the hard way, wishing I knew them when I started, as well as highlighting areas that I'm currently missing in my study." - Geoff van der Meer, VP engineering "This publication is like a bible for anyone serious about Chinese proficiency. It's easy for anyone to read and written with scientific precision." - Zachary Danz, foreign teacher, children's theatre artist About me I started learning Chinese when I was 23 (that's more than eight years ago now) and have since studied in many different situations, including serious immersion programs abroad, high-intensity programs in Sweden, online courses, as well as on the side while working or studying other things. I have also successfully used my Chinese in a graduate program for teaching Chinese as a second language, taught entirely in Chinese mostly for native speakers (the Graduate Institute for Teaching Chinese as a Second Language at National Taiwan Normal University). All these parts have contributed to my website, Hacking Chinese, where I write regularly about how to learn Mandarin.

Continuing Mandarin Chinese Textbook is a new intermediate-level course in Mandarin which enables you to quickly learn the next level of the language--following the first book in the series, Elementary Mandarin Chinese Textbook. The 24 lessons in this book are meant to be used in 3 hours per week of class instruction over one academic year. Students will need another 2-3 hours of outside practice and review for every hour of class time using the materials in the Continuing Mandarin Chinese Workbook that accompanies this textbook. These books can also be used by self-study learners due to the extensive explanations and free supplementary materials available including online audio and video recordings and flash cards. The entire course can be completed in 25 to 35 weeks and teaches you the basic skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing Mandarin Chinese at a conversational level. Each lesson starts with a dialogue and includes a list of new and supplementary vocabulary along with questions and grammar notes about the dialogue, a reading section and extensive exercises (that are in the Workbook). Continuing Mandarin Chinese Textbook offers the following significant advantages over other similar textbooks: Everyday Chinese dialogues are used for listening and practice -- complete with vocabulary lists and questions and storylines based on actual everyday experiences in China Chinese grammar is explained in simple, non-technical terms with useful notes and tips given Reading exercises are provided for all new words and phrases in each lesson Free online audio recordings by native speakers from various parts of China help you not only acquire correct pronunciation but also to understand Chinese speakers who have different accents Illustrations and supplementary video clips add authenticity to the dialogues in the book A Chinese-English dictionary is provided at the back for easy reference Chinese characters and Pinyin Romanized forms are used throughout the book except for the reading exercises--so this book is usable by learners who wish to focus on learning the spoken language and do not necessarily want to learn to read and write Chinese. This textbook should be used with the accompanying Continuing Mandarin Chinese Workbook and with the accompanying audio files, which can be downloaded free directly from the Tuttle website.

Although the era of European colonialism has long passed, misgivings about the inequality of the encounters between European and non-European languages persist in many parts of the postcolonial world. This unfinished state of affairs, this lingering historical experience of being caught among unequal languages, is the subject of Rey Chow's book. A diverse group of personae, never before assembled in a similar manner, make their appearances in the various chapters: the young mulatto happening upon a photograph about skin color in a popular magazine; the man from Martinique hearing himself named "Negro" in public in France; call center agents in India trained to Americanize their accents while speaking with customers; the Algerian Jewish philosopher reflecting on his relation to the French language; African intellectuals debating the pros and cons of using English for purposes of creative writing; the translator acting by turns as a traitor and as a mourner in the course of cross-cultural exchange; Cantonese-speaking writers of Chinese contemplating the politics of food consumption; radio drama workers straddling the forms of traditional storytelling and mediatized sound broadcast. In these riveting scenes of speaking and writing imbricated with race, pigmentation, and class demarcations, Chow suggests, postcolonial languaging becomes, de facto, an order of biopolitics. The native speaker, the fulcrum figure often accorded a transcendent status, is realigned here as the repository of illusory linguistic origins and unities. By inserting British and post-British Hong Kong (the city where she grew up) into the languaging controversies that tend to be pursued in Francophone (and occasionally Anglophone) deliberations, and by sketching the fraught situations faced by those coping with the specifics of using Chinese while negotiating with English, Chow not only redefines the geopolitical boundaries of postcolonial inquiry but also demonstrates how such inquiry must articulate historical experience to the habits, practices, affects, and imaginaries based in sounds and scripts.

The author, who is in his twenties and fluent in Chinese, intimately examines the future of China through the lens of the Jiu Ling Hou—the generation born after 1990—exploring through personal encounters how his Chinese peers feel about everything from money and marriage to their government and the West

My First Book of Chinese Words introduces young children to basic words and concepts in the Chinese language through colorful rhymes and beautiful imagery. It is a book that parents and young children will enjoy reading together. The Chinese words in the book are all common, everyday items, and the rhymes are informative and fun for children. The goal of My First Book of Chinese Words is to familiarize children with the basic sounds and written characters of Chinese, to introduce core concepts of Chinese culture and to illustrate the ways in which Chinese sounds differ from English ones. Teachers and parents will welcome the cultural notes at the back of the book and appreciate how the book is organized using a familiar ABC structure. Each word is presented in Chinese characters (both Simplified and Traditional) as well as Romanized Pinyin for easy pronunciation. With the help of this book, we hope more children (and adults) will soon join the more than one billion people worldwide who speak Chinese!