Foreign Languages

The home of trusted Spanish dictionaries for everyday language learning.

A handy 3-in-1 Spanish study book: grammar, verbs and vocabulary in one volume, ideal for beginners who need a clear and easy-to-understand Spanish reference and revision guide.

This book gives you the essential tools to help you progress quickly in your study of Spanish. The grammar, verb and vocabulary sections have been designed for all those learning Spanish at school, in an evening class, for work or for leisure.

• Grammar: this section provides easily accessible information in an attractively presented layout. Key grammatical points are highlighted throughout the text as a means of reinforcement. Hundreds of examples of real Spanish illustrate clearly the grammatical points being made. In addition, a full glossary gives clear and simple explanations of grammatical terminology.
• Verbs: you will find 120 fully conjugated regular and irregular verbs in this section. Each is self contained in a double-page spread showing all the major tenses. Major constructions and idiomatic phrases are given for all verb models, as well as hundreds of examples of real Spanish to show you how verbs are used in context . An index contains thousands of verbs which are cross-referred to their conjugation model.
• Vocabulary: this handy section covering 50 topics (such as family, free time, careers, computing, education, food and drink, health, shopping) gives you all the vocabulary you need to communicate effectively in Spanish.

With its clear, user-friendly grammar, all the most important Spanish verbs shown in full, and an extensive vocabulary guide, this book gives you all the elements to start speaking and writing with confidence in Spanish.

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The Oxford Beginner’s Chinese Dictionary is an innovative guide to learning Chinese. Designed specifically for English-speaking adult learners who are either learning from scratch or refreshing lost language skills, it offers an easy to use dictionary, extra help with vocabulary, and essential information on living and interacting in the Chinese-speaking world.

The dictionary is exceptionally easy to use, because it moves away from the traditional dictionary layout. All main translations are preceded by an equals sign so that they are instantly identifiable, and all parts of the entry are spelt out in full, avoiding confusing jargon and abbreviations. Grammar and usage notes throughout the text warn of possible translation pitfalls, and thousands of example phrases show how the language is used in context.

The 30-page Learning and Lifestyle kit gives key information on both the Chinese language, with a list of the words you really need to know, grammar help, and verb tables, and on life in the Chinese-speaking world: background information on lifestyle and culture, tips on etiquette and interaction in the language, and a phrasefinder for use when travelling.

The Oxford Beginner’s Chinese Dictionary is your essential companion to learning Chinese.

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By far the largest and most up-to-date single-volume English-Chinese and Chinese-English dictionary available and endorsed by academics worldwide, the Oxford Chinese Dictionary has been designed both for English speakers learning Mandarin Chinese and Mandarin Chinese speakers learning English. It has been produced using the latest lexicographic methods and the unique dictionary resources of Oxford University Press in Oxford and Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press in Beijing, together with an international body of expert advisors.

The Oxford Chinese Dictionary contains over 300,000 words and phrases and 370,000 translations, including the latest vocabulary from computing, business, the media, and the arts, and tens of thousands of example phrases illustrating key points of construction and usage. There are over 300 cultural notes giving essential information about many aspects of life and culture in the Chinese- and English-speaking worlds. The dictionary is based throughout on corpus research for both English and Chinese, providing up-to-date evidence on real language. The English is based on the Oxford English Corpus, and the Chinese draws on the LIVAC corpus from the City University of Hong Kong.

Extensive supplementary material includes sample letters and emails, guides to telephoning and text messaging in both Chinese and English, chronologies of Chinese history and culture, and features on particularly difficult aspects of the Chinese language, such as kinship terms and measure words. There are also over 50 pages of lexical and usage notes which contain helpful extra information about Chinese and English.

The organization and layout have been designed for maximum clarity and accessibility. All Chinese headwords and compounds are shown with Pinyin transcriptions, so that the learner of Chinese can pronounce each one correctly. Chinese headwords are given in Simplified Chinese characters, but Traditional Chinese character versions are also given in brackets after the headwords when they differ from the Simplified form. All the English headwords are also shown with phonetics, so that the learner of English can pronounce each one correctly. The Chinese-English section of the dictionary is organised alphabetically by Pinyin and there is also a radical index which allows you to look up a character without knowing its Pinyin form.

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