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Kindle Notes & Highlights
If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that
goes to his heart. —Nelson Mandela Americans who travel abroad for the first time are often shocked to discover that, despite all the progress that has been made in the last 30 years, many foreign people still speak in foreign languages.
In the process, you’ll better understand the inner workings of your mind and the minds of others. You’ll learn to speak a new language, too.
(see Appendix 2
Glossary of Tools and Terms
In Appendix 1, I list my favorite picks for the top eleven languages you’re most likely to be studying.
A good grammar book
If the book gives you “Englishy” pronunciation for each word (Bonjour: bawn-JURE, Tschüss: chewss), I give you permission to burn it and find a different one.
A phrase book
We’ll use this dictionary when we learn our first words, because it’s a lot easier (and faster) to skim through than a real dictionary.
We’ll grudgingly allow “bawn-JURE” here but only because there are no phrase books without it.
A frequency dictionary
(The number one word in English, the, shows up once every twenty-five words.)
