Magazine/Newspaper suggestion for adult?

Work Teaching English in Taiwan
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I need magazine/newspaper recommendations for a student. He’s a professional, at a high-intermediate sort of level. He wants to read authentic or authentic-ish material, but without too much “newspaper-ese” or overly artful writing; something that can provide him with useful language for his work and work-related socialising. He’d like to read about current affairs and politics; wine and beer; and any other topics that might come up in informal conversations with foreign colleagues.

I already suggested USA Today. Any other ideas?

Thanks in advance.

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Depends on the profession. I regularly cull material from these for students…

Slate (decent, conversational podcasts available), Salon, The Economist (weekly, excellent audio version available)

After that…
News-ish, but good on developing an issue:
Christian Science Monitor, Harpers

More artful: New York Review of Books, London Review of Books, Virginia Quarterly Review, Boston Review

Science heavy…
National Geographic, Scientific American, Nature

Business…
Strategy & Business (depending on the profession)

Tech…
Wired

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Most of Jaboney’s suggestions are too difficult for a high-intermediate student. “Time” is too hard as well. Maybe try choosing online articles for him or suggest he look at Yahoo news or BBC or CNN online news - the articles are shorter and easier to understand than anything in Time or The Economist.

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[quote=“Jaboney”]Depends on the profession. I regularly cull material from these for students…

Slate (decent, conversational podcasts available), Salon, The Economist (weekly, excellent audio version available)

After that…
News-ish, but good on developing an issue:
Christian Science Monitor, Harpers

More artful: New York Review of Books, London Review of Books, Virginia Quarterly Review, Boston Review

Science heavy…
National Geographic, Scientific American, Nature

Business…
Strategy & Business (depending on the profession)

Tech…
Wired[/quote]Thanks for the suggestions, Jaboney. I’ll take a good look through them in a minute. I think the podcasts could be especially useful.

The student’s profession could best be described as “dreaming up new concepts for frameworks of connected gizmos”. But tech language isn’t really what he wants to improve. He wants to read about a range of topics he can use in conversation, written in a straightforward style.

I’ll first send him the first three links you gave and see how he gets on with those (I’m not actually teaching him currently; he just asked me for recommendations for stuff to read in his own time).

Still, I think he could do with reading stuff that’s slightly simpler. He’s quite willing to use dictionaries, but we agree that it’s not good for him to spend time learning language that’s not very frequent in ordinary conversation. That’s why the first thing I suggested to him was USA Today. Can anyone think of any other magazines or newspapers like that? They don’t have to actually be authentic materials; they could be specially written for students of English as long as the style and content is reasonably authentic. Reading magazines isn’t the most direct way to improve speaking, but that’s what he wants to do.

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Readers Digest. They often sell the Philippines RDs at Costco, and the bonus is you can download stuff from the web at rdasia.com

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[quote=“bababa”]Most of Jaboney’s suggestions are too difficult for a high-intermediate student. “Time” is too hard as well. Maybe try choosing online articles for him or suggest he look at Yahoo news or BBC or CNN online news - the articles are shorter and easier to understand than anything in Time or The Economist.[/quote]Thanks, Bababa. I do see what you mean. He’s quite willing to look unknown stuff up, but his major concern is that he doesn’t know which language is more important to learn, and which of several different ways to say or write the same thing are best in which situation.

That’s why we felt that reading simpler stuff would be better. But I’m not actually teaching him any more and don’t have time to pick online articles out for him. He needs a magazine he can get on fairly well with on his own.

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[quote=“Maoman”]Readers Digest. They often sell the Philippines RDs at Costco, and the bonus is you can download stuff from the web at rdasia.com[/quote]That’s a great idea! I’ll suggest it to him. Whereabouts in Costco? I haven’t seen them in the Neihu or Xizhi branches, but there’s a lot of stuff there and I might have missed them.

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Check the book piles. It is often hidden between the paperbacks and the children’s books.

I agree with the other guys that say that TIME and NEWSWEEK are too hard. Those are the ones we used to get vocabulary out from when we were preparing for the SAT and later the GRE.

I remember when I was a teenager I used to go to the American Institute back home and spend hours reading magazines for fun. Its library was very comprehensive, and it had a magazine collection like Eslite’s. I would read a lot of RD, Vogue, LIFE, etc. Pity they do not have such an open library in English here, though the one at Chengchi is quite nice. He could go there and just browse. It would not only be cheaper but also he could have access to a wider range of materials and won’t grow bored.

Of course, he could do the same in Eslite, and then buy if he really likes it.

Later on, as a teacher, I used a lot of National Enquirers and Glamour to make materials. I looked for stuff that had an easy, clearly defined 1+2+3 structure.

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Joesax -
The AmCham publishes a slick glossy magazine, named appropriately enough TOPICS, on topics of interest to the ‘business’ community here on the island.

An added bonus is that each article is accompanied by a Chinese translation. In discussing some of these topics with locals I’ve found this helps their comprehension of topics immensely.

Its available at most book stores. And also on their website. But I do not think the Chinese translation is on the web section. Just in the hard copy magazine version.

amcham.com.tw/publication_topics.php

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breakingnewsenglish.com/
Lots of good stuff for upper intermediate level. Timely, concise, free.