Foreign-market Books

Very good and inexpensive dictionary for a beginner-intermediate who wants to expand their vocabulary - many definitions are shown in their common usage in phrases which I appreciate.

No didactical at all, very boring, bunch of words grouped together in lessons pronounced in good french though, very little conversation, not what I expected. Wouldn't recommend it!

I had hoped to be able to use the course while driving around. However the course is very dependent upon the printed material which makes it useless for what I intended.

The Living Language grammar series books are excellent adjuncts to regular college or high school language texts or on their own for one familiar with the language acquisition process. For $10-$20 (including grammar book, 3 CD's, and dictionary) complete bought at Amazon, anyone can afford to begin really learning another language (French and Spanish in my case). REMEMBER: Search by the ISBN# for the best prices. Since repetition or practice on a DAILY basis is key to slowly picking up another language, the lightweight, portable paperback Living Language books provide the key to practicing your new language anywhere you happen to be sitting for a few minutes. The lessons are short, concise and quite accurate. The Living Language grammar lessons are arranged in LOGICAL order after the immersion style lessons, which are excellent for de-stressing and taking the fear from learning new and generally unfamiliar foreign language grammar styles. Exercises are included with each grammar lesson. There is vocabulary building and there is more than one word/phrase given for most different meanings which is one of the keys to creating neural net pathways in memory for holding onto a new language, it's idioms, colloquialisms, etc.

Overall the Living Language series in any language offered is KEY to picking up a new language providing ready access to spot practice sessions of short duration to match our short-term opportunities for practice in very busy modern life. Enjoy!!!

Native language speakers generally recommend expensive programs like Rosetta Stone. However, Living Language provides language learning access to the average citizen.

Frank Snapp
North Oakland, CA

I bought this french lesson kit 3 years ago, before a trip to France. I didnt know any french whatsoever, never had a class, watched a movie, nothing. Thinking back, I think the package said "beginner to intermediate". I consider myself a quick study and thought it'd be perfect.

I had a difficult time learning. And it wasnt until a few years later (now) that I understand why I wasnt learning anything. This kit is designed to learn by memorization. It doesnt focus on structure. It gives you page after page of "everyday" sentences, then has vocab at the end. But it doesnt explain HOW the french language works. So you're memorizing and then you quickly forget. It does have a lil something about the etre and avoir. But thats it. It doesnt explain things like inversion, but we're supposed to memorize it??

With that said, this is a GREAT book for intermediate level. It is excellent for honing your pronunciation skills, the listening CDs go on for HOURS. If you've had at least ONE semester of french, then this is perfect for you. Because thats when you already have an understanding of the language, and you're more focused on expanding your vocab and pronunciation/speaking. This kit is PERFECT for that.

It is difficult to understand quite a bit these CDs. The native speakers speak so quickly - which is fine if adequate written help is available. It isn't. I have to have Spanish speaking friends listen for me and then repeat the words slowly or write them or else I am lost.

I had two years of high school Spanish, and another year in college. When my husband and I started traveling, I wanted to relearn some of my Spanish. Even with the background I had, this audio was much too fast. I have persisted with listening daily, but have not had the progress I would have wanted because relatively difficult and unusable sentences are repeated quickly, then I won't hear them again until I get back to that section of the day in several days(I'm listening on the way to work, so don't back tape up). Some sentences are not translated, and individual words have to be figured out by elimination of the words you already know. This is definately not a beginner course, but may be helpful for someone who had been relatively fluent in Spanish and now wants a review. I am in the search for another (and better) tape, hopefully oriented toward the traveler who will need to make hotel reservations, arrange train travel, etc.

Having read the previous reviews of this CD set, I wonder if I'm the only one who has enjoyed it. What excited me most about All-Audio Spanish was when I had listened to all 6 CDs and restarted Disk 1. I had felt a bit frustrated as the CDs progressed, feeling, as some other reviewers apparently have, that it was really fast. But when I started CD 1 again, and was able to speak along fairly well for the first few lessons (there are 35 total), I was really excited. I just completed a 17-hour drive, listening to the CDs the whole way, which was enough time to listen to all CDs twice. While I'm not nearly fluent, I'm amazed at how much of the conversation in the CDs I can actually understand. Particular features I like about the set:

The book: since it's all-audio, the book isn't much; it basically lists the words used in the CDs (listed by lesson), along with their translations. There's also a section on the grammar rules discussed on the CDs. The reason I like the book is because it's concise, and makes referencing from the CDs easy. It's not necessary to reference the book while listening, but I have found it helpful to review the words of a lesson in the evening when I'm not driving.

The organization: Each lesson is divided into lettered sections (i.e., Lesson 1a), from A to H. Each sub-lesson has it's own focus, such as new vocabulary words (A), or Hispanic cultural information (G).

Depth of language coverage: As the lessons progress, the narrator always teaches new vocabulary, but goes through all modes of language use, such as past tense, future tense, subjunctive, etc., making each lesson valuable. Other language books I've read separate subjects out without integrating necessary information, so if you're not interested in learning about riding trains, for example, you can just skip the section. But in this set, a lot of what you learn in each section applies to all parts of the language.

Difficulty format: What I mean by this is that the difficulty level goes up dramatically in the first 5 lessons (CD 1), and then stays there. Although you continue to learn new things, and there is necessarily some building on earlier lessons, the difficulty level stays about the same. Having said that, it's also wide open for continual learning. Since I'm not worried about completely understanding each lesson before tackling the next, it leaves me something else to learn when I come back to this lesson again. This also helps me retain the information that I do learn.

Things that bugged me about All-Audio Spanish:

Packaging: The CD holder in the box is not convenient for changing CDs when driving. The plastic is too stiff, too tight, and doesn't have a slit to make it easier to pull out the CD, making it necessary to touch front and back of the CD to pull it out (something I hate to do).

Overlooked words: This is minor, because you pick it up as you go through the lessons, but it bugged me. First, at the beginning, when the linguists are demonstrating how to pronounce the alphabet, they skip the letter "K". Also, as they're going through the numbers, they skip 11 and 12.

I highly recommend this CD set. I think that if you put any effort into it, you will reap huge benefits.

This product is good for someone who has had an introductory course and understands how Spanish verbs are conjugated. It is a little more advanced than beginner's course helped me learn more!

Before trying this course, I took the Berlitz introductory course and courses I and II by Pimsleur. I found both the Berlitz and Pimsleur courses better than this one. I agree with all the reviewers who didn't like it. This course is too heavy on discussing grammar and vocabulary and not heavy enough on practicing dialogue. It's easier to learn grammar and vocabulary from books. Audio tapes are more useful for practicing dialogue and pronuncation. The section in each lesson where you are asked to respond is too difficult for a beginner, and at the same time not very useful for an intermediate student, and it's much too short. Now I am trying Pasos 2 which at least has more dialogue to listen to, even though the speakers use slang and are difficult to understand.

I was looking for a book on foreign currency strategy well suited for readers with MBAs or degrees in economics - people not afraid to delve into the theory, but not necessarily well-versed in this particular topic. The "Wiley Finance" imprint usually does a good job of exactly this - a thorough serious treatment of a subject, but without differential equations. However, this book was too basic. It breezed by the theory at 10,000 feet with few references to academic papers/studies that could take you farther. Also, the book was poorly edited (shame -it is a 2nd edition) with repetition, rambling and grammatical errors. Callum Henderson clearly knows his subject, but demands too little of his readers and was not helped by his editors. That said, there are few alternatives on the subject that aren't trading books replete with technical analysis or thick academic tomes that are aimed at shaping public policy rather than informing market participants. So read the book and get what you can out of it.

This is a good introduction to exchange rate determination in theory and in practice. Useful for someone with a little bit of background into economics or exchange rates who wants to delve a bit more. It is slightly frustrating in that the theories are explained but little is provided in terms of whether the evidence shows it works or not. It also lacks adequate references.

One outstanding feature of this book, and indeed a lot of work by this author, is that it moves beyond just exchange rate forecasting into the realm of exchange rate risk management and other issues pertinent to those who deal in this space.

As a professional trader who deals with the ups and downs of the FX market from Monday to Friday for years, particularly with the extreme volatility of USD from last October till now, I am obliged to comment that the book is of little practical/predictive use. Unless you really wanna study academic theories about FX like different kinds of exchange rate regime or exchange rate model (which seldom held themselves), or get reasons to hedge your exposure "completely" for your company's or your own investment portfolio, please give this book a pass.

If you're a hedge fund manager I think might be the right book for you. There is a lot of information for the individual but it doesn't seem to come together in the end. The book makes many good points about the use of fundamental as well as technical analysis. But the fundamental data is mentioned but Sources are not included. I've spent to hours and hours trying to locate the data.

In 1971, President Richard Nixon ended the convertibility of the dollar into gold and thereby scotched the mechanism of international agreements and regulations that had governed the world monetary system since the end of World War II. Over the ensuing decades, the once-stable global monetary environment became an exciting, volatile new source of risk and opportunity. Manufacturers saw their fortunes rise and fall as currency shifts favored them or, alternatively, their competitors overseas. Financial institutions discovered new opportunities and dangers in fast-moving currency markets. We recommend this book for its detailed and generally clear, albeit often tedious, introduction to the tools, techniques and strategies readers may use to manage risk or speculate in the world's biggest financial arena - the unregulated international currency market.

I purchased this dictionary to help me when studying Spanish. I am an adult taking an online Latin-American Spanish program. The program is an emersion type program and does not give you the translation of the words you are speaking. The dictionary helps me find the words in Latin American Spanish with their meanings, as well as the English translations of the words that were implied in the pictures provided in the program.

I highly recommend this dictionary to any who may want to have a fuller understanding of either the Spanish or English language.

I've worked for nearly 6 years as an interpretor and 10 within the immigrant community w/trip to the DR, Venezuela, Costa Rica, and Nicaragua. This is a great dictionary for the backpack. There are obvious limitation based on its size. Its strongest when going from English to Spanish, largely b/c it offers alternatives to the generic stand in words. It has has a wide variety of medical and construction terminology (though hardly exhaustive). I translate primarily for Mexican, Guatemalan, Honduran, and Dominicans. I am very sorry this book has gone out of print.
Regarding those frustrated that it does not have enough Mexican spanish: 1.) I have yet to find a dictionary that addresses the myriad vocabulary of each Mexican state. Each state has a unqiue vocabulary that many other states do not understand. When I see a Mexican from Piedras Negras talking to someone from Jalisco I know there be a bount of confusion as to what means what.
2.) Mexico stands apart from the rest of Latin America. They are Mexican before they are Latin. The unique blend of Indian, Spanish, and German influences is what makes them Mexican. Their accent is different from Spanish to the point that even Guatemalan and Honduran have at times difficulty understanding them. This is a not an insult to Mexicans. Its simply to point out that they tend have an isolated vocabulary.

I bought this book thinking it would be useful for my work with Mexican Spanish. I was amazed to discover that my very tiny University of Chicago Spanish Dictionary was frequently superior, although that book does not claim to be specifically tailored to Latin American Spanish. On the whole I found this dictionary to be very disappointing, lacking many commonly used words in Mexico and other regions of Latin America, and very often insufficiently explicit regarding the countries and regions where non-standard or non-European variants are used. I really wondered how the book was written; my impression was that it was a rather old dictionary spruced up with a pretty cover, new typeface and the hasty addition of some regionalisms. It's also much heavier than the U Chicago Dictionary. Despite my every effort to like the book, I feel I wasted my money.

Never failed me, not once, on two recent trips to Mexico and the D.R., but from it's size it is clear that is lacking many entries. Also, each entry could use a few more usage examples, especially for those countries whose Spanish is most widely varied from Castellano.

I am not sure what the other reviewers were expectly for 6 bucks but at this price it is quite a bargain! It is excellent for looking up common mainstream words and i have seldom failed to find what i have needed to find in it. And yes it does give the part of speech for each word and example sentences for it too! It is cram packed with usful information and a must have for any beginner to intermediate learner of spanish. It is not the only dictionary you will ever need but it is a great start. For 6 bucks and what it offers it is a definite 5 star item!

This is an excellent introduction to foreign exchange. The tone is conversational, with the occasional amusing anecdote, which makes it very easy reading.

I ordered this book on 24th November and on 25th December...it is never arrived!

Terrible!

The esteemed Dr. Weithers explains the foreign exchange market nuances with elan, wit and clarity. I would be very much suprised if this book is not considered the definitive work on the topic in the very near future. Brilliant, bold and insightful.
Kevin J. O'Mara

This is not a practical guide to the FX markets. It is written by an academic and sounds like it. Overly complicated.

This book was exactly what I needed. I was familiar with forex futures, and I wanted to break into the cash forex market and possibly into currency options. This book gave me a clear explanation of the markets, including the conventions, the mechanics, the spot market, forex swaps, forex options, etc., and some of the factors which drive exchange rates (e.g., interest rates).

The book is very readable. Usually, this sort of thing puts me to sleep. But I knocked off a chapter per day, no problem. The author is a member of the UBS training department, and he clearly has experience explaining this topic to the uninitiated.

The math is quite light. Nothing more complicated than algebra, which is necessary to explain some pricing logic.

The book does not contain trading secrets. It is not a system for trading forex. It does not explain How I Made $1,000,000 Trading Forex. It will not help you pick a broker. It is not an exposition on the stochastic theory of forex pricing. It is, however, a clear explanation of the FX markets.

I bought this for my daughter that's in High School French II. She says that the definitions in this dictionary aren't what is in her French book, the meaning is correct it's just not the same meaning as what she would need. This is what she tried to explain to me. So therefore, she barely uses it. It may be a great dictionary for a higher level French class or maybe another use.

I bought this for my son as required by his French III class. It is useful. Although he goes on line for translations when at home, this book is useful for him when he does his homework away from the house or in the classroom.

I have just started to learn french and I found this to be a useful dictionary. It helps me to get through my classes. My only problem was that on two occassions I was unable to find a few words in it.

This dictionary has only 40000 words - half or less than that of most good dictionaries. This means that it does not have quite a few words that you might need to translate.

I ordered the dictionary for my Beginning French II through Intermediate French II classes, and so far I am very pleased with what I've been able to find in it. The dictionary has both the French-English and Anglais-Francais translations. It's very helpful. Every word that I've looked up has been in there, along with several variations of the word that could be useful.

Very good book, informative, the right level of detail, well written, easy to ready, a good starting book to learn about day trading.

Should have been "Stock trading for dummies". Absolutely worthless book, if you are looking for specific day trading information. Full of regurgitated information about technical analysis and stock glossary, etc. Try `The Market Maker's Edge' by Josh Lukeman...

This book has been wonderful for me explaining the very basics of day trading! I would highly reconmend this book to anyone who wants to see what it's all about and how things work. It's obviously not meant to be a detailed book but more of "what this means and what that means". Perfect for dummmies!

I received this book as a gift and, at first, I was skeptical. I spent 20 years working for investment banks starting as a runner on the floor and retiring as the head of a trading desk. "What," I asked, "does this book have to teach me?"

Ah, beware of hubris! I was pleasantly surprised at what I learned. The book has a good introduction to how to obtain the sorts of information that a real day trader will need, but is best on the emotional. Emotions are almost always overlooked. I've seen lots of bright people rise to a certain point on a trading desk and then just implode because they couldn't handle the stress. And these were people working with other's money. It is even worse when it's your own dough on the line. The guy who practices day trading until he has his system all ready and then blows out a month after going live is very common.

Early in my career I started my own firm. This was before day trading was even technically possible and the firm was in the options pits. I got on the emotional roller coaster: on good days it was "Come on Honey, its steak dinner time!" On bad days I tried to save money by rationing toothpaste. It all ended in tears.

This is all by way of stressing the role emotions play in successfully trading the market. This book discusses strategies actually employed by some of the best traders on Wall Street and the book is worth looking into for that alone.

I have a Mensa IQ - have traded equities for 15 years and found this book to be complex and difficult to read. It presumes a lot of things that puts this well outside the title " For Dummies." "Daytrading for Intermediate to Advanced Traders" would be more honest.
If you are looking for simple understanding of the day trading concept, look elsewhere. If you want an advanced text, this is probably a minimally fair choice.

While thought proking, Mr. Garten has seemingly done quite a bit of thorough research but his end conclusions are rather biased and without merit. By forgetting our own nation, his view points for the future make rather little sense and his viewpoints stem from a anging liberal who clearly doesn't understand current economic policy.

It now looks like there are really only two, maybe three at most, success stories among Garten's Top Ten choices: China, South Korea, and possibly India. Mr. Garten's next edition should focus on these.

This is an excellent publication to read as you are putting together your future export marketing programs. It will provide you with fresh ideas on how to develop your most profitable foreign markets. It is primarily based upon Mr. Garten's experience as Undersecretary of Commerce for International Trade during the first Clinton Administration. Although there is a definite political slant to its content, I recommend this book for all entrepreneurs and international trade executives who are responsible for establishing export strategies, forecasts and budgets.

I am an expat, and I found answers to many of my questions in this work book. I am not knowledgable enough in tax law to pass judgement on the quality of the information presented here. Expat tax law is complicated and intricate, involving many special cases which may not apply to you. The work book overcomes this through careful organization of chapters and topics. It is possible to locate topics of interest without having wade through large amounts of unrelated material. I gave this work book the fifth star for it's spiral binding, which makes it much easier to work with.

I have been living abroad for several years, and purchased this book when my tax situation became more complicated (i.e. when my income passed the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion). Although the information in the book is helpful, I found that the large majority of what I needed was available on the IRS' website, which is very user-friendly, contains a wealth of valuable information, and most importantly is free.

In particular, IRS Publication 54 "Tax Guide for U.S. Citizens and Resident Aliens Abroad" seemed to answer all of my questions, and there are hundreds of other publications available from the IRS that are very helpful, are written in plain English and contain many useful examples. Of course, if your tax situation is extremely complex, you may need more help, but in that case, you probably will need to seek recourse to a sophisticated tax advisor as opposed to a book.

This book is an extremely helpful resource for expat tax issues. This subject is very difficult for an individual without a big company taking care of all the details. If I had found this book earlier, it would have saved me dozens of hours scouring the internet for relavent information. Note that this isn't a book to help you figure out the best way to wangle yourself into tax-freedom. You should get this book well before moving, use it to help you plan and then visit a professional - but at least you won't be paying a professional to cover the groundwork.

This book does not help me much with my foreign exchange course as a financial engineering student.

Many examples in the book have obvious numeric errors. Also it does not talk about any logic behind the calculation. The little calculation it has is neither rigorous nor complete. Reading this book only caused me more questions and confusions. I had to read other books as a correction or supplement.

It's definitely not for people looking for mathematical reasoning. It does not even talk about Garman-Kohlhagen formula, or Spot-Forward parity etc. It only has some explanations of some jargons, even those explanations are not very well presented.

Another thing I don't like is that at several places two consecutive paragraphs are identical except for a few keywords -- an obvious result of copy & paste.

Had I known the content of the book, I would not have bought it! I bought the e-book & didn't know the content until after I bought it. And e-books cannot be returned. Otherwise I would have done it!

Although this book is primarily written for people that are clueless about foreign exchange (FX), it will actually teach the clued-up a thing or two also. The broad range of topics covered is what you'd expect to find in a book that is considerably thicker and more expensive - there's a detailed insight into the marketplace and its participants, the products (spot, forwards, swaps, options), fundamental vs. technical analysis, and more. The author writes in a concise, but extremely readable style and makes extensive use of pictures and diagrams. Furthermore, the book is bang up to date with recent developments in FX, such as the Euro and electronic dealing (that is, at the time I wrote this review). Finally, as an added bonus, this book is not overly biased towards the US or the US dollar, which I feel is especially appropriate for an FX book. Highly recommended!

As another reviewer noted, this book is definitely not for people who are ready to study "financial engineering". It is, however, PERFECT for people who want to learn about foreign exchange but don't have a finance background. It does not TRY to be a book for rocket scientists, so criticizing it for that is unfair. More advanced books that have lots of integral and summation signs assume that you already understand the basic information in this book.

This is the only book I have found which explains this important market at a level that practically anyone can understand. I'm a math student doing a mathematical modelling project involving finance and investment and so I needed something like this: I do not know anyone who invests and the simple fact is that most people don't know much about the mechanics of the markets. This book fills in a gap in plain English with little verbosity or unnecessary digressions. Thus, as a basis for gaining intuition and domain knowledge in an undergraduate university project, this book is everything it attempts to be.