A journalist recounts the surprising history of accidents and reveals how they’ve come to define all that’s wrong with America. We hear it all the time: “Sorry, it was just an accident.” And we’ve been deeply conditioned to just accept that explanation and move on. But as Jessie Singer argues convincingly: There are no such things as accidents. The vast majority of mishaps are not random but predictable and preventable. Singer uncovers just how the term “accident” itself protects those in power and leaves the most vulnerable in harm’s way, preventing investigations, pushing off debts, blaming the victims, diluting anger, and even sparking empathy for the perpetrators. As the rate of accidental death skyrockets in America, the poor and people of color end up bearing the brunt of the violence and blame, while the powerful use the excuse of the “accident” to avoid consequences for their actions. Born of the death of her best friend, and the killer who insisted it was an accident, this book is a moving investigation of the sort of tragedies that are all too common, and all too commonly ignored. In this revelatory book, Singer tracks accidental death in America from turn of the century factories and coal mines to today’s urban highways, rural hospitals, and Superfund sites. Drawing connections between traffic accidents, accidental opioid overdoses, and accidental oil spills, Singer proves that what we call accidents are hardly random. Rather, who lives and dies by an accident in America is defined by money and power. She also presents a variety of actions we can take as individuals and as a society to stem the tide of “accidents”—saving lives and holding the guilty to account.

A Japanese writer offers a collection of dreamlike stories that explore absurd, hilarious, and terrifying locales, in an English-language debut by an award-winner author. Original.

This volume presents a comprehensive survey of the lexicon and word formation processes in contemporary Japanese, with particular emphasis on their typologically characteristic features and their interactions with syntax and semantics. Through contacts with a variety of languages over more than two thousand years of history, Japanese has developed a complex vocabulary system that is composed of four lexical strata: (i) native Japanese, (ii) mimetic, (iii) Sino-Japanese, and (iv) foreign (especially English). This hybrid composition of the lexicon, coupled with the agglutinative character of the language by which morphology is closely associated with syntax, gives rise to theoretically intriguing interactions with word formation processes that are not easily found with inflectional, isolate, or polysynthetic types of languages.

A new course in business Japanese from the authors of the bestselling Japanese for Busy People series. The Association for Japanese-Language Teaching (AJALT), renowned for its Japanese for Busy People series, has developed a comprehensive course for students who need to use Japanese in a business environment. Japanese for Professionals is a serious and detailed manual of the language of trade, commerce, and government, aimed at intermediate students who work with Japanese on a daily basis. Thirteen lessons introduce common business situations—first-time meetings, directing subordinates client negotiations with key sentences, and a dialogue to illustrate how Japanese is used in a business context. Precise definitions for all new vocabulary and lucid explanations of grammar, idioms, and cultural differences provide the reader with powerful communication tools for the office. Exercises and quizzes have been included to help students check their progress, and four lessons have been set aside for review. Busy professionals will find the bilingual glossaries a useful reference even after completing all the lessons in this clear and extremely helpful textbook. FEATURES: Emphasis on how to communicate with Japanese colleagues and clients All elements of working Japanese, from using the telephone to directing subordinates, presented in thirteen systematic and fully structured lessons Focuses on authentic spoken Japanese through dialogues based on real-life business situations 165 Essential Expressions classified into 50 business functions that can be used by all busy professionals Detailed analysis in English of all phrases and expressions introduced in this text Challenging exercises and quizzes that actually reinforce language acquisition Four special chapters for comprehensive review and further practice Three special chapters provide important background information about common Japanese business practices Equally effective as part of a college course or for learners studying without formal tuition Furigana (phonetic superscripts) added to all difficult kanji and two full bilingual glossaries

This is an invaluable study guide and practice book for learning basic Japanese kanji. Learning Japanese Kanji Practice Book is intended for beginning students or experienced speakers who need to practice their written Japanese. Kanji are an essential part of the Japanese language and together with kana (hiragana and katakana) comprise written Japanese. This book presents the kanji characters that are most commonly used. All the kanji and related vocabulary words in this book are those that students are expected to know for Level 5 of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test. (JLPT). Characters that appear in the AP Japanese Language and Culture Exam are flagged. Readings, meanings, and common compounds are presented. The correct method of writing each character is clearly indicated, and practice boxes with strokes that can be traced are provided, along with empty boxes for freehand writing practice. Lots of exercises are included to give students the opportunity to practice writing sentences containing the Kanji. Indexes at the back allow you to look up the characters by their readings and English meanings. This kanji book includes: Step-by-step stroke order diagrams for each character. Special boxes with grid lines to practice writing characters. Extra printable practice grids Words and phrases using each kanji. Romanizations (romanji) to help identify and pronounce every word.

Japanese words for greetings, family relations, social relations, Japanese lifestyle, transportation, clothing, food, school, sports, numbers, the human body, and nature with the English word and illustrated with line drawings.

"A very graceful, erudite job . . . extraordinarily revealing."—The New York Times Thirty years after its first publication, Womansword remains a timely, provocative work on how words reflect female stereotypes in modern Japan. Short, lively essays offer linguistic, sociological, and historical insight into issues central to the lives of women everywhere: identity, girlhood, marriage, motherhood, work, sexuality, and aging. A new introduction shows how things have—and haven't—changed. Kittredge Cherry studied in Japan and has written about the country for Newsweek and the Wall Street Journal. She has a journalism degree from University of Iowa.