Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Not counting the index this book is about 130 pages. The meat of it can be condensed to a few pages. The rest is basically the summary of the author's love of languages and his inflated ego. Don't get me wrong he does offer some sound strategies and a way to direct your language efforts. I will give you what I found useful and you can decide to waste $10 if you want to. First, realize there is no magic way to learn a language. You have to work at it and dedicate yourself. The author recommends a multi-prong approach to learning the language. Some of the materials he recommends you purchase are a introductory book to your target language, an audio program for target language, a two-way dictionary in the target language, a phrase book, and a magazine or newspaper in the target language. He suggests doing the first 5 lessons in the introductory book to familiarize yourself in the language. Then start trying to read an article in the target language. Write down the words you don't understand and make flash cards. Use the audio tapes to listen to correct pronunciation and make flash cards of words. Also use the phrasebook to give vocabulary and make flash cards. He does recommend using Pimsleur programs for the audio portion. I gave myself a crash course with Pimsleur German 1 and was able to make basic conversations within a few days. He emphasizes practice of your language with whomever you can find speaks it. Ok the book doesn't live up to the title. He does not address how to apply his memory techniques and self learning style to tonal languages like Thai. His close enough approach does not cut it with Thai. I live here and unless you say the word exactly you will just confuse whomever you are talking to. Also can't really dive into the reading and writing portions with anything but a roman alphabet. One of his great bragging points is how he ordered food in Chinese and the Chinese waitress was so impressed that she ended up messing up his whole order. What most likely happened is that he spoke what he thought was Chinese but what was most likely jibberish. I don't know about anyone else but if someone speaks to me clearly in my native language I will not get flustered I will be very comfortable and would easily be able to respond. The rest of the book reads like this. Little scenarios were it shows it is nice to know another language. Anyone that picked up this book would already realize this. We want substance not nostalgia.