Languages Books

This was a gift for my mother. She is really enjoying it. She is 86 and learning Morse Code, just for fun!

This CS is a no nonsense guide to learning code. It jumps right on in and starts. the narration gets to you so I would only recommend short lessons with frequency. Otherwise, you do really seem to pick up the code fairly easily.

I'm not yet done learning the morse code alphabet, but this has helped me with half of it so far. Great Value as well.

I started with the tape version, still have it; along with
all the others in the series. Yes I did pass the 5wpm test-
second time around.

What ever method(s) you do settle upon it is basicly a matter
of practice, practice, and more practice.

Condition yourself to learn these characters by SOUND only.
Once you can copy by Sound- start sending practice with
a hand key. I use a Speed X hand key and a T-Tone oscillator
from: Morse Code Express. T-Tone oscillator produces a pleasant,
authentic, pure note- much better than the usual 555 timer
chip with it's distorted square wave output. Full designation is
MX-T-Tone Oscillator(I think).

Although I am particularily fond of the straight key do
consider taking up Iambic Sending. I have found that the
Iambic Sending method as described by Chuck Adams compliments
and enhances my CW skills in every aspect. I am delighted
with my Bencher Paddles. I use an inexpensive MFJ kit built
keyer. I like things casual, my goal is 25wpm- that being
the case, this keyer is fine for me. Not a huge price
differential in keyers; rule of thumb is: get the best one
you can find.

If you find that in you copying sessions you tend to "anticipate"
the next character, look into the concept of left/right brain
interference(AKA: Typists Dilemma). Practice with: Call Signs,
numbers, and especially random code groups wiil solve that.

In your spare time, listen to code at higher speeds. Say 5-10
wpm past your base line copying speed. Just listen, don't
even sweat copying. Morse Code practice sessions on the
Internet come in handy here. This exercise will help your
hearing mechanism discern finer and finer distinctions in
sound at higher and higher speeds. This will also make
your temporary base line copying speed much more solid.
Keep this up incrementally untill you have achieved your
ultimate speed goal.

Now for a little soul searching. If I had to do it all
over again would I be inclined to take the time and make
the effort to learn Morse Code. The answer for me would
be an emphatic- yes; and even more so now than when I
first started out.

Plenty of CW resources, events, clubs, projects etc. on
the Internet. Best of luck on that OM.

I used this product to learn the code, and it worked wonders! I was preparing for my General amateur radio exam, and I turned to the ARRL for assistance in the form of this CD and booklet. It is excellently put together. They start you off slow, learning and repeating the characters until you are thoroughly familiar with the entire alphabet. They then move onto the words and phrases. By the end of the program, you are competent in morse code, and can easily decipher and send at around 5 words per minute, a good starting place. The good thing about the program is that it uses something called the Farnsworth method to teach morse code. This utilizes extra large spaces in between the individual characters, giving you ample time to decipher them. This is a great help in the learning process. Highly recommended!!!

I've worked in publishing for over a decade and thought I knew it all when it came time to get my own books published. Not by a LONG shot! I bought this on the suggestion of an editor and I bet I've referred to it 32 times since I got it. It helped me get through the first and second steps of the process. Now if my agent can just get my books sold!

Great coverage of markets and their needs. I recommend this highly if you are a writer for children. Do not go very far without this book!

2002 Children's Writer's & Illustrator's Market is a very highly useful and authoritative guide for both aspiring authors and artists to getting their work published in the specialized area of children's books. From finding the best markets, to writing effectively for the age index of one's choice, to preparing professional submissions, 2002 Children's Writer's & Illustrator's Market is packed from cover to cover with solid wealth of tips, tricks, and techniques on how to stand out in a highly competitive field. 2002 Children's Writer's & Illustrator's Market is an absolutely essential reference, especially for new writers and novice artists looking to break into the children's book market.

This is THE book if you want to get published. 2002 Children's Writer's & Illustrator's Market shows over 800 editors and art directors who want to buy what YOU write or illustrate. I am planning to try get publihed. And this was my resource! I've already found tons of publishers! If you want to get published, then this is your book!

Great coverage of markets and their needs. I recommend this highly if you are a writer for children. Do not go very far without this book!

Professionals in the children's book genre have been relying on the yearly Children's Writer's & Illustrator's Market for 18 years. This guide covers everything writers and/or illustrators would ever need to find a home for their work.

The 2006 edition contains more than 800 listings of opportunities. Book publishers, magazine opportunities, literary agents, contests and conferences are just a few of the numerous types of listings you get in 400+ pages.

Each listing is updated yearly to make sure the contact information, pay rates and specific publishing needs are accurate. Editors of the guide generally work all year long to ensure the listings are up-to-date.

What makes this guide even more valuable are the articles, interviews and also help for those just getting started in the business. The guide could simply be a compilation of listings and it would be a great investment but the fact that these other resources are added make it a powerful tool for any writer or illustrator's career.

If you're searching for markets on your own, you're wasting precious time. The 2006 Writer's & Illustrator's Market does the tedious work for you so you can simply choose an appropriate market and find a publishing outlet for your work.

If you want to write for kids, there's two things you need to do (i.e., other than writing your book!): join SCWBI and get this book. The book is full of great advice and contacts. A must-have for all children's writers.

This is a highly informative book that no household should be without. Held within these pages are countless words and expressions for every aspect of writing. From A to Z you will find references for everything. Fundraising letters, personal letters, query letters, sympathy notes, email, business, thank yous, etc. It is all found in this highly recommended book! Don't write without it!

This book gave me a good perspective on what it takes to "try" to get a children's book published. I really feel like I have a better grasp on the reality of writing children's books...it's not as easy as I had first expected!

This is well-organized and has all of the information one would need to access publishers. Agents and publicists, as well as writers, need to have this "encyclopedia" of resources. There is a wealth of information needed for sending book proposals and manuscripts. Just excellent!

In my opinion,this is probably the best verb learning book to start to learn polish. There are other good polish verbs books, but usually they only conjugate the "key" verbs, or the most used verbs (but not so much as 301, and not always they have indexes of other verbs.
Here you can see fully conjugated in all tenses 301 polish verb. Remember that when somebody starts to learn a new lenguage, probably has problems to understand the conjugation looking only to a "key" verb. So, this book helps a lot to start. It lists together perfective and imperfective verbs, great! And English-Polish and Polish-English verb indexes list nearly 2300 verbs - also good for intermediate and superior students. It also has illustrative sentences and some self-tests, polish proverbs, puzzles... What else could we ask to a good polish verbs book?
Remember that it is a polish verbs book, of course that only with this you can not learn, still that it is so good!

Another reviewer describes this book as, "thorough". That is an understatement!

If you want to know the intricate details of Polish verbs and the conjugations of the most common, look no further. In fact, it is so thorough at times, it can be intimidating, especially if you are learning the language outside a classroom setting.

For example, the frequentive aspect is treated for appropriate verbs despite the admission that, "The frequentive aspect is hardly ever used now." Jumping from Germanic to Slavic languages was tough enough for me, without having to ignore seldom used aspects of the language which appear alongside the parts I want/need to focus on.

Is a great reference for anyone who wishes to speak Polish. Provides detailed conjugations and tenses. Overall awesome.

My Polish teacher had me order several of these books for her other students after she saw my verb book. Apparently, a book of similar quality and scope does not even exist in Poland, or at least she didn't know of one that was so clear and easy to use. I'm still a beginner, so I'm only using present tense. But the index is great, as it has both English and Polish verbs indexed. Perhaps the book could be a bit smaller, and for some verbs (such as wiesic, i think (wiem, wiesz, wie, etc.) these are not clearly conjugated in the main section. Still, this book is a necessary supplement to my Polish textbook and lessons.

I guess the only thing that might improve this is a CD-ROM!

I bought 301 Polish Verbs to supplement an intensive beginning Polish course, and I am very pleased with this book. The verb charts are quite helpful, and I transferred many of them to flashcards to help me study.
The crucial difference between 301 Polish Verbs and its predecessor, 201 Polish Verbs, is that (in addition to the extra 100 verbs) 301 Polish Verbs includes a long introduction that includes solid yet brief explanations of the grammar not only of verbs but also of the different cases that the verbs take.
The verbs are grouped into verb groups that are all listed under the same single heading verb. The perfective and imperfective form of the verb, as well as other related verbs with the same verb "root", are all listed on a single page. This grouping is helpful for learning that all these verbs are related and their tenses work the same way. However, the groupings can make it difficult to look up a particular Polish verb, as the verbs are listed alphabetically by the heading verb, and one must check multiple indexes to find out which heading verb it is listed under.
The example sentences at the bottom of each page are very helpful to illustrate the usage of the different verbs in context and to "see" how the verbs take different objects in different cases. However, I would have liked there to be more example sentences--some verbs (though not "heading" verbs) do not even have a single example sentence.

This is a great book with LOTS of useful information and lesson plans. It really helped me to understand the 6 Traits better, and how to go about teaching them to my kids. If your new to 6 traits this is a must have!

This is a terrific resource and one that I have been using all year in my classroom. We have begun using this book as a book study for a Professional Learning Community at our school for those teaching K-3. My Grade One class has never loved writing more and their enthusiasm for writing has been tremendous.

This book will definitely aid in developing your 6 + 1 writing classroom. It is filled with classroom ideas and great picture books to use to enhance each lesson.

This is a fantastic tool for lower elementary teachers. This is how writing should be assessed. This book is a practical tool. It includes practice assessments and lots of student example papers to help you better understand each trait and how to evaluate it. It also includes many wonderful teaching ideas and picture book examples!

We asked. We pleaded. We begged, "Pretty pleeease." Ruth Culham responded to our request with great enthusiasm with 6+1 Traits of Writing: The Complete Guide for the Primary Grades. And teachers across the globe cheered, "Wahoo!" Finally, a resource book for primary educators who have been searching for child tested ideas that tackle instructional strategies and assessment techniques in one comprehensive book. Thank you, Ruth, for doing a wonderful job of explaining each trait, equipping us with developmentally appropriate focus lessons, and reminding us that teaching writing to young authors is a process in which they need plenty of practice and opportunities, and an extra helping of patience on our part doesn't hurt. This must have book for all teachers - novice and experienced alike - won't be another resource that is shelved after a quick glance. It will be close at hand as it is used throughout the year to help develop the talents of young writers.

This is wonderful! I wasn't sure when I ordered it. Even when it arrived I wasn't sure until I saw that each letter had a sing along to a familiar tune. The tunes are really cute and catchy.

I received this as a baby shower gift and I love it. My son is due in a month and I can't stop singing to my belly. I haven't tried the cd yet, but I am buying this as a gift for my other pregnant friends.

We bought this book for our two yr old daughter, who is really into following along with songs and has us read quite a few song-books. The book comes with a CD which is a great help to me, as I am not the greatest singer, yet it also helps my daughter learn the tunes and the words to the songs in the book. The book and CD have the familiar tunes from when I was a child, but have changed the words to match the music and the letter you are singing about. A lot of fun to do with our daughter.

My daughter started listening to this cd when she was 18 months and has loved it ever since. It's a favorite in the day care she goes to and that I work at. The management had to buy a book and cd for every class in the building! Kids love it!

I really like singing these songs to my daughter. The books is loads of fun. My only negative (besides the fact that I can never get these songs out of my head) is that the CD singing is a bit cheesy. But it is a kids CD, so should I really complain?

This book is fascinating and will it will be highly valuable in planning spelling lessons. It is the ultimate resource for the wisdom of teaching phonetics.

For intermediate to advanced phonics, Bishop's text is a great resource, but it's not for every reading teacher. It should be particularly valuable for reading specialists, speech therapists, and anyone looking to develop curriculum material.

How have I used the text? It's helped me adapt and develop materials for a junior-high student who reads 3-4 grades below level because of dyslexia. He hates the skill-sheets that were so obviously developed for elementary students. Now I can adapt or create materials easily.

What does the text offer? It generally gives 20-40 examples for every spelling-sound pattern, and explains the situations that lead to the exceptions. Entries are cross-referenced to examples that follow similar patterns. Bishop points out differences you probably haven't thought of noticing before (for example, when the featured spelling-sound pattern is stressed or unstressed, voiced or not voiced. Each of these distinctions comes with a separate set of supporting examples.) Bishop offers clues that help readers know which pattern to follow when sounding out a word that "sounds" equally like two different spellings.

This book far exceeded my expectations!
It unravels the mystery of the so-called unexplainably strange ways of spelling so many of our English words. Clear & concise format.
EXCELLENT for young children learning to read & spell...it answers any questions you might have about the rules of the way letters are put together in words & pronounced.
A must have for any home library...

Seldom is it possible to find an extensive list of specific 'unusual' information about our language. The ABC's and All Their Tricks contains a list of the number of times phonograms appear in English words.
As an educator of children and adults, specializing in spelling and grammar, I needed this information at my fingertips. Using the book as a reference, I find it easy to explain the consistency of our language and dispel the myth that English is too irregular and difficult to learn. Amazon is the only place I could find this book, as it was not available in Australia.

I liked the information this book offered, particularly because I believe it would be helpful to anybody teaching children--educators, parents, tutors, etc. You don't have to have a certain curriculum package to make this work. I LOVE having resources around that you don't have to read cover to cover. This is one that you can look up what you have questions on. Sometimes, when a student doesn't "get" something, it is only because it isn't presented in a format they understand. Often, the educator just needs a different tactic than what appears "obvious" to them, but not to the child. A great reference.

It is BY FAR the best book on programming that I have read. I tried Java for Dummies, learning online, also the Java tutorials from Sun and they were a waste of time or money or both.

There are several reasons that make me love this book and the way this author teaches:

1. I read most of this book in seven weeks. After that, I took a second course on programming and I did great on my class.

2. The exercises are well designed to learn. Some are challenging but all go right to the core of what you learned on each chapter.

3. It covers the basics and even some advanced topics that I have encountered in following programming courses.

4. The explanations are crystal clear. It is hard to be left with doubts.

5. The organization is perfect. It builds a core and then it adds more to the core. After five chapters you can move on many different directions depending on your needs and the book will still make sense.

6. The code is transparent and clarifications on the margins do help.

7. It is up to date with the latest Java release.

In all honesty this book does not have a weak spot. BUY IT!!!

hernanM

I have read both books by Savitch and Deitel, and Savitch is by far clearer, although Savitch could still buff the textbook out a bit more with explaining "Compositon" topic better and clarifying paramater type .

Also Savitch summarizes every subsection and I am not 100% sure this is necessary in all subsections.

Savitch should urge his publisher not to begin a new subsection at the bottom of a page!

Savitch should make available more solutions in a separate manaul for those wishing it.

Overall I would say Savitch saved my day with my 2 JAVA courses. Deitel starts out with graphics, assuming the student will graps Java better but Deitel introduces some rather major concepts when doing this and I don't think the students would appreciate the complex ideas without using Savitch step by step methodologies. Deitel assumes a student undestands the concept of "extends", "implements" etc and this is exactly what graphics class uses and Deitel assumes students will understand these concepts just because they are graphical in nature. Savithc covers these concepts later when other major concepts are covered so that a student will appreciate the "extends" concepts much better.

So Savitch and Deitel cover the same material, but in different sequences. And I believe that Savitch's approach works better and helps the student understand the more difficult concepts later in the textbook.

gerard sagliocca,
gerard_sagliocca@yahoo.com

I learned JAVA language a couple of years ago. As I have to reuse it recently, I borrow the 2nd Edtion from a computer science guy in the school, because many people told me this is the best one. After I read through it, I decided to purchase the newest edtion. It's INDEED the best one of the JAVA guides I've ever read.

I've tried three other Java intro books, and they either aren't well-organized or they take such a dim view of the reader's abilities that it's like reading Programming for Pre-schoolers. Absolute Java is well-structured with both breadth & depth: it doesn't ignore programming basics, but covers a much larger scope of material than other books I've tried, while still including detail about intricacies of more sophisticated aspects of the language. Uses lots of good, robust examples. Love it.

It took me a couple months of my own time reading this book to prepare myself for a second round back to school. I have not programmed in almost 8 years and it was in C. I have to say that as an introductory programming book, Savitch did a superb job. You cannot get any more clear on the topics of the basics and foundations of the Java language than this. If you're just a passerby that just wants to get yourself started in Java, I recommend this book.

I've been developping applications and amateur games for a few years using C++... I bought this book along with the Director Bible... And guess what? I made a shoot'em up game in a couple of days - with the help of my brother (graphic designer - thanks for your beautiful sprites, dud! ;) )... Director + Lingo are the best way for quick games... and this book just show me how!!!
Thanks!

Gary has done the Lingo community an amazing service. With code and logic examples that illustrate nearly every variety of game you can create to be played on a computer, this book is an incredible resource.

The examples in this book made it possible to deliver a game-rich CD project with an incredibly tight timeline.

Thanks Gary!

I have a programming background and am learning Director to make professional CD products. Gary has taught me how to do this with his Using Director 8.5 book and this Advanced Lingo for Games book. He writes very well, doesn't treat you like an idiot, and is very practical. Well done Gary and I recommend this book to all people who really want to make interactive games using Director.

I am a Lingo programmer for 4 years and this book helped me advance to the next level in Lingo Programming. Using this book helped me to understand writing my own 'behaviors' and took my understanding of 'lists' to a higher level. I owe alot of my success to this book.

Rich
Multimedia Programmer
Motorola

I've been writing Lingo for some time now, and I probably own upwards of 15 books on the subject. Of all of those books, the two that I find the most helpful every step of the way are undoubtedly Gary's most recent 2 books (this one and "Director 8.5 Special Edition"). Lots of Lingo authors know Director inside and out, but what sets Gary's books on the subject apart is his colorful writing style and an uncanny ability to break down ultra-complex scripts into palatable bite-sized chunks that even a newbie will understand. Highly recommended!

I am a complete novice to AutoCAD VBA and this book was highly recommended. I found it to be a good book for explaining the terminology of VBA. It is well ordered and concise. However, I think that most beginners like myself need a book that is a level below this one. A book with step-by-step explantionsof how a code works with many examples would be more useful for a true novice.

One of those rare books that can be used as both a how-to guide as well as a handy quick reference. The first part is the more how-to, sample code section, that you'll use in the beginning. The second half of the book is a handy breakdown of the AutoCAD object model that you'll use more as you gain experience - thought the first part is so well laid out, that it can also be used for this purpose.

If you know AutoCAD and VB, this book should be enough for you to begin creating your first VBA apps in AutoCAD. Highly recommended

I have only recently delved into the further workings of AutoCAD 2000 and thought I'd try my hand at VBA Programming. So I bought this book. As an beginner to programming in general (though not to VB6) I thought the book would be a little above my experience.......WRONG!! This book is an excellent publication for beginner to intermediate users. If, as a VBA programmer, you can't find anything useful in this book then maybe you need to consider your career..........Absolutely outstanding

This is one of the best book I have bought. Within a month's time I was on my own with VBA. Code examples and explanation presented in this book can be digested very rapidly. Of course, it is not dealing with forms at all. But still it is excellent piece of work. Simply click "Add to shopping cart" without loss of any time.

Joe Sutphin covers the broad spectrum of AutoCAD VBA pretty effectively. My number one reference source for programming in ACAD. Much like a dictionary or thesaurus for VBA in ACAD.