'Could there be a more relevant book for our times? . . . Vengoechea implores us to truly hear other people (maybe for the first time) and is the perfect author of a book on why we should listen like we mean it' - Nir Eyal, author of Hooked and Indistractable Hear me out. Does this sound like you? You end a team meeting and can't recall a single thing that was said. You leave a conversation with a friend feeling disconnected and unfulfilled. You think you and your boss are on the same page, only to find out you haven't been meeting expectations. Fortunately, listening, like any communication skill, can be improved, and Ximena Vengoechea can show you how. As a user researcher, she has spent nearly a decade facilitating hundreds of conversations at LinkedIn, Twitter and Pinterest. It's her job to uncover the truth behind how people use, and really think about, her company's products. In Listen Like You Mean It, she reveals the tips and tricks of the trade, including: - How to quickly build rapport with strangers - Which questions help people unlock what they need to say - When it's time to throw out the script entirely - How to recover from listener's drain

Talk German has already inspired thousands of people to learn German from scratch and find the confidence to give it a go.

Whether you're learning for business, travel or just for fun, its straightforward, step-by-step approach will ensure you're soon able to speak German in a range of everyday situations.

With its specially designed activities and clear, jargon-free grammar explanations you'll quickly develop your language skills and make genuine progress right from the start.

• Make real progress using the successful, proven Talk method.
• Develop your language skills with tips and strategies to help you learn.
• Practise and learn with interactive activities to support every topic.

Julie Barlow and Jean-Benoit Nadeau spent a decade traveling back and forth to Paris as well as living there. Yet one important lesson never seemed to sink in: how to communicate comfortably with the French, even when you speak their language. In The Bonjour Effect Julie and Jean-Benoit chronicle the lessons they learned after they returned to France to live, for a year, with their twin daughters. They offer up all the lessons they learned and explain, in a book as fizzy as a bottle of the finest French champagne, the most important aspect of all: the French don't communicate, they converse.To understand and speak French well, one must understand that French conversation runs on a set of rules that go to the heart of French culture. Why do the French like talking about "the decline of France"? Why does broaching a subject like money end all discussion? Why do the French become so aroused debating the merits and qualities of their own language? Through encounters with school principals, city hall civil servants, old friends and business acquaintances, Julie and Jean-Benoit explain why, culturally and historically, conversation with the French is not about communicating or being nice. It's about being interesting. After reading The Bonjour Effect, even readers with a modicum of French language ability will be able to hold their own the next time they step into a bistro on the Left Bank.

This book seeks to help teachers teach listening in a more principled way by presenting what is known from research, exploring teachers' beliefs and practices, examining textbook materials, and offering practical activities for improving second language listening.

Listening in a second language is challenge for students and teachers alike. This book provides a personal account of an action research intervention involving listening strategy instruction that investigated the viability of this innovative pedagogy in the Japanese university context.

Talk Italian has already inspired thousands of people to learn Italian from scratch and find the confidence to give it a go.

Whether you're learning for business, travel or just for fun, its straightforward, step-by-step approach will ensure you're soon able to speak Italian in a range of everyday situations.

With its specially designed activities and clear, jargon-free grammar explanations you'll quickly develop your language skills and make genuine progress right from the start.

• Make real progress using the successful, proven Talk method.
• Develop your language skills with tips and strategies to help you learn.
• Practise and learn with interactive activities to support every topic.

Do you want to develop a solid understanding of Swedish and communicate confidently with others? Through authentic conversations, vocabulary building, grammar explanations and extensive practice and review, Complete Swedish will equip you with the skills you need to use Swedish in a variety of settings and situations, developing your cultural awareness along the way. The book follows several characters through a storyline enabling learners to engage with Swedish culture and contextualise their learning. What will I achieve by the end of the course? By the end of Complete Swedish you will have a solid intermediate-level grounding in the four key skills - reading, writing, speaking and listening - and be able to communicate with confidence and accuracy. You will be able to engage with relevant and up-to-date topics, including politics, education, gender equality and popular entertainment in Sweden. Is this course for me? If you want to move confidently from beginner to intermediate level, this is the course for you. It's perfect for the self-study learner, with a one-to-one tutor, or for the beginner classroom. It can be used as a refresher course as well as to support study for the 'Swedex' Swedish proficiency test. What do I get? -20 learning units plus verb reference and word glossary -Discovery Method - figure out rules and patterns to make the language stick -Teaches the key skills - reading, writing, listening, and speaking -Learn to learn - tips and skills on how to be a better language learner -Culture notes - learn about the people and places of Sweden -Outcomes-based learning - focus your studies with clear aims -Authentic listening activities - everyday conversations give you a flavour of real spoken Swedish -Test Yourself - see and track your own progress *Complete Swedish maps from A1 Beginner to B2 Upper Intermediate level of the CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages) guidelines and from Novice-Low to Advanced-Mid level of the ACTFL (American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages) proficiency guidelines. The free audio for this course is available to download to the Teach Yourself Library app, or to stream on library.teachyourself.com. What else can I use to learn Swedish? If you require an absolute Beginner course, you can try our Get Started in Swedish Absolute Beginner course: 9781444175202 Rely on Teach Yourself, trusted by language learners for over 80 years.

Talk French has already inspired thousands of people to learn French from scratch and find the confidence to give it a go.

Whether you're learning for business, travel or just for fun, its straightforward, step-by-step approach will ensure you're soon able to speak French in a range of everyday situations.

With its specially designed activities and clear, jargon-free grammar explanations you'll quickly develop your language skills and make genuine progress right from the start.

• Make real progress using the successful, proven Talk method.
• Develop your language skills with tips and strategies to help you learn.
• Practise and learn with interactive activities to support every topic.

Talk Spanish has already inspired thousands of people to learn Spanish from scratch and find the confidence to give it a go.

Whether you're learning for business, travel or just for fun, its straightforward, step-by-step approach will ensure you're soon able to speak Spanish in a range of everyday situations.

With its specially designed activities and clear, jargon-free grammar explanations you'll quickly develop your language skills and make genuine progress right from the start.

• Make real progress using the successful, proven Talk method.
• Develop your language skills with tips and strategies to help you learn.
• Practise and learn with interactive activities to support every topic.

Listening is now regarded by researchers and practitioners as a highly active skill involving prediction, inference, reflection, constructive recall, and often direct interaction with speakers. In this new theoretical and practical guide, Michael Rost and JJ Wilson demonstrate how active listening can be developed through guided instruction. With so many new technologies and platforms for communication, there are more opportunities than ever before for learners to access listening input, but this abundance leads to new challenges: how to choose the right input how to best use listening and viewing input inside and outside the classroom how to create an appropriate syllabus using available resources Active Listening explores these questions in clear, accessible prose, basing its findings on a theoretical framework that condenses the most important listening research of the last two decades. Showing how to put theory into practice, the book includes fifty innovative activities, and links each one to relevant research principles. Sample audio recordings are also provided for selected activities, available online at the series website www.pearsoned.co.uk/rostwilson. As a bridge between theory and practice, Active Listening will encourage second language teachers, applied linguists, language curriculum coordinators, researchers, and materials designers to become more active practitioners themselves, by more fully utilising research in the field of second language listening.

Covers much of the acoustics a student needs, without mathematics or scientific background. Choice Outstanding Academic Title A survey of intervals and scales, tone pitch, loudness and time in Western music raises many questions about the hearing mechanism and throws doubt on the conventional role of harmonics. James Beament's account of how musical sounds are coded by the ear and the brain's processing units, provides answers to most of these questions. It concludes that music started with simple instruments which voices imitated, and that the need to know sound direction determined the characteristics of hearing. This book will interest students, practising musicians and music psychologists, and assumes no scientific knowledge. The late ProfessorSir JAMES BEAMENT was a distinguished scientist and musician, who taught and examined music students at Cambridge University.

It's easy to teach yourself Greek! "Complete Greek: A Teach Yourself Guide" provides you with a clear and comprehensive approach to Greek, so you can progress quickly from the basics to understanding, speaking, and writing Greek with confidence. Within each of the 24 thematic chapters, important language structures are introduced through life-like dialogues. You'll learn grammar in a gradual manner so you won't be overwhelmed by this tricky subject. Exercises accompany the texts and reinforce learning in listening, speaking, reading, and writing. This program also features current cultural information boxes that reflect recent changes in society. Features: One and five-minute introductions to key principles to get you started Lots of instant help with common problems and quick tips for success, based on the author's many years of experience Tests in the book and online to keep track of your progress Extra online articles at www.teachyourself.com to give you a richer understanding of the basics of the language

If we want children to be successful, confident, independent learners, we need to relearn the skill of truly listening. The Voice of the Child builds on a number of theories which recognise the importance of interacting with, and listening, to the children in our care, and demonstrates how these can be put into practice - listening, communicating and hearing the voice of the child effectively. The book addresses each phase of a child's development, from birth through to five years, and explains how communication skills can be used to support individual children's specific needs. Chapters offer practical tips and strategies to help early years practitioners to listen and communicate in such a way as to encourage and enhance the development of a child's speech and language skills. With case studies and reflective questions included throughout, the book highlights the importance of listening to children in order to keep them safe, ensure they feel included in their community, and to promote their confidence and self-esteem. The Voice of the Child is essential reading for early years practitioners and students, including those on Childhood Studies courses, who want to gain a clear understanding of how their own communication skills can impact on the child.

Looking for a convenient way to build your Mandarin Chinese vocabulary without drills, books, homework or long lists to memorize? HOW DOES IT WORK? In this five-hour intermediate level audio course, Michel Thomas Method teacher Harold Goodman introduces over 600 new words and everyday phrases and the tools to allow you to create thousands more through the application of simple rules for building more words for concepts, people, places, adjectives and verbs. Learning alongside two genuine students, you will acquire essential language building blocks which allow you to increase your vocabulary in manageable, enjoyable steps by thinking out answers for yourself. You will learn at your own pace, pausing and repeating where necessary. You'll stick with it, because you'll love it. WHY IS IT SO SUCCESSFUL? Unlike most vocabulary courses which give you lists of words to memorize, the Michel Thomas Method based Mandarin Chinese Vocabulary Course allows you to further extend your vocabulary by unlocking what you already know. The course is designed to take advantage of the logic and patterns of Mandarin so you can exponentially build up your knowledge and understanding of the language. WHO IS THE COURSE FOR? Whether you have learned from other Michel Thomas Method courses or are simply looking for a new approach to help improve your proficiency, the high-beginner to Intermediate level Mandarin Chinese Vocabulary Course will introduce you to a unique way of acquiring language that will significantly boost your confidence in your ability to speak and understand Chinese. It is a Phase 2 course and should be used after you have completed the Intermediate Mandarin Chinese Course or equivalent. What's in the Course?* Mandarin Chinese Vocabulary Course includes five audio CDs. The booklet is available to download from www.michelthomas.com. *Note that the course content is the same as the previously entitled Mandarin Chinese Vocabulary Builder+ course, but does not include a CD-ROM. LEARN ANYWHERE AND ANYTIME! Reclaim your pockets of free time to learn a new language! Don't be tied to chunky books or your computer, Michel Thomas Method audio courses let you learn whenever and wherever you want, in as little or as much time as you have.

Colloquial Russian 2 is the ideal way to refresh your knowledge of the language and to extend your skills. Structured to give you the opportunity to listen to and read lots of modern, everyday Russian, Colloquial Russian 2 has been developed to work systematically on reinforcing and extending your grasp of Russian grammar, vocabulary, intercultural communication skills, and understanding of contemporary Russian society. New to this edition: revision material to help consolidate and build up learners' basics; a wide range of authentic and up-to-date reading materials, including blogs, forums, surveys, opinion pieces, and commentaries; exercises based on role plays, group activities, and debating techniques, aimed at developing oral communication and expanding vocabulary range of learners; and new audio material including authentic and up-to-date audio excerpts. Audio material to accompany the course is available to download free in MP3 format from www.routledge.com/cw/colloquials. Recorded by native speakers, the audio material features the dialogues and texts from the book and will help develop your listening and pronunciation skills.

Do you want to develop a solid understanding of Cantonese and communicate confidently with others? Through authentic conversations, vocabulary building, grammar explanations and extensive practice and review, Complete Cantonese will equip you with the skills you need to use Cantonese in a variety of settings and situations, developing your cultural awareness along the way. What will I achieve by the end of the course? By the end of Complete Cantonese you will have a solid intermediate-level grounding in the four key skills - reading, writing, speaking and listening - and be able to communicate with confidence and accuracy. Is this course for me? If you want to move confidently from beginner to intermediate level, this is the course for you. It's perfect for the self-study learner, with a one-to-one tutor, or for the beginner classroom. It can also be used as a refresher course. What do I get? -26 learning units plus verbs reference and word glossary and revision section -Discovery Method - figure out rules and patterns to make the language stick -Teaches the key skills - reading, writing, listening, and speaking -Learn to learn - tips and skills on how to be a better language learner -Culture notes - learn about the people and places of China -Outcomes-based learning - focus your studies with clear aims -Authentic listening activities - everyday conversations give you a flavour of real spoken Cantonese -Test Yourself - see and track your own progress *Complete Cantonese maps from Novice Low to Advanced Low level proficiency of ACTFL (American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages) and from A1 Beginner to B1/B2 Upper Intermediate level of the CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages) guidelines. What else can I use to learn Cantonese? If you require an absolute Beginner course, you can try our Get Started in Cantonese Absolute Beginner course: 9781444174991 This pack includes a book and one mp3 CD of audio material. Rely on Teach Yourself, trusted by language learners for over 75 years.

Looking for a convenient way to build your Arabic vocabulary without drills, books, homework or long lists to memorize? HOW DOES IT WORK? In this five-hour intermediate level audio course, Michel Thomas Method teachers Jane Wightwick and Mahmoud Gaafar introduce over 600 new words and everyday phrases and the tools to allow you to create thousands more through the application of simple rules for building more words for concepts, people, places, adjectives and verbs. Learning alongside two genuine students, you will acquire essential language building blocks which allow you to increase your vocabulary in manageable, enjoyable steps by thinking out answers for yourself. You will learn at your own pace, pausing and repeating where necessary. You'll stick with it, because you'll love it. WHY IS IT SO SUCCESSFUL? Unlike most vocabulary courses which give you lists of words to memorize, the Michel Thomas Method based Egyptian Arabic Vocabulary Course allows you to further extend your vocabulary by unlocking what you already know. The course is designed to take advantage of the logical construction of Arabic, in which by altering words in predictable ways (e.g. by mimicking word patterns or adding regular prefixes and suffixes), you will exponentially build up your knowledge and understanding of the language. WHO IS THE COURSE FOR? Whether you have learned from other Michel Thomas Method courses or are simply looking for a new approach to help improve your proficiency, the high-beginner to Intermediate level Egyptian Arabic Vocabulary Course will introduce you to a unique way of acquiring language that will significantly boost your confidence in your ability to speak and understand Arabic. It is a Phase 2 course and should be used after you have completed the Intermediate Arabic Course. The course teaches Egyptian Arabic, as this variety is understood throughout the Arabic-speaking world owing to its dissemination through film and popular culture. What's in the Course?* Egyptian Arabic Vocabulary Course includes five audio CDs. The booklet is available to download from www.michelthomas.com. *Note that the course content is the same as the previously entitled Arabic Vocabulary Builder+ course, but does not include a CD-ROM. LEARN ANYWHERE AND ANYTIME! Reclaim your pockets of free time to learn a new language! Don't be tied to chunky books or your computer, Michel Thomas Method audio courses let you learn whenever and wherever you want, in as little or as much time as you have.