The History of the Viola Essay Example for Free

The History of the Viola Essay The viola is not the best known instrument in the violin family. In fact, ask anyone you know that is not involved with orchestra what it is and they would blink dumbly at you. In reality, even though the violin is better known in todays society, it is possible that violas appeared before violins because the Italian word for violin, violino, is derived from the word viola, although no one knows who invented it or when it was invented. To answer anyones question on what exactly a viola is, a viola is the alto in the violin family, which evolved from the viol, an instrument with many strings that is bowed and held across the knees. They used to be called the alto-tenor violin. The viola we know today is the result of the gradual merging of the alto and tenor violas over three centuries. Most musicians did not like to play the tenor viola because it was so large in size and difficult to play because of this. So, gradually, luthiers stopped making the tenor viola. The alto violas neck was too short to play the music that was getting more difficult by the 16th century. So luthiers lengthened the neck of the alto viola in order for musicians to play a wider range of notes. The modern-day viola is about 1-3.5 inches longer than a violin, making them around 16 to 18 inches long. Today they are the only instruments that use the alto clef. Violas are not nearly as famous as the violin or cello, and they probably never will be. There are very, very, few solo violists, especially compared to the amount of solo violinists. In the ordinary orchestra, there are about three violins to every viola, and sometimes more. Composers sometimes wouldnt even bother writing a viola part. Violas would end up playing the bass part. It wasnt until the opera Orfeo, written in 1607, that violas began to become more important. Gradually, violas earned their own parts, and even get very important parts in pieces. Violas took a secondary role in the 17th and 18th centuries, even though musicians such as Mozart and Bach were both accomplished violists. It resurged with compositions like Harold in Italy in 1834 by French composer Hector Berlioz. Johnannes Brahms and Hector Schumann also wrote important pieces for violas

A History of the Cold War Essay -- The Truth About the Cold War

â€Å"As crossfire raked his body, the second boy fell back onto the strip of now churning sand. Wounded, moaning for help, he lay only 300 yards from a unit of United States troops. But the American commanding general issued orders: ‘Stand fast. Do nothing.’ Fifty-five minutes later Peter Fetcher was dead, and his body was carried away into the recesses of the city from which he had tried to escape.† This excerpt, from The Cold War: From Yalta To Cuba by Robin W. Winks shows how, despite its name, the Cold War was anything but cold. World War II is considered by most experts to have ended in 1945, when the Japanese signed an unconditional surrender to Allied powers. Although World War II ended, the Cold War was just warming up. A very big part of the Cold War was the arms race. When the United States of America dropped the first atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we had displayed our power and jumped ahead in the race. This was a huge surprise to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. They grew uneasy and distrustful of the US and other hidden powers we may possess (Trueman). After World War II ended, Europe was left in shambles. The US, not nearly as devastated as the rest of the world, developed the Marshall Plan to try and rebuild Europe. While the main goal of this plan was to help Europe rise from the ashes, a secondary goal was to stop the spread of Communism that Stalin was trying to promote (Marshall). Upset and frightened by the attempt to spread American ideas, the USSR developed the Zhd anov Doctrine. This doctrine â€Å"claimed that the United States was seeking global domination through American imperialism, as well as the collapse of democracy. On the other hand, according to this Doctrine, the Sovie... ..., Ambassador. "LOOKING BACK: The 1986 Reykjavik Summit." Arms Control Association. Arms Control Association, Sept. 2006. Web. 05 Sept. 2015. Il, Theodoros, J.D.-M.A. "How Did the Cold War Start and End?" Today I Found Out RSS. Today I Found Out, 13 Nov. 2013. Web. 02 Sept. 2015. LaFeber, Walter. America, Russia, and the Cold War, 1945-1971. Second ed. New York: Wiley, 1972. Print. "The Marshall Plan." The Marshall Plan. George C. Marshall Foundation, 2009. Web. 02 Sept. 2015. "Treaty Between The US And The USSR On The Elimination Of Their Intermediate-Range And Shorter-Range Missiles (INF Treaty)." U.S. Department of State. U.S. Department of State, n.d. Web. 04 Sept. 2015. Trueman, Chris. "The Cold War." The Cold War. History Learning Site, n.d. Web. 01 Sept. 2015. Winks, Robin W. The Cold War: From Yalta To Cuba. New York: Macmillan, 1964. Print.

Regard to the play Essay

The 1st act of any play is more than just an exposition. It shows the strengths and weaknesses of the playwright clearly. Comment on this in regard to the play. There are certain aspects the playwright has to keep in mind when he writes the first act of his play. Usually, most of the first acts of plays are as already mentioned, expositions. The writer introduces the protagonist, the antagonist, the setting of the time. Moreover, not only does he set the mood for the rest of the play but he also starts building some dramatic tension between his characters and starts giving us hints about what is going to happen next. But apart from all this, the most difficult thing the playwright has to do in the first act is make it interesting and gripping. This is extremely significant because if the first act of the play is not gripping enough, the readers won’t like to go ahead. This situation is just like how, on a bad foundation, any kind of structure won’t last long and so nothing can be built upon it. So, the dramatist is supposed to catch the reader’s interest and then retain it too, making the first act almost like a mini play in itself. To make the first act attention-grabbing, the dramatist must introduce a conflict – between characters, between situations – and thus build the dramatic tension of the play. This is similar to what Ibsen did in doll’s house. He not only made the readers meet Nora Helmer but he also showed changes in her character in the first act itself. At the outset, Nora was very frivolous and perky but later in the act, she seemed a much more mature woman than one perceived before. Thus Ibsen, as a writer, managed to take his readers through all the subtle nuances in Nora’s character. This came out as Ibsen’s major strength. He showed Nora as silly yet sensible, lying yet truthful, making her character a complete rollercoaster for the readers in the first act itself. The other characters he introduced were torvald and mrs. linde. Where both these characters came to be very linear, Mrs. Linde’s role was more than just Nora’s friend. She was a foil which Ibsen introduced to make us understand Nora in a much better way by contrasting her with Mrs. Linde. Therefore, as one can see, Ibsen took so much pain, put in so much effort, only for making us relate to Nora in as much depth as possible. This was also Ibsen’s another strength which came up in the first act. It was his asset because he knew that his protagonist is unconventional since she is going to walk out on her husband and children for something which people in that time thought to be very trivial – self-respect. Therefore, he recognized the fact that he must do something to make his readers relate with Nora’s emotions and so he used the techniques of contrasting – by using mrs. linde as foil, foreshadowing – by hinting in Nora’s dialogues about what is going to happen later in the play and showing and telling and thus created such an act where if nothing, at least he left the readers curious about Nora and wanting to know more about her and about what happened to her, if not curious about the rest of the play.

Indo Anglian Literature

Indo Anglian Literature Indo Anglian Literature refers to the body of work by writers in India who write in the English language and whose native or co-native language could be one of the numerous languages of India. It is also associated with the works of members of the Indian diaspora, such as V. S. Naipaul, Kiran Desai, Jhumpa Lahiri who are of Indian descent. It is frequently referred to as Indo-Anglian literature. (Indo-Anglian is a specific term in the sole context of writing that should not be confused with the term Anglo-Indian).As a category, this production comes under the broader realm of postcolonial literature- the production from previously colonised countries such as India. History IEL has a relatively recent history, it is only one and a half centuries old. The first book written by an Indian in English was by Sake Dean Mahomet, titled Travels of Dean Mahomet; Mahomet's travel narrative was published in 1793 in England. In its early stages it was influenced by the Wes tern art form of the novel. Early Indian writers used English unadulterated by Indian words to convey an experience which was essentially Indian.Raja Rao's Kanthapura is Indian in terms of its storytelling qualities. Rabindranath Tagore wrote in Bengali and English and was responsible for the translations of his own work into English. Dhan Gopal Mukerji was the first Indian author to win a literary award in the United States. Nirad C. Chaudhuri, a writer of non-fiction, is best known for his The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian where he relates his life experiences and influences. P. Lal, a poet, translator, publisher and essayist, founded a press in the 1950s for Indian English writing, Writers Workshop.R. K. Narayan is a writer who contributed over many decades and who continued to write till his death recently. He was discovered by Graham Greene in the sense that the latter helped him find a publisher in England. Graham Greene and Narayan remained close friends till the end. Si milar to Thomas Hardy's Wessex, Narayan created the fictitious town of Malgudi where he set his novels. Some criticise Narayan for the parochial, detached and closed world that he created in the face of the changing conditions in India at the times in which the stories are set.Others, such as Graham Greene, however, feel that through Malgudi they could vividly understand the Indian experience. Narayan's evocation of small town life and its experiences through the eyes of the endearing child protagonist Swaminathan in Swami and Friends is a good sample of his writing style. Simultaneous with Narayan's pastoral idylls, a very different writer, Mulk Raj Anand, was similarly gaining recognition for his writing set in rural India; but his stories were harsher, and engaged, sometimes brutally, with divisions of caste, class and religion. Later historyAmong the later writers,Vikram Seth, author of A Suitable Boy (1994) is a writer who uses a purer English and more realistic themes. Being a self-confessed fan of Jane Austen, his attention is on the story, its details and its twists and turns. Vikram Seth is notable both as an accomplished novelist and poet. Vikram Seth's outstanding achievement as a versatile and prolific poet remains largely and unfairly neglected. Shashi Tharoor, in his The Great Indian Novel (1989), follows a story-telling (though in a satirical) mode as in the Mahabharata drawing his ideas by going back and forth in time.His work as UN official living outside India has given him a vantage point that helps construct an objective Indianness. As for the history of the gradual development of Indian drama in English, one may consult Pinaki Roy's essay â€Å"Dramatic Chronicle: A Very Brief Review of the Growth of Indian English Plays†, included in Indian Drama in English: Some Perspectives (ISBN 978-81-269-1772-3) (pp. 272-87), edited by Abha Shukla Kaushik, and published by the New Delhi-based Atlantic Publishers and Distributors Pvt. Ltd. in 2 013. Sarojini Naidu and her art of poetry; Such a gem of a work by the author, Dr.Deobrata Prasad . he has carefully assimilated all the aspects and life span of Sarojini Naidu before divulging anything. such a systematic work is rare to single out in today's era. Dr. Prasad has really taken care of every minute details prior to bringing forth such a marvel in the field of Indian English literature. This has been acclaimed as rare literary work in the literary fraternity in switzerland. Dr. prasad was even nominated as literary man of the year several times. The Guide The Guide is a 1958 novel written in English by the Indian author R. K. Narayan.Like most of his works the novel is based in Malgudi, the fictional town in South India. The novel describes the transformation of the protagonist, Raju, from a tour guide to a spiritual guide and then one of the greatest holy men of India. The novel brought its author the 1960 Sahitya Akademi Award for English, by the Sahitya Akademi, Indi a's National Academy of Letters. Railway Raju (nicknamed) is a disarmingly corrupt guide who falls in love with a beautiful dancer, Rosie, the neglected wife of archaeologist Marco . Marco doesn't approve of Rosie's passion for dancing.Rosie, encouraged by Raju, decides to follow her dreams and start a dancing career. They start living together and Raju's mother, as she does not approve of their relationship, leaves them. Raju becomes Rosie's stage manager and soon with the help of Raju's marketing tactics, Rosie becomes a successful dancer. Raju, however, develops an inflated sense of self-importance and tries to control her. Raju gets involved in a case of forgery and gets a two-year sentence. After completing the sentence, Raju passes through a village where he is mistaken for a sadhu (a spiritual guide).Reluctantly, as he does not want to return in disgrace to Malgudi, he stays in an abandoned temple. There is a famine in the village and Raju is expected to keep a fast in order to make it rain. With media publicizing his fast, a huge crowd gathers (much to Raju's resentment) to watch him fast. After fasting for several days, he goes to the riverside one morning as part of his daily ritual, where his legs sag down as he feels that the rain is falling in the hills. The ending of the novel leaves unanswered the question of whether he did, or whether the drought has really ended.The last line of the novel is ‘Raju said â€Å"Velan, its raining up the hills, I can feel it under my feet. † And with this he saged down'. The last line implies that by now Raju after undergoing so many ups and downs in his life has become a sage and as the drought ends Raju's life also ends. Narayan has beautifully written the last line which means Raju did not die but saged down, meaning Raju within himself had become a sage. The Shadow Lines The Shadow Lines (1988) is a Sahitya Akademi Award-winning novel[1] by Indian-Bengali writer Amitav Ghosh.It is a book that capt ures perspective of time and events, of lines that bring people together and hold them apart, lines that are clearly visible from one perspective and nonexistent from another. Lines that exist in the memory of one, and therefore in another's imagination. A narrative built out of an intricate, constantly crisscrossing web of memories of many people, it never pretends to tell a story. Rather it invites the reader to invent one, out of the memories of those involved, memories that hold mirrors of differing shades to the same experience.The novel is set against the backdrop of historical events like Swadeshi movement, Second World War, Partition of India and Communal riots of 1963-64 in Dhaka and Calcutta. The novel brought its author the 1989 Sahitya Akademi Award for English, by the Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters. [2] Plot summary The novel follows the life of a young boy growing up in Calcutta and later on in Delhi and London. His family – the Datta Chaud haris – and the Prices in London are linked by the friendship between their respective patriarchs – Justice Dattachaudhari and Lionel Tresawsen.The narrator adores Tridib because of his tremendous knowledge and his perspective of the incidents and places. Tha'mma thinks that Tridib is type of person who seems ‘determined to waste his life in idle self-indulgence', one who refuses to use his family connections to establish a career. Unlike his grandmother, the narrator loves listening to Tridib. For the narrator, Tridib's lore is very different from the collection of facts and figures. The narrator is sexually attracted to Ila but his feelings are passive. He never expresses his feelings to her afraid to lose the relationship that exists between them.However one day he involuntarily shows his feelings when she was changing clothes in front of him being unaware of his feelings. She feels sorry for him. Tha'mma does not like Ila. ‘Why do you always speak for t hat whore' – She doesn't like her grandson to support her. Tha'mma has a dreadful past and wants to reunite her family and goes to Dhaka to bring back her uncle. Tridib is in love with May and sacrificed his life to rescue her from mobs in the communal riots of 1963-64 in Dhaka. Clear Light of Day Clear Light of Day is a novel published in 1980 by Indian novelist and three time Booker Prize finalist, Anita Desai.Set in Old Delhi, this book describes the tensions in a post-partition Indian family during and after childhood, starting with the characters as adults and moving back into their lives through the course of the book. While the primary theme is the importance of family, other predominant themes include the importance of forgiveness, the power of childhood, and forgiving those you are close to. Plot summary The book is split into four sections covering the Das family from the children’s perspective in this order: adulthood, adolescence, childhood, and the time pe rspective returns to adulthood.The book centers on the Das family, who have grown apart with adulthood. It starts with Tara, the wife of Bakul, India’s ambassador to America, greeting her sister Bimla (Bim), who is a history teacher living in Old Delhi as well as their autistic brother Baba's caretaker. Their conversation eventually comes to Raja, their brother who lives in Hyderabad. Bim doesn’t want to go to the wedding of Raja’s daughter, showing Tara an old letter from when Raja became her landlord, unintentionally insulting her after the death of his father in law.In part two the setting switches to partition era India, when the characters are adolescents in what is now Bim’s house. Raja is severely ill with tuberculosis and is left to Bim’s ministrations. Aunt Mira (Mira masi), their supposed caretaker after the death of the children’s often absent parents, becomes alcoholic and dies of alcoholism. Earlier Raja's fascination with Urdu attracts the attention of the family's Muslim landlord, Hyder Ali, whom Raja Idolizes. When he heals, Raja follows Hyder Ali to Hyderabad. Tara escapes from the situation through marriage to Bakul.Bim is then left to provide for Baba alone, in the midst of the partition and the death of Gandhi. In part three Bim, Raja and Tara are depicted in pre-partition India awaiting the birth of their brother Baba. Aunt Mira, widowed by her husband and mistreated by her in-laws, is brought in to help with Baba, who is autistic, and to raise the children. Raja is fascinated with poetry. He shares a close bond with Bim, the head girl at school, although they often exclude Tara. Tara wants to be a mother although this fact brings ridicule from Raja and Bim, who want to be a hero and a heroine, respectively.The final section returns to modern India and showcases Tara confronting Bim over the Raja's daughter's wedding and Bim's broken relationship with Raja. This climaxes when Bim explodes at Baba. After her anger fades she comes to the conclusion that the love of family is irreplaceable and can cover all wrongs. After Tara leaves she decides to go to her neighbors the Misras for a concert and she then decides that she will go to the wedding. The God of Small Things The God of Small Things (1997) is the debut novel of Indian writer Arundhati Roy.It is a story about the childhood experiences of fraternal twins whose lives are destroyed by the â€Å"Love Laws† that lay down â€Å"who should be loved, and how. And how much. † The book is a description of how the small things in life affect people's behaviour and their lives. The book won the Booker Prize in 1997. The God of Small Things is Roy's first book and, as of 2013, is her only novel. Completed in 1996, the book took four years to write. The potential of the story was first recognized by Pankaj Mishra, an editor with HarperCollins, who sent it to three British publishers.Roy received half-a-million pounds in advances, and rights to the book were sold in 21 countries. While generally praised, the book did receive some criticism for its verbosity and controversial subject matter. [1] The story, told here in chronological order, although the novel shifts around in time, primarily takes place in a town named Ayemenem or Aymanam now part of Kottayam in Kerala state of India. The temporal setting shifts back and forth from 1969, when fraternal twins Rahel and Estha are seven years old, to 1993, when the twins are reunited at age 31.Much of the story is written in a viewpoint relevant to the seven-year-old children. Malayalam words are liberally used in conjunction with English. Some facets of Kerala life which the novel captures are communism, the caste system, and the Keralite Syrian Christian way of life. Without sufficient dowry for a marriage proposal, Ammu Ipe becomes desperate to escape her ill-tempered father, Pappachi, and her bitter, long-suffering mother, Mammachi. She finally convi nces her parents to let her spend a summer with a distant aunt in Calcutta.To avoid returning to Ayemenem, she marries a man who assists managing a tea estate whom she later discovers to be a heavy alcoholic who physically abuses her and attempts to prostitute her to his boss so that he can keep his job. She gives birth to two children, fraternal twins, Estha and Rahel, yet ultimately leaves her husband and returns to live with her mother and brother, Chacko, in Ayemenem. Also living at their home in Ayemenem is Pappachi's sister, Baby Kochamma, whose actual name is Navomi Ipe, but is called Baby due to her young age at becoming a grand-aunt, and Kochamma being an honorific title for females.As a young girl, Baby Kochamma had fallen in love with Father Mulligan, a young Irish priest who had come to Ayemenem to study Hindu scriptures. In order to get closer to him, Baby Kochamma had become a Roman Catholic and joined a convent, against her father's wishes. After a few lonely months i n the convent, Baby Kochamma had realized that her vows brought her no closer to the man she loved, with her father eventually rescuing her from the convent, sending her to America for an education, where she obtained a diploma in ornamental gardening.Due to her unrequited love with Father Mulligan, Baby Kochamma remained unmarried for the rest of her life, gradually becoming more and more bitter over the years. Throughout the book, Baby Kochamma delights in the misfortune of others and manipulates events to bring down calamity upon Ammu and the twins. While studying at Oxford, Chacko fell in love and married an English woman named Margaret, Shortly after the birth of their daughter Sophie, Margaret reveals that she had been having an affair with another man, Joe. They divorce and Chacko, unable to find a job, returns to India.After the death of Pappachi, Chacko returns to Ayemenem and takes over his mother's business, called Paradise Pickles and Preserves. When Margaret's second hu sband is killed in a car accident, Chacko invites her and Sophie to spend Christmas in Ayemenem. The day before Margarget and Sophie arrive, the family visits a theater to see The Sound of Music, where Estha is molested by the â€Å"Orangedrink Lemondrink Man†, a vendor working the snack counter of the theater. His fear stemming from this encounter factors into the circumstances that lead to the tragic events at the heart of the narrative.On the way to the airport to pick them up, the family (Chacko, Ammu, Estha, Rahel, and Baby Kochamma) encounters a group of communist protesters. The protesters surround the car and force Baby Kochamma to wave a red flag and chant a communist slogan, humiliating her. Rahel thinks she sees Velutha, an untouchable servant that works in the pickle factory, in the crowd. Velutha's alleged presence with the communist mob makes Baby Kochamma associate him with her humiliation at their hands, and she begins to harbor a deep hatred towards him.Velut ha is an untouchable (the lowest caste in India), a dalit, and his family has served the Ipes for generations. Velutha is an extremely gifted carpenter and mechanic. His skills with repairing the machinery make him indispensable at the pickle factory, but result in resentment and hostility from the other, touchable factory workers. Rahel and Estha form an unlikely bond with Velutha and come to love him, despite his untouchable status. It is her children's love for Velutha that causes Ammu to realize her attraction to him and eventually, she comes to â€Å"love by night the man her children love by day†.They begin a short-lived affair that culminates in tragedy for the family. When her relationship with Velutha is discovered, Ammu is locked in her room and Velutha is banished. In her rage, Ammu blames the twins for her misfortune and calls them the â€Å"millstones around her neck†. Distraught, Rahel and Estha decide to run away. Their cousin Sophie Mol convinces them t o take her with them. During the night, while trying to reach the abandoned house across the river, their boat capsizes and Sophie drowns.Once Margaret Kochamma and Chacko return from Cochin, where they have been picking up airline tickets, Margaret sees Sophie's body lay out on the sofa. She vomits and hysterically berates the twins as they had survived, and hits Estha. Baby Kochamma goes to the police and accuses Velutha of being responsible for Sophie's death. She claims that Velutha attempted to rape Ammu, threatened the family, and kidnapped the children. A group of policemen hunt Velutha down and savagely beat him for crossing caste lines, the twins witnessing the horrific scene and are deeply disturbed.When the twins reveal the truth of Sophie's death to the Chief of Police, he is alarmed. He knows that Velutha is a communist, and is afraid that the wrongful arrest and beating of Velutha will cause unrest amongst the local communists. He threatens to hold Baby Kochamma respon sible for falsely accusing Velutha. To save herself, Baby Kochamma tricks Rahel and Estha into accusing Velutha of Sophie's death. Velutha dies of his injuries. Hearing of his arrest, Ammu goes to the police to tell the truth about their relationship. The police threaten her to make her leave the matter alone.Afraid of being exposed, Baby Kochamma convinces Chacko that Ammu and the twins are responsible for his daughter's death. Chacko kicks Ammu out of the house. Unable to find a job, Ammu is forced to send Estha to live with his father. Estha never sees Ammu again, and she dies alone and impoverished a few years later at the age of thirty-one. After a turbulent childhood and adolescence in India, Rahel goes to America to study. While there, she gets married, divorced and finally returns to Ayemenem after several years of working dead-end jobs.Rahel and Estha, both 31-years-old, are reunited for the first time since they were children. In the intervening years, Estha and Rahel have been haunted by their guilt and grief-ridden pasts. Estha is perpetually silent and Rahel has a haunted look in her eyes. It becomes apparent that neither twin ever found another person who understood them in the way they understand each other. The twins' renewed intimacy ultimately culminates in them sleeping together. In the last chapter of the book, ‘The Cost of Living', the narrative is once again set in the 1969 time frame and describes Ammu and Velutha's first sexual encounter.It describes that â€Å"Instinctively they stuck to the Small Things. The Big Things ever lurked inside. They knew there was nowhere for them to go. They had no future. So they stuck to the Small Things†. After each encounter, Ammu and Velutha make one promise to one another: â€Å"Tomorrow? Tomorrow. † The novel ends on the optimistic note, â€Å"She kissed his closed eyes and stood up. Velutha with his back against the mangosteen tree watched her walk away. She had a dry rose in h er hair. She turned to say it once again: ‘Naaley. ‘ Tomorrow. † References †¢ Haq, Kaiser (ed. ). Contemporary Indian Poetry.Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1990. †¢ Haq, Rubana (ed. ). The Golden Treasury of Writers Workshop Poetry. Kolkata: Writers Workshop, 2008. †¢ Hoskote, Ranjit (ed. ). Reasons for Belonging: Fourteen Contemporary Indian Poets. Viking/Penguin Books India, New Delhi, 2002. †¢ King, Bruce Alvin. Modern Indian Poetry in English: Revised Edition. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1987, rev. 2001. (â€Å"the standard work on the subject and unlikely to be surpassed† — Mehrotra, 2003). †¢ Desai, Anita. Clear Light of Day. 1st Mariner books ed ed. New York: Mariner Books, 2000. Print.

5 Differences Between Spanish and English Object Pronouns

5 Differences Between Spanish and English Object Pronouns Because both are Indo-European languages, the grammars of Spanish and English are quite similar. Even so, grammatical differences between the two languages abound. Among them is the way that object pronouns are treated. Here are five ways that Spanish deals with object pronouns in ways that might not seem familiar to English speakers: Direct vs. Indirect Pronouns In the third person, Spanish distinguishes between direct and indirect object pronouns. The English third-person object pronouns are him, her and it in the singular and them in the plural, and the same words are used whether the object is direct or indirect. (In the simplest sense, although the distinctions dont always line up in the two languages, a direct object is one that is acted upon by a verb, while an indirect object is one affected by a verbs action even though the action is directed at someone or something else.) But in standard Spanish (exceptions are explained in our lesson on leà ­smo), the pronouns are distinguished like this: Singular direct objects: lo (masculine), la (feminine).Plural direct object: los (masculine), las (feminine).Singular indirect object: le.Plural indirect object: les. So while the simple English sentences I found her and I sent her a letter use the same pronoun her, a distinction is made in Spanish. The first sentence would be La encontrà ©, where la is a direct object, while the second would be Le mandà © una carta with le being the indirect object. (Letter or carta is the direct object.) Attaching Pronouns to Verbs In Spanish, object pronouns can be attached to some verbs. The pronouns can be attached to three verb forms: infinitives, gerunds and affirmative commands. The pronoun is written as part of the verb, and sometimes a written accent is needed to maintain the correct pronunciation. Here is an example of each of the verb types with an attached pronoun: Infinitive: Voy a amarte por siempre. (Im going to love you forever.)Gerund: Seguà ­an mirndonos. (They kept on looking at us.)Command:  ¡Cllate! (You shut up!) Different Distinctions The distinction between direct and indirect objects is different in the two languages. Taking note of which verbs require the use of le or les would be beyond the scope of this lesson. But it can be said that many Spanish verbs use the indirect-object pronoun where the pronoun in English would be viewed as a direct object. For example, in the sentence Le pidieron su direccià ³n (They asked him for his address), le is an indirect object. But in English, him would be viewed as a direct object because he was the one who was asked. The same is true in Le pegà ³ en la cabeza (They hit him in the head). Using Pronouns Redundantly It is common in Spanish to use an object pronoun even when the noun represented by the pronoun is explicitly stated. Such a redundant use of the pronoun often occurs when the object is named and appears before the verb: A Chris  le gusta escuchar mà ºsica. (Chris likes listening to music. See more in the lesson on gustar.)Toda la ropa la tenemos en descuento. (We have all the clothing on sale.) Note that the redundant pronoun isnt translated to English. The pronoun also is used redundantly in some cases to add emphasis, or often because thats what sounds right to native speakers even if such use isnt mandatory: Lo conocemos bien a este seà ±or. (We know this man well.)Le dieron un regalo a la nià ±a. (They gave a present to the girl.) Using Pronouns Alone Instead of In Phrases Spanish sometimes uses an indirect object pronoun where English would use a phrase. In English we often indicate who or what was affected by a verbs action with phrases such as for me or to him. In Spanish, it may not be necessary to make a phrase. The case where doing so sounds most unfamiliar may be with the verb ser (to be). For example, in Spanish you could say No me es posible for It is not possible for me. But similar constructions are possible with other verbs as well. For example, Le robaron el dinero means They stole the money from him or They stole the money from her.

How to Identify a Target Audience for Your Book in 3 Steps

How to Identify a Target Audience for Your Book in 3 Steps How to Identify a Target Audience for Your Book in 3 Steps Don’t you feel like your book could be a massive hit, if only the right people knew about it? If there were only some way of finding your target audience, you'd be able to reach out and get your novel into their hands or e-readers.This post will lay out a method on how to identify a target audience. You will find the ‘right people’ for your book, learn to see things from their perspective, and discover the most effective channels for reaching them.If you're a self-published author, you probably don't have the resources to market to everyone. The only sensible approach is to appeal to people who are actively seeking books just like yours.   If those people love your book, word of mouth will quickly spread, and you will start to build a loyal following that eagerly awaits your next publication.  So let’s get to it! How to identify a target audience: see things from your readers' perspective Step 1 - How to identify a target audienceHow do you go about figuring out who your book is meant for? While you may have a vague idea, it’s best to be as specific as you can.That’s because when you have an exact description of one ideal reader (this includes key demographics like age, sex, hobbies, interests, location, marital status, etc.), it becomes a lot easier to find similar people and expand your target audience.To understand this better, let’s borrow a concept from the business world: the idea of a ‘proto-persona.' This is basically an imaginary person who shares many traits with your most likely customer. How is this useful for authors? Let’s find out.Creating a proto-persona for your book Facebook Advertising for Authors, by Mark Dawson: Part 2 Read post Step 3 - Hone in on your real audienceYou can only go so far with assumptions of who your readers are, what they like, where they hang out and how they behave. Once you have these assumptions, you need to test them. How exactly do you go about doing that?Testing assumptions with Facebook AdvertisingTo be a successful author you have to start thinking like an entrepreneur. How do you find out whether your book will appeal more to fans of Lee Child or James Patterson? Create two Facebook ads with the same image and a similar copy ("fans of X will love this!") and target them at these two respective target audiences. For example, if fans of Lee Child respond better to your ad (higher click-through rate), then you have your answer.You can run a similar test on your image, or on the tone and length of the text you’re using. A/B test your Facebook ads to see which performs better If you have tons of questions swimming in your head at this point, that’s understandable! Check out this insightful interview with author Mark Dawson on the Reedsy blog,  for  a fun and easy introduction to Facebook advertising for authors.What’s your niche?Use forums like Goodreads to reach people who fit the description of your proto-persona, and expand your network to start conversations and get valuable feedback from real readers. Promotional activities are mutually beneficial if you reach the right communities. In exchange for a free copy, you can ask your newly found readers to review your book.The next steps†¦Most authors and book marketers recommend choosing one or two platforms and focusing your marketing efforts on them. This is a very good idea if you’re just starting out and don’t have the bandwidth to execute a massive marketing plan.You have to hold the attention of your fans by consistently provide them with value, whether that's by releasing free short stories, or engaging them on social media.  The importance of thinking from your reader’s perspective cannot be stressed enough, only because most authors ignore it completely.A loyal following will give you real-time feedback and insights into what your fans enjoy. You’ll be surprised at the amount of traction your book gets just through word of mouth.So don’t waste any more time on directionless marketing, find out where your audience is hanging out right now!Do you have any unique methods of how to identify a target audience? How important is it to have a clear strategy for finding your audience? Leave your thoughts, comments and questions below.

Venture capital investment decisions and frameworks Dissertation

Venture capital investment decisions and frameworks - Dissertation Example This dissertation has developed a real options framework on the propensity to make CVC investments. CVC investments are viewed as containing a series of real options. The initial investment opportunity is analogous to a call option to invest. Upon exercising the call option, the investing firm acquires at least two additional real options: the abandonment option in adverse market conditions and growth options in favorable market conditions. The dissertation proposes that established firms' propensity to make CVC investments are influenced by the factors that determine the economic value of the real options embedded in CVC projects. These options value drivers include uncertainty, irreversibility, growth potential and competition. This dissertation finds strong empirical support for the real options view of CVC investment decisions. In addition, since real options are created and exercised through managerial discretion that is enabled and constrained by firm-level resources and capabi lities, this dissertation also examines how firm-level heterogeneity in resources and capabilities influence the economic value of real options and CVC investment propensity. In particular, this dissertation focuses on how resource base diversity may enhance the value of growth options and help with timely abandonment and efficient switching. The empirical analysis provides evidence for the positive effects of R&D and related knowledge base on CVC investment propensity, but does not find any statistically significant positive effect of resource base diversity on CVC investment propensity.