How to Learn Any Language QuicklyEasilyInexpensivelyEnjoyably and On Your Own

帅哥发表于 2009-1-1 16:42:27

帅哥发表于 2009-1-1 16:42:51

Introduction<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p>
This may be the most frequently told joke in the world – it’s repeated every day in almost<o:p></o:p>
every language:<o:p></o:p>
“What do you call a person who speaks two languages?”<o:p></o:p>
“Bilingual.”<o:p></o:p>
“What do you call a person who speaks three languages?”<o:p></o:p>
“Trilingual.”<o:p></o:p>
“What do you call a person who speaks four languages?”<o:p></o:p>
“Quadrilingual.”<o:p></o:p>
“What do you call a person who speaks only one language?”<o:p></o:p>
“An American!”<o:p></o:p>
With your help this book can wipe that smile off the world’s face.<o:p></o:p>
The reason Americans have been such notoriously poor language learners up to<o:p></o:p>
now is twofold:<o:p></o:p>
1. We’ve never really had to learn other peoples’ languages before, and<o:p></o:p>
2. Almost all foreign language instruction available to the average American has<o:p></o:p>
been until now (one hates to be cruel) worthless. “I took two years of high school French<o:p></o:p>
and four more years in college and I couldn’t even order orange juice in Marseilles” is<o:p></o:p>
more than a self effacing exaggeration. It’s a fact, a shameful, culturally impoverishing,<o:p></o:p>
economically dangerous, self defeating fact!<o:p></o:p>
Modern commerce and communications have erased reason 1.<o:p></o:p>
You and the method laid out in this book, working together, will erase reason 2.<o:p></o:p>
It started for me when I learned that the Norwegian word for “squirrel” was acorn.<o:p></o:p>
It may have been spelled ekorn, but it was pronounced acorn. Then I learned that<o:p></o:p>
“Mickey Mouse” in Swedish is Mussie Pig. Again, the Swedish spelling varied, but so<o:p></o:p>
what? As delights like those continued to come my way, I realised I was being locked<o:p></o:p>
tighter and tighter into the happy pursuit of language love and language learning.<o:p></o:p>
My favourite music is the babble of strange tongues in the marketplace. No<o:p></o:p>
painting, no art, no photograph in the world can excite me as much as a printed page of<o:p></o:p>
text in a foreign language I can’t read – yet!<o:p></o:p>
I embraced foreign language study as a hobby as a teenager in 1944. When I was<o:p></o:p>
inducted into the army in 1952, I was tested and qualified for work in fourteen different<o:p></o:p>
languages. Since then I’ve expanded my knowledge of those languages and taken up<o:p></o:p>
others. Whether fluently or fragmentally, I can now express myself in twenty-five<o:p></o:p>
languages.<o:p></o:p>
That may sound like a boast, but it’s really a confession. Having spent so many<o:p></o:p>
years with no other hobby, I should today be speaking every one of those languages<o:p></o:p>
much better than I do. If you’re a beginner, you may be impressed to hear me order a<o:p></o:p>
meal in Chinese or discuss the Tito-Stalin split in Serbo-Croatian, but only I know how<o:p></o:p>
much time and effort I wasted over those years thinking I was doing the right thing to<o:p></o:p>
increase my command of those and other languages.<o:p></o:p>
This book, then, does not represent the tried and true formula I’ve been using since<o:p></o:p>
1944. It presents the tried and true formula I’d use if I could go back to 1944 and start all<o:p></o:p>
over again!<o:p></o:p>
Common sense tells us we can’t have dessert before we finish the meal; we can’t<o:p></o:p>
have a slim figure until we diet; we can’t have strong muscles until we exercise; we<o:p></o:p>
won’t have a fortune until we make it. So far common sense is right.<o:p></o:p>
Common sense also tells us, however, that we can’t enjoy communicating in a<o:p></o:p>
foreign language until we learn it. This means years of brain benumbing conjugations,<o:p></o:p>
declensions, idioms, exceptions, subjunctives, and irregular verbs. And here common<o:p></o:p>
sense is wrong, completely wrong. When it comes to learning foreign languages, we can<o:p></o:p>
start with the dessert and then use its sweetness to inspire us to back up and devour the<o:p></o:p>
main course.<o:p></o:p>
What six year old child ever heard of a conjugation? Wouldn’t you love to be able<o:p></o:p>
to converse in a foreign language as well as all the children of that tongue who’ve not yet<o:p></o:p>
heard of grammar? No, we’re not going to rise up as one throaty revolutionary mob,<o:p></o:p>
depose grammar, drag it out of the palace by the heels, and burn it in the main square.<o:p></o:p>
We’re just going to put grammar in its place. Up to now, grammar has been used by our<o:p></o:p>
language educators to anesthetise us against progress. If it’s grammar versus fun, we’re<o:p></o:p>
going to minimise grammar and maximise fun. We’re going to find more pleasant ways<o:p></o:p>
to absorb grammar.<o:p></o:p>
Unfortunately, there are a lot more “self improvement” books than there is self<o:p></o:p>
improvement. Too many books whose titles are heavy with promise turn out to be all hat<o:p></o:p>
and no cattle – not enough take home after you deduct the generalities and exhortations<o:p></o:p>
to “focus” and “visualise” your goals. Extracting usable advice from high promising<o:p></o:p>
books can be like trying to nail custard pies to the side of a barn.<o:p></o:p>
Mindful of that danger, I will not leave you with nothing but a pep talk. Follow the<o:p></o:p>
steps herein, and you will learn the language of your choice quickly, easily, inexpensively,<o:p></o:p>
enjoyably and on your own.<o:p></o:p>
And you’ll have fun en route, though not nearly as much fun as you’ll have once<o:p></o:p>
you get that language in working order and take it out to the firing range of the real<o:p></o:p>
world!<o:p></o:p>
The System<o:p></o:p>
The language learning system detailed in this book is the result of my own continuous,<o:p></o:p>
laborious trial and error beginning in 1944. That which worked was kept, that which<o:p></o:p>
failed was dropped, that which was kept was improved. Technology undreamed of when<o:p></o:p>
I started studying languages, such as the audiocasette and the tape player small enough to<o:p></o:p>
carry while walking or jogging, was instantly and eagerly incorporated.<o:p></o:p>
The system combines:<o:p></o:p>
<SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: 宋体; mso-bidi-font-family: SymbolMT; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ansi-language: X-NONE; mso-ascii-font-family: SymbolMT; mso-hansi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; mso-bidi-language: TH">•THE MULTIPLE TRACK ATTACK: Go to the language department of any bookstore<o:p></o:p>
and you’ll see language books, grammars, hardcover and paperback workbooks,<o:p></o:p>
readers, dictionaries, flash cards, and handsomely bound courses on cassette. Each<o:p></o:p>
one of those products sits there on the shelf and says, “Hey, Bud. You want to<o:p></o:p>
learn this language? Here I am. Buy me!” I say, buy them all, or at least one of<o:p></o:p>
each! You may feel like you’re taking four or five different courses in the same<o:p></o:p>
language simultaneously. That’s good. A marvellous synergistic energy sets you<o:p></o:p>
soaring when all those tools are set together in symphony.<o:p></o:p>
<SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: 宋体; mso-bidi-font-family: SymbolMT; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ansi-language: X-NONE; mso-ascii-font-family: SymbolMT; mso-hansi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; mso-bidi-language: TH">•HIDDEN MOMENTS: Dean Martin once chided a chorus girl, who was apathetically<o:p></o:p>
sipping her cocktail, by saying, “I spill more than you drink!” All of us “spill”<o:p></o:p>
enough minutes every day to learn a whole new language a year! Just as the Dutch<o:p></o:p>
steal land from the sea, you will learn to steal language learning time, even from a<o:p></o:p>
life that seems completely filled or overflowing. What do you do, for example,<o:p></o:p>
while you’re waiting for an elevator, standing in line at the bank, waiting for the<o:p></o:p>
person you’re calling to answer the phone, holding the line, getting gas, waiting to<o:p></o:p>
be ushered from the waiting room into somebody’s office, waiting for your date to<o:p></o:p>
arrive, waiting for anything at any time?<o:p></o:p>
You will learn to mobilise these precious scraps of time you’ve never even been<o:p></o:p>
aware you’ve been wasting. Some of your most valuable study time will come in<o:p></o:p>
mini lessons of fifteen, ten, and even five seconds throughout your normal (though<o:p></o:p>
now usually fruitful) day.<o:p></o:p>
<SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: 宋体; mso-bidi-font-family: SymbolMT; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ansi-language: X-NONE; mso-ascii-font-family: SymbolMT; mso-hansi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; mso-bidi-language: TH">•HARRY LORAYNE’S MAGIC MEMORY AID: An ingenious memory system developed<o:p></o:p>
by memory master Harry Lorayne will help you glue a word to your recollection<o:p></o:p>
the instant you encounter it. What would you do right now if I gave you a hundred<o:p></o:p>
English words along with their foreign equivalents and told you to learn them?<o:p></o:p>
Chances are you would look at the first English word, then look at the foreign<o:p></o:p>
word, repeat it several times, then close your eyes and keep on repeating it, then<o:p></o:p>
cover up the foreign word, look only at the English and see if you could remember<o:p></o:p>
how to say it in the language you’re learning, then go on to the next word, then the<o:p></o:p>
next, and the next, and then go back to the first to see if you remembered it, and so<o:p></o:p>
on through the list.<o:p></o:p>
Harry Lorayne’s simple memory trick based on sound and association will make<o:p></o:p>
that rote attempt laughable. The words will take their place in your memory like<o:p></o:p>
ornaments securely hung on a Christmas tree, one right after the other all the way<o:p></o:p>
up to many times those hundred words.<o:p></o:p>
<SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: 宋体; mso-bidi-font-family: SymbolMT; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ansi-language: X-NONE; mso-ascii-font-family: SymbolMT; mso-hansi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; mso-bidi-language: TH">•THE PLUNGE: You will escape the textbook incubator early and leap straightaway,<o:p></o:p>
with almost no knowledge of the language, into that language’s “real world”. A<o:p></o:p>
textbook in your target language, no matter how advanced, is not the real world.<o:p></o:p>
On the other hand, an advertisement in a foreign language magazine, no matter<o:p></o:p>
how elementary and easy to read, is the real world. Everything about you,<o:p></o:p>
conscious and subconscious, prefers real world to student world contact with the<o:p></o:p>
language.<o:p></o:p>

帅哥发表于 2009-1-1 16:43:06

帅哥发表于 2009-1-1 16:43:20

帅哥发表于 2009-1-1 16:43:34

帅哥发表于 2009-1-1 16:43:47

帅哥发表于 2009-1-1 16:44:03

Arrividerci, Latin<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p>
Italian, I discovered, was Latin with all the difficulty removed. Much as a skilled chef<o:p></o:p>
fillets the whole skeleton out of a fish, some friendly folks somewhere had lifted all that<o:p></o:p>
grammar (at least, most of it) out of Latin and called the remainder Italian!<o:p></o:p>
There was no nominative-genitive-dative-accusative in Italian. Not a trace, except<o:p></o:p>
in a few pronouns which I knew I could easily take prisoner because we had the same<o:p></o:p>
thing in English (me is the accusative of I). Italian verbs did misbehave a little, but not to<o:p></o:p>
the psychedelic extent of Latin verbs. And Italian verbs were a lot easier to look at.<o:p></o:p>
I bought Hugo’s book and went through it like a hot knife through butter. I could<o:p></o:p>
have conversed in Italian within a month if there’d been anybody around who could have<o:p></o:p>
understood – a learning aid which the Greensboro of that day, alas, could not provide.<o:p></o:p>
I was clearly a beaten boxer on the comeback trail. Why was I all of a sudden doing<o:p></o:p>
so well in Italian after having done so poorly in Latin?<o:p></o:p>
Was it my almost abnormal motivation? No. I’d had that in Latin, too. Was it that<o:p></o:p>
Italian was a living language you could go someplace some day and actually speak,<o:p></o:p>
whereas Latin was something you could only hope to go on studying? That’s a little<o:p></o:p>
closer to the mark, but far from the real answer.<o:p></o:p>
My blitz through Italian, after my unsuccessful siege of Latin, owed much to the<o:p></o:p>
fact that in Italian I didn’t miss day four! I’m convinced that it was day four in ninth<o:p></o:p>
grade Latin that did me in. No other day’s absence would have derailed me. When I left<o:p></o:p>
on day three we were bathing in a warm sea of pleasant words. If only I’d been there on<o:p></o:p>
day four when Miss Leslie explained the importance of grammar, I might have felt a bit<o:p></o:p>
dampened, but I’d have put my head into the book, clapped my hands over my ears, and<o:p></o:p>
mastered it.<o:p></o:p>
After Italian I surged simultaneously into Spanish and French with self study books.<o:p></o:p>
Though by no means fluent in either Spanish or French by summer’s end, I had amassed<o:p></o:p>
an impressive payload of each. I was ready to stage my come from behind coup.<o:p></o:p>
Regulations in my high school demanded that a student complete two years of Latin<o:p></o:p>
with good grades before continuing with another language. After that, one could choose<o:p></o:p>
Spanish or French. I had completed only one year of Latin with poor grades, and I<o:p></o:p>
wanted to take both Spanish and French!<o:p></o:p>
I had not yet learned the apt Spanish proverb that tells us “regulations are for your<o:p></o:p>
enemies.” I learned the concept, however, by living it.<o:p></o:p>
Miss Mitchell was the sole foreign language authority of the high school. She<o:p></o:p>
taught Spanish and French. She was considered unbendable – in fact, unapproachable –<o:p></o:p>
in matters of regulation fudging. I didn’t know that on the first day as classes were<o:p></o:p>
forming. I’m glad I didn’t.<o:p></o:p>
I went to her classroom and asked if I might talk something over with her. I told her<o:p></o:p>
I was particularly interested in foreign languages, and even though I’d only had one year<o:p></o:p>
of Latin and didn’t do well in it at all, I’d really like to move into Spanish and French. If<o:p></o:p>
she could only see her way clear to let me, I’d appreciate it forever and try awfully hard.<o:p></o:p>
She asked if I had a transcript of my grades from Miss Leslie’s Latin class. No, I<o:p></o:p>
didn’t, I explained, but I had something more to the point. I’d bought books in Spanish<o:p></o:p>
and French over the summer and gotten a good head start. I hoped a demonstration of my<o:p></o:p>
zeal would win her favour.<o:p></o:p>

帅哥发表于 2009-1-1 16:44:24

帅哥发表于 2009-1-1 16:44:46

帅哥发表于 2009-1-1 16:45:02

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How to Learn Any Language QuicklyEasilyInexpensivelyEnjoyably and On Your Own