From one of our most important contemporary Chinese authors: a novel of language and love that tells one young Chinese woman's story of her journey to the West—and her attempts to understand the language, and the man, she adores. Zhuang—or “Z,” to tongue-tied foreigners—has come to London to study English, but finds herself adrift, trapped in a cycle of cultural gaffes and grammatical mishaps. Then she meets an Englishman who changes everything, leading her into a world of self-discovery. She soon realizes that, in the West, “love” does not always mean the same as in China, and that you can learn all the words in the English language and still not understand your lover. And as the novel progresses with steadily improving grammar and vocabulary, Z's evolving voice makes her quest for comprehension all the more poignant. With sparkling wit, Xiaolu Guo has created an utterly original novel about identity and the cultural divide.

Published for the Harvard-Yenching Institute.

Presents a dictionary with phonetic pronunciations, translations, short sample sentences to demonstrate usage, and occasional illustrations, with bilingual entries covering topics such as telling time, days of the week, names of continents and oceans, and numbers.

Authoritative and up-to-date, this fourth edition of the Concise English-Chinese Chinese-English Dictionary covers over 90,000 words and phrases, and over 130,000 translations of contemporary Chinese and English, with brand-new words in each language. More than just a dictionary, this handy reference book also includes a brand new section on communication giving you the tools you need to communicate effectively and understand aspects of another culture. The communication supplement gives help with all types of correspondence, including example letters, and emails to improve writing skills. It also includes a 'useful phrases' section to help you when travelling. This dictionary is ideal for English and Chinese learners alike, with Chinese simplified and traditional characters as well as pinyin romanization used throughout. You can quickly find the character you need with look up in pinyin or by using the radical index. Mandarin pronunciations are provided in pinyin. The new edition of the Concise English-Chinese Chinese-English Dictionary is the perfect reference for student and adult learners needing an affordable, portable dictionary.