Product Description

The Glencoe Vocabulary Builder program uses a systematic approach to building students’ vocabularyby presenting words in context or information about word parts to help students unlock word meanings independently, and by requiring students to apply their knowledge of new words in reading and writing exercises. Each book in the seven book series is designed for a specific reading level and features readings from the humanities, social studies, and sciences, vocabulary from Greek and Latin roots, assessment after each writing assigment, and a section on taking standardized tests. Vocabulary Builder is a research-based program and is ideal for SAT/ACT preparation.

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This textbook provides a comprehensive and thematically structured vocabulary for undergraduate students of German. Divided into twenty manageable units, it covers vocabulary relating to the physical, social, cultural, economic, and political worlds. Word lists are graded into three levels reflecting difficulty and usefulness, and are accompanied by extensive exercises designed to reinforce work with the lists that is suitable for classroom and private study. Clearly organized and accessible, the volume will meet the needs of a variety of courses in any undergraduate program. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

An extraordinarily well thought out vocabulary book
There is a good selection of German vocabulary books available on Amazon.com and this is one of the more expensive offerings. It is also without question the best value, going far beyond what I've seen in other vocabulary books. The author is clearly determined that people using her text will be able to develop an excellent grounding in German vocabulary and she has provided a very well-designed vehicle for reaching that goal.

You may well be asking, "What can be special about a vocabulary book? Just a list of categorized words!" Seeming to have anticipated that question, the author has provided a lengthy explanation of how and why the words are grouped as they are - twenty thematic areas with multiple sub-themes, each presented in three progressively more challenging levels - as well as why there are a dozen different kinds of exercises and what each kind is designed to accomplish. All this based on academic research on how people learn foreign languages.

For some, the introductory forty-odd pages will probably be worth the price of the entire book, covering word formation, tips on dictionary use, how best to learn vocabulary, a lengthy bibliography, how the book should be used and equally important, how and why the book is designed as it is. Users of this book benefit from the author's painstaking attention to detail intended to insure that readers develop the skills and knowledge they desire. No one should skip over this introductory material as it will handsomely repay your efforts in more efficient and effective learning.

There are 20 Units covering a wide range of thematic areas, although because a unit may contain more than one subject area there are actually 43 thematic areas (e.g., Unit 7 contains three sub-units, 'Perception', 'Color and Light', 'Materials and Textures'). Each thematic area is broken down into three progressively more challenging Levels. The author was clearly successful in providing an arrangement from which the users of this excellent text will benefit and appreciate ever more as they work more deeply into the material. Words common to southern Germany, Austria, etc. are included and so identified, as are colloquialisms.

Each level in each unit is accompanied by a series of exercises. Exercises are a significant component in vocabulary retention, but seem to have been an afterthought in most German vocabulary books. Not so here as Dr. Fagan has obviously given much thought to the creation of clever, challenging, and varied sets of exercises which strongly reinforce what has been learned. These exercises are the jewel in the crown as they are not lacking in subtlety or thoroughness. As you complete each level and accompanying excercises, you can be confident that you have not just memorized a list of words, but have mastered the German vocabulary.

As I said at the outset, there are many German vocabularies, most of them less expensive. But considering the considerable time and effort required to learn a foreign language, the best tool becomes the least expensive tool and no one who uses this book is going to regret the time saved and the enhanced learning gained by having bought the best tool. Using German Vocabulary certainly seems to be just that - the best tool for the job.

Excellent
This is a great resource for people who want to increase their vocabulary.Exactly what I've been looking for after 10 years away from the German language.I wish I had this when I was in college. ... Read more

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Many words in French are nearly the same as their English counterparts, except for the word ending. For example, English words ending in "-ary" (such as "ordinary") usually end in "-aire" in French ("ordin-aire"). This book teaches 23 word-ending patterns between English and French and provides over 4,000 vocabulary words that follow them. Perfect as a classroom supplement or for self-study, it is appropriate for all ages and levels of experience. The companion audio CD teaches pronunciation.

Also available: Instant Spanish Vocabulary Builder and Instant Italian Vocabulary Builder. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Great Tool
I have been looking through spanish and french books for months now at every book store I go to (and online).

I have several critiria that I look for in a language resource now.

In regards to Vocaburlary builders, I look for:
- Words listed in categories (parts of the body, things in the kitchen, colors, numbers, etc)
- Verbs that go with the category listed also (Category: Things in the kitchen, Verbs listed with: to eat, to cook, to be hungry, etc)
- Phonic pronounciations (that make sense to me. ie cat /kat/)
- Use of the vocubulary words in sentences. A story in paragraph form full of cognates would be even better.
- Practice exersices.
- Cognates (words that are similar to the English word (but may be pronounced with the accents of the other launguage)
- Audio accompaniment so you can actually hear how the word sounds.

Of the 7 things listed above, this books does 1 1/2.

1) Cognates gets an A+.This book is just about exclusively a book of cognates and the patterns that they come in, followed by a long list of pure cognates.Cognates are a wonderful way to add huge amounts of vocabulary (4000+ words in this book) to your language with very little work.

2) Audio accompaniment.About 1 in 15 words in this book is spoken on the CD. The spoken words give you a taste of each of the different types of cognate conversions and you have to hope you can take their example and extrapolate it to the rest of the list.I only give this half credit cuz this so easily could be bolstered.How hard is it to have a native speaker read all 15 words instead of 1 when they are listed right in front of speaker.It's a opportunity lost.I would gladly pay extra to hear all the words spoken.

There are no phonic pronunciations written for any words in the book. There are no uses of the words in sentences. There is no grammar. The words are not listed in categories (exect for the cognate type (ie words that end in -tion)) I think words could be categorized even at this point.

This book is a tool that can be used to add great numbers of vocabulary (4000+) to your language and for that I am glad that I have it and recommend it as a gap filler in your language library.

This is a partial replacement to the out of print and outrageously costly Madrigal's Magic Key to French by Margarita Madrigal (which is selling for $183 on Amazon)I have nooooo idea why this book is out of print, when the Spanish version is in every book store I go to.Go figure.Anywho, Madrigal uses the same cognate approach, but adds lots of connecting words that help you build simple sentences that can be used instantly and frequently.Madrigal's book does not have an audio accompaniment and doesn't have phonics spelled out either, but the added sentence building and practice exercises are more valuable than just listing cognates, as Instant French does.If you ever find Madrigal's French in print, send me a copy. Please!: )

Italian Honeymoon
Recently my wife and I were planning a two week, once in a lifetime trip though Italy.We were very excited to see the entire country but realized that communicating might be difficult as we got into the Tuscan countryside.With this in mind we picked up a copy of Instant Italian Vocabulary Builder.

Although my wife and I had a bit of Spanish and Italian while in college, we didn't retain nearly enough of the language and its structure to feel comfortable on our trip.We each spent some of our free time reading though this book and were simply amazed at how much we retained.This method of learning worked wonders for the both of us and we commented to each other on our trip that we feel we learned more in the short time spent with this book than in our entire college experience.

This level of comfort with the language helped make our honeymoon a truly unforgettable experience.It allowed us to put our concerns aside and to enjoy our time in the Tuscan wine country.I would highly recommend this book to anyone looking for a fast and easy way to pick up the Italian language.Simply the best learning tool I've used while studying a foreign language. ... Read more

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A three-level vocabulary series for both self-study and classroom use.Now with a revised edition for each level, this best-selling series has been fully updated to give students the support they need to master more than 7,000 words and phrases in American English. Following the popular in Use format, new language is taught in manageable two-page units with presentation of vocabulary on the left-hand page and innovative practice activities on the right. Suitable for self-study or classroom use, the books are informed by the Cambridge International Corpus to ensure vocabulary taught is useful, up-to-date, and presented in a natural context. Additional activities for extra vocabulary and listening practice are available on the companion website. Firmly based on current vocabulary acquisition theory, this series promotes good learning habits and teaches students how to discover rules for using vocabulary correctly.The Intermdiate level teaches approximately 2,500 vocabulary items. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (2)

Excellent choice for vocab instruction
This book is wonderful. It is filled with vocabulary strategies that kids love. They are easy and adaptable to all grade levels. I love it - it is my vocabulary go-to book.

Words?Emphasis on Play!
Attn teachers: Sandra Whitaker's WORD PLAY just might be the cavalry coming over the hill to rescue your vocabulary program.This is especially the case if you are merely giving your kids a list of words every week (or every other) and quizzing them on Fridays (only to realize that they've forgotten 90% of said words within a month).

What's great about Whitaker's book is that she first provides the theory and then lays down the practical applications, complete with concrete, ready-to-roll-out-in-the-classroom activities.Furthermore, she inserts sideboxes called "Step Into a Classroom" to give you a fly-on-the-wall view of how the strategies worked in Virginia classrooms she observed.Finally, Whitaker offers differentiation advice so you can make the activities easier (for IEP or ELL students) or more difficult (for Honors or Gifted & Talented students).

She emphasizes teaching morphemes (the smallest portion of a word that carries a meaning) and affixes (that's prefixes and suffixes to you).Lecturing?Quizzing?Hardly.Such "dry fare" must be gussied up with fun and games -- only these "games" are educational and get results.Whitaker also offers advice on how to teach key academic vocabulary across the curriculum and how to invite etymology into the fray.

Read the book and hie thee to Staples for colored index cards and sticky notes.As a teacher, you probably already love words, their history, their humor, and their protean flexibility.So why hog all the fun when you can share it with the kids?With this as a guidebook, you can choose two or three strategies to start and be on your way.I know I'll be trying it this year, and I'm excited about the possibilities. ... Read more

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Vocabulary Drills teaches students the valuable words they need to know now. They discover how to unlock—and remember—the meanings of words they encounter after they leave the classroom. ... Read more

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The book has no illustrations or index. Purchasers are entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Subjects: Vocabulary; Juvenile Nonfiction / Language Arts / Vocabulary ... Read more

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This volume examines the area of second language vocabulary studies from three broad perspectives: description, acquisition and pedagogical context. The book's fifteen chapters are grouped together to achieve a balance between descriptions of what vocabulary is and how it behaves, how the mind learns new vocabulary and then uses it when it is learned, and pedagogical issues of teaching and testing L2 vocabulary. Some of the specific topics addressed in these three general areas include: - word frequency and vocabulary size, multi-word units, variation between spoken and written language; - models of lexical acquisition, first language influences on second language vocabulary acquisition, vocabulary learning strategies; - vocabulary and the syllabus, trends in teaching and testing vocabulary, lexical reference sources. ... Read more

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Cultivating a Six-Figure Vocabulary


Over 4,000 business terms defined
Entries from every field:Accounting, Management, Law, Real Estate, Computers, Math, Government, and more
... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Refining and Updating needed
Want to know what currency they use in Egypt?You won't find the Pound in the list of currencies.Want to know what the Coase Theorem is about?There is no excuse for omitting Coase and 4 others arbitrarily from the list of Nobel laureates, as Ronald Coase got his award in 1991.James Tobin was included, but there is no mention of the Tobin Tax, as the concept gained prominence a few years AFTER this book was published in 1999.

As a reference work, this book fails miserably.As a literary work, the definitions are inelegant and clumsy.It is categorically not a dictionary.It is nerd-speak at its best.It needs someone with the skill of Samuel Johnson to refine and polish up the English.

But WYSIWYG: what you see is what you get.The stated aim on the cover is "CULTIVATING" a vocabulary for business.It is wildly successful in this respect.It exposes the reader to new words and alternative definitions of ordinary words, like "bus" being a computer pathway between devices.

If your object is to learn something, this work has little overlap with other compendiums of words.It is rare and unusual.

Five stars for words like "Journeyman" which I thought was related to the musical wanderings of Eric Clapton's best selling album.
"Estoppel" was defined as "a restraint..." and in decades of using my favourite legal defence, I have not seen "estoppel" defined in this refreshing way.
"Freddie Mac" and "Fannie Mae" (Federal National Morgage Association) were useful inclusions.
The definition of "transfer tax" was spot on, and I have yet to find such a concise and accurate definition in any book on taxation.
"Laffer Curve", "ampersand", "Ponzi Scheme", are good refreshers of things you already know.Terms like "r correlation co-efficient" and "401(k)" are good memory joggers: there is a load of stuff which makes you go "yeah, I used to know that well - now let me check if my memory is still good".
My favourite definition was the lovely one for "reality check": a prompt return to realistic expectations after a period of fanciful thinking.
"Analysis paralysis" is also a good one.

I fail to see the relevance of the inclusion of ORDINARY words in the absence of a business context, like "cul-de-sac".More patronising is the inclusion of 2 diagrams to illustrate "right angle" which I think is 4th grade mathematics.An illustration of the Dvorak keyboard, on the other hand, would be interesting.

In the place of words which can be found in any other vocabulary compendium, I would have liked to see the expansion of terms commonly seen in business, like the German gmbh and AG companies, the European Spa, or the French SA (Societe Anonyme)."Withholding" present, "withholding tax" absent, the latter more useful in international business."Lis pendens" should add what this does to your credit rating.There are too many legal definitions from Criminal Law, compared to sparse representation from Business Law.White collar criminals would not have time to be reading this book and already have legal firms on their retainers."De minimis" is commonly mispronounced and would benefit from a pronouncing guide.Put it in the entire latin context "de minimis non curat lex" as well.

I am not sure if I am comfortable with the definition of "Delphi method" which might be misleading when over-condensed, and its antonym "Groupthink", a term introduced by the Rand Corporation in the 1950s, was excluded."Arbitrage" was defined clumsily: I get the meaning, but I want something more educational for such an important term.The next edition should include the use of super-computers in arbitrage.

Lehman Brothers Bond Index is now black humour and should be marked "H" for historical term."Pacific Rim" and "Asian Rim" misses countries like Peru, Chile, New Zealand, and notably Russia, which was not mentioned in either term.Russia is often overlooked, so you need to point it out specifically. APEC, "four adjectives in search of a noun", which Obama attended in 2009, but was present at the time of the 1999 printing, would have been a useful inclusion.

JPEG was defined, but this book needs updating to include "steganography" which often uses JPEGs for encryption by electronic watermarking.A lot of stuff was of course non-existent in 1999, the year of publication of this book.You do not need to be told a decade is a long time in business -"Paralipsis": a technical sounding word which has no business in this book.

My feedback to editors producing the next edition:

(1) Ruthlessly weed out everyday vocabulary words like "alibi", "damages", and go straight for "punitive damages", "aggravated damages" which is more in the ambit and scope of a book cultivating business vocabulary.
(2) Get your lists complete, because it is not your business to decide for the reader what would be relevant to their interests.
(3) Make this book more reader friendly.Less nerd-speak.More memorable sound-bites.Get the liberal arts people to refine the language.For definitions I am not comfortable with, or for technical concepts I need to deal with in detail, I can resort to the INTERNET. With the Internet as your competitor, keep in mind at all times Russell Crowe's exhortation in Gladiator: "Are you not entertained?Is this not what you came for?"You claim you are cultivating a business vocabulary, for goodness sake, not compiling a dictionary (and a bad one at that).

This book rates FIVE STARS for raising awareness to the parallel universe of business jargon.It is an affordable read.It is hard to find a similar book in this price band, Barron's being far more conservative.For the next edition, I expect to be entertained, not stare at a collection of words looking like links to the internet.

These three books are permanently placed on my working desk, next to my portable computer!
Word Smart: Building an Educated Vocabulary
Word Smart II: How to Build a More Powerful Vocabulary
by Adam Robinson
Word Smart for Business: Cultivating a Six Figure Vocabulary
by Paul West Brook

These three books are permanently placed on my working desk, next to my portable computer. I find them very useful as reference guides to writing smart.

The first two books have a combined inventory of almost 1,700 important words. They have been written by Adam Robinson & The Princeton Review Team. As some readers may know, Adam Robinson happens to be also the author of 'What Smart Students Know' a very good book about smart study techniques. The two books are originally targetted at students preparing for SAT & other standardised tests, but I find them very useful for working professionals.

The third book has an inventory of over 4,000 important business terms, covering quite a broad spectrum of business disciplines. It has been written by a noted financial planning expert.

I enjoy browsing these three books from time to time. I often refer to them as I write my daily business correspondence as well as my reviews on amazon website.

I strongly recommend these three books to readers who want to communicate effectively, be more persuasive & more importantly, get more from your reading.

Not badly written, but scattered, unfocused information
I am writing TOEIC test preparation materials and checked this book out (the 1999 version, which is 474 pages long) to help me design a business-oriented vocabulary book for ESL students.Basically, Word Smart for Business is a 4,000 entry, A-Z style dictionary.The entries are all assigned to one of twelve categories:Accounting, Business and Management, Computers and Communications, Economics, Finance, Human Resources, Insurance, Legal, Math, Real Estate, Business Slang, and Taxes.While Mr. Westbrook does include a variety of terms from each of the above categories, I did not find Word Smart for Business too helpful in my TOEIC designing task.First, I think Word Smart needs some sort of organizational scheme; perhaps the words could be organized by category or theme.A thematic organizational approach would have made the book more user friendly, in my opinion.Next, there seem to be more than a few random words (especially in the "slang" and "math" categories) in Word Smart that have little to do with business or business English.For example, while it's true that slang terms such as "no brainer" and "out to lunch" are sometimes used in a business context, aren't they just as often used in other contexts?Likewise, including math terms like the Pythagorean Theorem and the algebraic distributive law was also puzzling to me.Do people actually use these math terms in a business context?On a positive note, I liked some of the interesting charts and comics that were included with the terms.I found myself wishing there were more visuals like this in Word Smart.I was also not sure who the audience for this book was:It seems too basic for someone who is hardcore in their business knowledge, but too random and complicated for a business ESL-type student.Word Smart for Business has some interesting material, but needs a clearer focus. ... Read more

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NBA Hall Of Famer and New York Knicks broadcaster Walt Frazier has created an exciting book to help provide kids with the essential vocabulary skills that many of them are growing up without.Word Jam explains more than 100 powerful words to help students boost their language skills and communicate with friends, families, and teachers.In addition, this celebrity author shares his own success story: how at the end of his basketball career he employed his love of learning, studied a new word every day, and eventually became one of America's most widely recognized sports broadcasters. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Walt Frazier Dishes & Swishes!
This is one of those unusual books that is both a pleasure to read and educational.NBA Hall of Famer and TV broadcaster Walt Frazier has an inspiring message to tell about how the power of words can help anyone achieve their goals.Delightful artwork and more than 100 powerful words and the stories behind each one.Highly recommended. ... Read more

Product Description

The Glencoe Vocabulary Builder program uses a systematic approach to building students’ vocabularyby presenting words in context or information about word parts to help students unlock word meanings independently, and by requiring students to apply their knowledge of new words in reading and writing exercises. Each book in the seven book series is designed for a specific reading level and features readings from the humanities, social studies, and sciences, vocabulary from Greek and Latin roots, assessment after each writing assigment, and a section on taking standardized tests. Vocabulary Builder is a research-based program and is ideal for SAT/ACT preparation.

Product Description
Vocabulary demonstrates a person's ability to communicate effectively -- a sure road to success. Webster's New World Pocket Vocabulary offers readers a concise, practical tool for building vocabulary, in a durable, portable format. The succinct format lets readers proceed at their own pace, starting at levels that appeal to students and continuing through levels that appeal to business professionals. Presenting information in an approachable, reader-friendly style, Webster's New World Pocket Vocabulary selects words that readers are most likely to encounter in educational and professional reading. The book is a pleasure to use, presenting words, definitions, sample sentences and usage as well as similar and related words. It features:

• Word lists ranging from middle-school to professional levels
• Word lists by topic from anatomy to zoology
• Word listings include sample sentences or quotes, similar words, related words and clear definitions

Product Description

• Do you misuse and mispronounce some words?
• Do you sometimes find yourself at a loss to express exactly what you mean?
• Do you fail to comprehend complex words while reading?
• Are you tired of having people seemingly talk "above" you?

If you answered YES to any of these questions, then 30 Days To A More Powerful Vocabulary is the perfect solution. Millions of people have improved their academic performance, job skills, and self-esteem, just by spending fifteen minutes a day completing the simple exercises and self-tests within this bestselling guide!

You will learn, step-by-step, how to
• increase your language power with word "roots"
• find the words to sell your ideas
• learn new words daily
• check on your progress with 30 challenging tests

PLUS - Complete Index to New Words and Pronunciation Key
30 Days To A More Powerful Vocabulary
Nearly Four Million Copies In Print! ... Read more

Customer Reviews (16)

Great Condition, Fast and on time delivery.
The delivery was right on time and book was in beautiful shape. Thank you very much.

textbook....literally
We used this as a textbook in my senior Advanced Placement Honors English class years ago. It works. I know it does, because I still use many of the words from it (soporific, ennui, peccadillo, dipsomaniac to name a few). I wish I still had a copy of it. I'd bet I still remember the vast majority of the words and their definitions.

worse purchase ever !
This book sold as used good condition but it is in fact a lie.
This seller should not be allowed to sell other books.

so far so good : )
This book is great so far - very short chapters, actually finish one chapter every day on my way back home from work.I've only finished 5 chapters, so I can only say so much, but it seems clear, well organized and really uses some creative ways to make sure you remember the new words.I recommend!

Classic and Intuitive
I was assigned this book as a college freshman. The more I used it, the more I loved it. Now, I'm using it to teach vocabulary.
Chapters are have brain-friendly titles. Definitions are worded clearly and simply.
Visually, though, it needs updating. This book was first published before computerized typesetting and desperately needs visual modernization. If you're a confident reader, it's no big deal, but as a reluctant student of English, you might find the text-dense pages a bit mucky.
... Read more

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Widely published author Howard Jackson has written a student-friendly, comprehensive introduction to the grammar and vocabulary of contemporary English. Grammar and Vocabulary covers the core areas of grammar and vocabulary: words and sentences, word classes, word structure, slots and fillers, sentence patterns, clause and phrase, grammar rules and vocabularies Drawing on a vast range of real texts including articles from The Guardian to a poem by Betjemen, this introduction also provides classic readings by Halliday, Quirk, Ayto and Trudgill. This introduction uses real studies designed and conducted by students to facilitate understanding for all who wish to pursue these core aspects of language usage. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (16)

You need to know 400 words BEFORE using this book!
Have you gone through a Korean language learning textbook series, by self-study or with a teacher in class, and have tried hard to acquire a minimum of ~1000 vocabulary items (e.g. with the intro text by Ross King 'Elementary Korean, 2nd Edition')? And of the 1000 vocabulary items you had learned, you even tend to forget half of them after just a few months, because memorizing Korean words are incredibly hard for Western-culture, non-Asian learners, so in the end you can really remember only 400 items and still struggle with the other 600 you've been forgetting? Then you are experiencing the same difficulties like me and I am from Europe and dont know any Hanja or Chinese. Good news, this old, very old book helped me to consolidate those remaining 600 items and to add another bunch of hard-looking words! Try to work with the book the following way:
Mark with a yellow coloured pencil the full line of those 400 entries which you really really(!) know, already, by heart. Then mark only the Korean word, i.e. not the full line, of those entries which sound very familiar to you (incl. all of the just mentioned remaining 600 items) AND are easy to deduct from the roots given. Thus, you will have fully/partially marked more than 1000 items. During this tedious marking task you will be automatically referred back to the lists which you have seen before. By the repeated or repetitive revising of the same lists, from time to time 'increasing in coloured-pencil marks', you will be gaining a true grasp of the meaning of the head root (the main handbook entry) and its sublisted compounds and just by re- and again re-reading the lists the words and their word formation will remain in your memory. And all of a sudden, trying to recognize and memorize a at first hard-looking vocabulary item becomes, at last, all logical, natural and almost fluent of a task. And for sure much easier than the brute-force attack method of memorizing single arbitrary vocabulary items you encounter in textbooks, during class, on the road with friends, or elsewhere. This book is old and looks old, not very attractive at first sight, I know. But I promise that it is indeed highly useful and almost invaluable. Caution, the book was printed and reprinted under different ISBN-10 numbers. Since 2007 a Korean publishing company has been selling a licensed 'camera-copy' of this title, with a different paperback cover, at bargain prices on the internet. However, the print/ink/copy quality is horrible, the Hanja characters are not sharp or clear anymore. Try to avoid buying the reprint versions and get the original book version from here Amazon! The original book version comes in top paper and print quality. Also, a good supplementary book to accompany this handbook is Paul DeGennaro's little book How to Master Korean Vocabulary. In fact, DeGennaro's work is fully based upon this handbook, as you can read from its preface!

Very useful book
I have been studying Korean on and off for about a year now and I have struggled with retaining vocabulary. This book has already immensely helped me understand the roots in Korean and has increased by Korean dramatically. I highly recommend this book for anyone who is seriously trying to learn Korean.

Excellent approach to learning Korean using the Chinese roots
This book takes a method of using Chinese root words as the basis for Korean vocabulary. It clearly demonstrates how to create the Korean "compound words" from Chinese characters and then shows how the words are related based on the roots. For certain types of learners like myself, this is an excellent approach to learning groups of related vocabulary. Thumbs Up!!

You Need This Book If You Want to Learn Korean
Some of the definitions are awkward (EX: "lucky freckle" for a word in Korean that means a birthmark with symbolic significance, "economization of time" instead of "time management"), but it's nothing you can't handle. Also would be nice if the definitions were contextualized, so you know if you're using the right word for what you want to say. A word index would make this book almost perfect, so you could use it as a dictionary and not just as a textbook. Very comprehensive. Will speed up your acquistion of vocabulary by 10 or even 20 times, and memorizing vocab is about 80% of picking up a new language, so don't give yourself a hard time by not getting this book.

A good handbook for beginner-intermediate level
The beauty of this handbook is it's written in both Hangul and English.A good handy book for improving one's vocabularies and phrases.
It is not a replacement for a Korean-English dictionary and NOT for ABSOLUTE beginners! ... Read more

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EXPAND YOUR VOCABULARY--FOR BETTER TEST SCORES AND BETTER COMMUNICATION

You probably can't learn all the hundreds of thousands of words in the English language--but you can learn those difficult words you're most likely to need to know. If you want to increase your vocabulary for standardized tests or just better communication, Webster's New World Essential Vocabulary is the only tool you need. It presents essential words with definitions, example sentences, synonyms, and tense forms.

In addition to the most frequently tested terms from the SAT and GRE tests, Webster's New World Essential Vocabulary also includes helpful appendices on foreign phrases, prefixes, and suffixes. Together, these 1,500 words and definitions not only prepare you for tough tests, but also dramatically improve your communication skills for the business world or studying English as a second language. Whether you're worried about college entrance exams or just want to be better with words, this practical, helpful resource gives you the tools you need to read, speak, and write more persuasively, and communicate more effectively. Plus, Handy self-tests let you gauge your understanding of words and meaning, so you can measure your progress as you go! ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

good vocabulary builder
I use this book almost on daily basis for half an hour or so. It lists around 1500 words which are allegedly the ones you will most often encounter on the SAT and GRE tests.

It does, however, possess strictly the elements you will find in any good dictionary: the words are listed in alphabetical order(a pronunciation note is given for each word), each word is thoroughly defined, and you are provided with several (excellent) examples on its usage, often one for each of its different meanings (if the word has more than one meaning).

Although it very much looks like the content of an average-quality dictionary you probably already own, its main function could not be disputed - the author has carefully selected (out of hundreds of thousands) those 1500 words that are most likely that an educated person will need in its vocabulary, not only to take successfully one of the above-mentioned tests, but also in his career and everyday life.

There are also some review exercises after each section, which consist solely of the task of linking synonymous words - again a feature with limited usefulness, since almost all dictionaries already provide you with a list of synonyms. I believe the author could have been more creative in his effort to provide good review practice, especially because reviewing is the only way to memorize the words you've just met and ultimately build up your vocabulary by using them. Furthermore, I also think the author could have thought of a better way to group the words - thematically, by level of difficulty, or in any other systematic way. Instead, he decided on listing them alphabetically, which is of limited usefulness to the student. You may soon get bored, since it feels like reading a dictionary. The good side is that you will easily find a word you are looking for (although this could have been achieved with an index at the end of the book). Even so, you do not have to follow this book as it is written. You may choose, like I have, to simply open it randomly and do some reading; the negative side being, of course, that you may do many repetitions and omissions in this way. But repetitions are good for your vocabulary, right :)?

Despite this, I find this book quite enjoying and I highly recommend it. Although I do not intend to take any of the tests this book helps you prepare, it still is an excellent way to expand your vocabulary extensively, incorporating many important words that you will certainly use in one way or another in your life. Let me draw your attention to the fact that many studies have shown that your professianal and even social success is directly linked to the scope and depth of your vocabulary. ... Read more