Developing Writing Skills in German, is a unique course designed to improve the reading and writing skills of intermediate students of German. Presenting a wide range of authentic written materials, the book aims to develop reading strategies and the ability to write texts of various types - essays, articles and reviews - while imparting an understanding of important aspects of German society. From the environment to consumerism, each chapter focuses on a different theme and concentrates on the advancement of particular skills; all the chapters conclude with a task appropriate to the skills focus of the section. Summary writing, note-taking, the use of mind-maps to collect ideas, and other strategies for successful writing in German are presented here. This course is suitable both for classroom use and independent study, with feedback and answer key supplied at the back of the book.

This very popular series gives teachers practical advice and guidance, together with resource ideas and materials for the classroom.

During 1789-90, Nicholai Mikhailovich Karamzin, a young poet and short-story writer, toured Western Europe. On his return, he distilled his impressions in the form of travel letters. Letters of a Russian Traveler, 1791-1801, in which Karamzin’s impressions are woven into a wealth of information about Western European society and culture that he derived from wide reading, became a favorite of readers and was widely imitated. The most influential prose stylist of the eighteenth century, Karamzin shaped the development of the Russian literary language, introducing many Gallicisms to supplant Slavonic-derived words and idioms and breaking down the classicist canons of isolated language styles.

Ellen Brandner, Gisella Ferraresi The strong connection between language change and language acquisition has been known for a long time in traditional linguistics. The neogrammarian Paul wrote in 1920: "Es liegt auf der Hand, daß die Vorgänge der Spracherlernung von der al lergrößten Wichtigkeit für die Erklärung der Veränderung des Sprachusus sind, weil sie die wichtigste Ursache für diese Veränderung abgeben." But what is the reason why a child's grammar differs from that of his or her environ ment? Can we say that there are some principles which govern this change? Many linguists have tried to answer these important questions from different view points. We will sketch he re some of the most interesting ones. Sapir (1921) develops the principle of drift which was meant to describe the laws of diachronic change in linguistic systems. This concerns long-term tendencies of gram matical change, which probably are of universal character but result in one or another effect, according to the specific structure of a given language. The tendencies concerning syntactical change are determined by morphological change; morphological change, for its part, is determined by phonological change. All such instances of change aim at the one and only goal to always provide sufficient means for expressing all those grammatical relations which are necessary to keep up communication.