We ask experts to recommend the five best books in their subject and explain their selection in an interview. As a small educational publisher, we do have to charge for the new resources, but we will continue to offer the original six eBooks for free. We have used native Ukrainian translators and proofreaders to ensure that the text uses natural language and vocabulary along with utilising professional design and printing, so children have the best possible experience when reading them. Five Books interviews are expensive to produce. If you're enjoying this interview, please support us by donating a small amount. French readers will appreciate Victor Hugos’s “Les Misérables.” The translation from the French version keeps true to the original version, so the vocabulary and idioms are authentically presented. Russian Bilingual E-books

For language learners, anything that increases the potential for trouble-free reading is a resource that needs to be explored. You can even use the same bilingual approach for other types of media in your target language. Whatever your situation, dual language books offer a bridge between cultures, generations and divisions. One of this book’s simplest but most reliable pleasures, by contrast, is the suggestion of one or more words in each language for which English doesn’t have an equivalent, but might benefit from. Dutch, for example, has uitwaaien, which means to “relax by visiting a windy place, often chilly and rainy”. Dorren adds, characteristically: “Since the British, like the Dutch, display this peculiar behaviour, the word would be useful.” The Cornish word henting, which means “raining hard”, is, the author gently suggests, “useful for a Cornish holiday”. We might also want to adopt omenie (“a Romanian word for the virtue of being fully human, that is: gentle, decent, respectful, hospitable, honest, polite”), or, from Channel Island Norman, the evocative Ûssel’lie, which names “the continual opening and closing of doors”. The running joke is capped by the one language in which the author can find nothing enviable: “No Gagauz words have been borrowed by English and none that I’ve come upon seem especially desirable.” There is some mystery surrounding his cause of death. Some said brain fever, others claimed a surfeit of pork chops. Your final book is not as crude and vulgar as the title might suggest. There can’t be many words that have whole books written about them.Next up is Julie Coleman’s A History of Cant and Slang Dictionaries. This is a substantial academic work published in four volumes by the Oxford University Press. Mantra Lingua’s own patented PENpal technology also means language teachers, parents, guardians, librarians and storytellers can all add sound to the texts of dual language books, increasing the levels of familiarity for readers or listeners. He has been described as an eccentric, and occupied the same desk at the British Library every day for 50 years. Slang does seem to attract some interesting characters. Since many dual language books are picture books, you might think that they are mainly aimed at children, but that isn’t always the case. A picture, so the saying goes, is worth a thousand words, and dual language books have also been used in recent years to disseminate information on agricultural techniques in Papua New Guinea, for example. Many parts of the NHS also produce dual language resources to help patients access healthcare services in the UK.

It’s full of slang. There are 350 different uses of slang in it, which is a lot for a single book and that makes it exciting to me. It’s also slang that I haven’t come across before in many cases, and it’s slang of a certain culture. As a slang lexicographer one is an appalling voyeur. And there’s no doubt that if you’re white, middle class and live in England, then reading The Corner is a very voyeuristic experience. I have varied opinions at different moments about how I feel towards the voyeuristic side of what I do, but The Corner is a fascinating book because of the language that is used. There is no artificiality, there is no putting slang in for its own sake. This is how the characters are speaking.And while everyone has their own language learning style, and some people may prefer hearing a story to reading it, dual language books are an essential tool in our bilingual language learning virtual cabinet.

Because bilingual resources make stories in your target language way more accessible and hassle-free, they’re truly an ideal tool for language learners. Eric Partridge was the leading English language slang lexicographer of the 20th century. His Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English appeared in 1937 and editions continued to appear until the posthumous edition of 1984.What of the old dream of a pan-European language? Dorren explains, with a kind of fond amazement, the bizarre workings of Esperanto. It turned out to be not a best-of compilation of all the nicest parts of continental tongues; instead, with incomprehensible perversity, it decided to borrow some of the most difficult aspects of existing languages and mash them up into something that sounded alien and wrong to everybody. For a potential borrowing, he chooses sardonically: “Esperinto – somebody who used to be hopeful, but no longer is. A word that sums up neatly the mood of most Esperanto speakers.”