作者序
Do not be fooled by the brevity of the chapters in this book. They have been purposefully structured to be short—short and concise. As study after study has shown, language learning is best done bit by bit: thirty minutes to an hour a day. Exceeding an hour a day is not beneficial and may in fact be harmful. Indeed, cramming is the refuge of the poorly prepared student, and if your goal is to master English, you do not want to emulate such a student and cram. Instead, you want to pace yourself, and this book allows you to do that.?
While the chapters are short, they are very dense and diverse. Each chapter has five parts. The first part is a picture. Following the picture is the second part, which consists of four vocabulary words related to said picture, and example sentences for the four vocabulary words. The third part is a short composition that is also related to the picture. Within the composition two words have been selected, and four synonyms to each word have been provided. These two words are not necessarily related to the picture. They are, however, important and useful words, as are their synonyms. The fourth part is another composition, this one discussing the topic as it manifests in both the East and West and exploring the differences between how it manifests itself in the two places. Finally, each chapter ends with the fifth and final part, which is two conversational sentences that are related to the topic.
I hope you find this book both useful and interesting. And remember, the best way to master a language is to study every day yet to spend no more than an hour a day every day studying, and this book is perfect for this.
不要被這本《睡前五分鐘的英語自修課》的外表騙了，書籍雖然看起來小本，但內容卻是非常豐富的，能夠讓學習者按部就班地學習。
許多研究表示「想學好語言，最好是每天花0.5∼1小時學習，若超過一個小時的話，學習效果反而不好」。的確，英文不好的人最喜歡的就是死記硬背，但如果學習目的是「精通英文、靈活運用」的話，就不能用硬背的方式來學習，反而需要安排自己的學習步調，而這本書就提供了這樣的學習內容。
書中的章節雖然簡短，但內容很豐富且多樣。每個單元都有完整的學習內容，從單字、例句、簡短文章、衍生學習、小故事……等，透過各種不同的內容，讓讀者學到最全面、實用的英文。再加上繪者精心繪製的插圖，讓這本書看起來更加豐富，希望各位讀者覺得這本《睡前五分鐘的英語自修課》有用又有趣。
請記得，最好的語言學習方式是「每天學習，但每天不要超過一個小時學習」。而這本《睡前五分鐘的英語自修課》將因為這樣的學習方式而更臻完美。
Ian Crews、懶鬼子英日語編輯群
