Books

To develop your reading skills, practice helps! CSUSM offers general literature for reading in a variety of languages. Also, the materials held in the Language Learning Center are listed in the library catalog to show the great resources available there.

Books at Cal State San Marcos

Here are several strategies for successful searching in the Library Catalog:

Keyword search

In the simple search screen, type your topic in the KEYWORD search and use the Modify Search function to restrict the search once you have the list of results. The Modify Search button allows you to choose from the language options and brings back texts and movies in both English (translated from the language requested) and materials published in the language.

Other options to locate books and videos:

Circuit (1-3 day delivery)
Search the collections of other San Diego area libraries -- about 3,000,000 books. Find and request books directly online; pick them up at our Library in 1-3 days.

WorldCat (5-10 day delivery)
Search the collections of libraries world-wide -- about 52,000,000 books. Find a book in this database, and fill-out an Interlibrary Loan delivery request. Book will be delivered to Library for pickup.

Browse the Book Stacks
Sometimes, just looking through the shelves can turn up works you would not have considered otherwise. Using the Library of Congress subject system, languages are shelved in the P call number area. The Library of Congress provides a list of the subclasses in the P area so you can see how this is organized.

Useful Subject Terms

Library catalogs use specific subject headings to group related books together. This is different from the genre search discussed above in that genre headings address the specific format and writing style, but subject headings identify the topic of the work.

• Short stories, German
• Political fiction, Spanish
• Authors, Spanish -- 20th century -- Biography
• Japanese language -- Dictionaries -- English
• French drama
• Arabic Language -- Periodicals

Finding a Person in the Catalog

What type of search depends on whether you are looking for works BY or works ABOUT the person.

Looking for works by a specific author? Use the AUTHOR search option and type the name in lastname, firstname order. Be sure to spell correctly! A search on Borges, Jorge Luis as author brings back 64 works that he wrote in the CSUSM collection. A similar search through CIRCUIT will return even more.

Looking for works about an author? Borges, Jorge Luis as a SUBJECT search brings back 21 different subject headings, some of which have a number of works attached (23 titles have the subject heading 'criticism and interpretation'.) Notice the lastname, firstname order!

Articles & Journals

Journal and most newspaper articles are found through research databases. Several databases provide material in your chosen language and others address topics you may be researching for your class. They all include some of the latest news and research in the field. To find articles, you need to select an appropriate database and if you need help, we are here!

Some databases do not offer full text of the articles. Use the button to check our other resources for full text.

This is a listing of some of the databases with languages other than English.

Useful for Research on Languages

Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts (LLBA)
Provides abstracts of articles from about 2,000 journals (published worldwide), coverage of recent books, book review citations and dissertation listings.
Coverage: 1973→current

ERIC
A national database of education literature, including reports and journal articles.
Coverage: 1966→current

MLA
Includes abstracts of articles from critical literary and language journals.
Coverage: 1963→current

JSTOR
Contains (EXCEPT for the latest five years) core scholarly journals in sociology, history, economics, political science, mathematics, African-American & Asian studies, literature, humanities, music, and biological, health & general sciences.
Coverage: 1838→2005

Project Muse
Full-text coverage for hundreds of scholarly journals in the humanities, social sciences, and mathematics
Coverage: 1993→current

Some Materials in Languages Other Than English

ClasePeriodica
Search 2,600 scholarly Latin American journals in the sciences and humanities.
Coverage: 1975→current

MAS Ultra - School Edition
Provides full-text for over 460 general interest and current events magazines.
Coverage: 1985→current

ScienceDirect
Provides full text access to over 1,000 journals covering all fields of science.
Coverage: 1995→current

Sociological Abstracts
Provides access to the latest international findings in theoretical and applied sociology, social science, and political science.
Coverage: 1963→current

Newspapers

Journal and newspaper articles are found in our research databases. Several databases provide material in your chosen language and other databases address topics you may be researching for your class. They all include some of the latest news and research in the field. To find articles, you need to select an appropriate database and if you need help, we are here! This is a listing of some of the databases with languages other than English.

Ethnic NewsWatch
Full-text ethnic newspapers, searchable in English or Spanish.

ProQuest Newspapers
Includes coverage of over 300 major U.S. and international newspapers, such as The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune.

Online Newspapers, Magazines and News Agencies

A good means to practice your reading skills. Some are offered in English language versions as well--that can help if you want to check your understanding of what you are reading. 

Arabic

• Newspapers in the Middle East (listing for general and by country; via al-bab.com)
• Al-Quds
• Al-Shaab

French

• Courrier International (political & world news)
• L’Equipe (sports news)
• L’Express (literary and political reviews)
• Le Figaro (newspaper)
• Investir (stock and business news)
• Le Monde (general news)
• Le Pointe
• Reuters (news agency)

German

• Berliner Morgenpost  (daily news)
• Die Zeit (weekly news)
• Stern (weekly magazine)

Japanese

• CNN Japan (news)
• Yomiuri Shimbun  (newspaper)

Spanish

• El Mundo (newspaper)
• El Nuevo Herald (US) (Spanish language news published in US)

Media

Want to watch a film or listen to a CD in your language? We have materials in the library collection to meet your needs. There are different ways to find items, dependent on what you are doing--language practice or researching a specific topic.

From the library home page, type a topic or subject into the search box. When your results are lists, use the REFINE SEARCH button and choose Location=Media.

You can also use the REFINE SEARCH command to limit to a specific language from the list provided or add the name of the language desired to your orginial search terms.

Online Resources

There are a wide variety of online language resources, some are of questionable quality, but others are very good. Be careful and do further research before accepting anything posted as factual. All information is subject to an author's bias that might exclude important information.

• Digital South Asia Library provides access to teaching tools as well as reference and reading texts. 
• Ethnologue: Languages of the World information on the 6912 known languages of the world. 
• Foreign Service Institute Language Courses were developed for the US Government, but not by a government agency.
• Speech Accent Archive from George Mason University provides sound clips of native and non-native speakers for comparison of different speech patterns. 
• Worldwide Schools Language Lessons are developed by the Peace Corps as podcasts and include some sign language lessons. Also available on the main page are videos of daily life in some of the countries the Peace Corps has had a presence.

General and Government Websites

Most countries have websites, which may be the official government site with links to education, culture, research or other information to help you in your research. Some sites are aimed towards tourism or provide a very biased and restricted view of the country, so may not be useful for research, but still useful for reading practice.

How to tell if you have the country's official site? Look at the domain name. It should NOT be a .org or .com. The country code (with the exception of the United States) identifies the country's official server (examples are .fr is for France, .es is for Spain). A complete list of official national websites is at Northwestern University's Foreign Governments site. The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority site provides the list of domain names for all countries of the world.

Dictionaries

Handbook for English-Arabic for Professionals

5th Floor Stacks: PJ6640 .S47 1983

Milet picture dictionary, English-Arabic

Hansen Curriculum Room: PJ6640 .T87 2003

Pronunciation and Usage

A handbook of pronunciation : English, Italian, French, German, SPanish Portuguese, Russian, Arabic, Hindi, Chinese, Japanese, Esperanto

5th Floor Stacks: P221 .C276 2005

Helpful e-Books

Arabic for Dummies

Arabic Today A Student, Business and Professional Course in Spoken and Written Arabic

Useful LC Subject Headings

Arabic language

Arabic Poetry

Koran -- Language, style

Languages in contact -- Arab countries

Online Newspapers, Magazines and News Agencies

Arab News Media Online (link is external)(listing for general and by country, in Arabic and in English)

Al-Quds (link is external)(Palestinian daily newspaper, based in Jerusalem)

Dictionaries

The Cambridge French-English thesaurus

5th Floor Stacks: PC2591 .L24 1998

Milet picture dictionary, English-French

Hansen Curriculum Room: PC2640 .T87 2003

The Oxford-Hachette French dictionary : French-English, English-French

REF PC2640 .O83 1994

Pronunciation and Usage

Media French : a vocabulary of contemporary usage

5th Floor Stacks: PC2460 .R58 2008

Using French : a guide to contemporary usage

5th Floor Stacks: PC2460 .B37 2000

Helpful e-Books

French All-in-One For Dummies

French Grammar For Dummies

Dictionaries

Collins German-English, English-German Dictionary

5th Floor Stacks: PF3640 .C68 1995

Milet picture dictionary, English-German

Oxford German dictionary and grammar

5th Floor Stacks: PF3640 .O943 2001
 

Pronunciation and Usage

Grammar handbook for reading German texts

5th Floor Stacks: PF3112 .R63 1985

Using German Synonyms

5th Floor Stacks: PF3591 .D87 2000 or as an ebook

Useful LC Subject Headings

American literature -- German influences

Civilization -- German influences

German literature

Germany -- Civilization

Short stories, German

Dictionaries

Kodansha's romanized Japanese-English Dictionary

5th Floor Stacks: PL679 .V36 1993

Merriam-Webster's Japanese-English learner's dictionary

5th Floor Stacks: PL679 .K38213 1993

Milet picture dictionary, English-Japanese

Hansen Curriculum Room: PL676 .T87 2003

Oxford Starter Japanese Dictionary

5th Floor Stacks: PL679 .O946 2000b

Pronunciation and Usage

Dictionary of Japanese Particles

5th Floor Stacks: PL601 .K39 1999

Japanese business language : an essential dictionary

4th Floor Stacks: HF1002 .J358 1987

Japanese/English English/Japanese glossary of scientific and technical terms

5th Floor Stacks: Q123 .T844 1993

Helpful e-Books

Japanese-English and English-Japanese dictionary

Useful LC Subject Headings

Japan -- Civilization

Japan -- Description and travel

Japan -- History

Japanese language

Dictionaries

Milet picture dictionary, English-Chinese

Hansen Curriculum Room: PL1455 .T87 2003

Oxford starter Chinese dictionary

5th Floor Stacks: PL1455 .O925 2000

Pronunciation & Usage

Chinese Language(s) A Look through the Prism of the Great Dictionary of Modern Chinese Dialects

Helpful e-books

Chinese for Dummies

Useful LC Subject Headings

China -- Social conditions

China -- Civilization

Chinese -- Foreign countries -- Social conditions

Chinese language

Dictionaries

American Heritage Spanish Dictionary: Spanish/English, Ingles/Español

Diccionario del Uso del Español

Diccionario de la Lengua Española

Diccionario de Uso del Español de América y España

Diccionario Panhispánico de Dudas

Diccionario Esencial

Clave : Diccionario de Uso del Español Actual

Guía Práctica del Español Actual: Diccionario Breve de Dudas y Dificultades

Helpful  e-Books

Diccionario de la Real Academia Española

Useful LC Subject Headings

Spanish language -- Errors of usage -- Dictionaries

Spanish language materials