Customer Reviews

The Quick and Dirty Guide to Learning Languages Fast

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I've been studying Spanish on my own nearly every day for almost two years. Of all the how-to-learn-a-language books that I've found in that time, I think that Barry Farber's "How to Learn Any Language" outlines the best long term strategy. But I think that A.G. Hawke may have the best short-term/quick-start method.

In his introduction, the author talks about principles. He says that his method is based on the KISS (keep it simple stupid) principle. I don't think he gives himself enough credit. I can see three much more tangible principles at work here:

1) Prioritize
Learn the most useful and important things first. The book's charts are prefilled with suggested concepts that the author considers most important.

2) Divide and conquer
The material to be learned is broken into manageable chunks. You concentrate on one chunk at a time. Every day you have a goal.

3) Be consistent
The method suggests a daily pattern of review and learning.

While these principles may not be earth shattering news, the book does provide plenty of details. From those details, you are expected to craft a program of your own. This allows you to take charge of your own learning and to progress with the least amount of wasted time and effort (At least in the early stages).

After reading this book, I can't help but wonder how much of a head start it would have given me. Having no guidance at all, I floundered for quite a while before I started making any real progress. If I'd had this book, I might have shaved several months off my initial learning. (Even just a one month head start is worth more than the price of the book.)

Other reviewers point out that this slim book has very few pages of real text. I'll admit that was my initial reaction too. It's barely longer than a magazine feature article if you don't count the charts. But the author wastes no words.

Short as it is, I'm glad this did end up in book form rather than in a magazine. Otherwise, it would be lost in the abyss of back-issues.

This book is largely based on the method used by Sir Richard Francis Burton who was fluent in a couple dozen languages. Burton said "I got a simple grammar and vocabulary, marked out the forms and words which I knew were absolutely necessary, and learnt them by heart. After learning some 300 words... I stumbled through some easy book-work... and underlined every word I wished to recollect." Hawke's book is based on the same idea. You basically fill in tables with commonly used verbs, nouns, adjectives, etc. and learn them. This is a great way to get a good foundation in a new language. You will have an adequate vocabulary to hold many everyday conversations.

However Hawke's ideas should only be used as a stepping stone to real language learning. Hawke tends to assume that grammar in all languages is somewhat similar to English. This is untrue. Grammar and sentence structure vary by language so you will need other tools especially a couple of good grammar books. A sentence like "I stood in front of the bank" could translate into another language as "I bank the in front of stood."

I also disagree with Hawke when he says you will need very few tools to learn a language. Things you really need include grammar books, a phrase book, learning tapes or CDs, software and a movie or two in the new language to learn pronunciation. It useless to know a lot of words if you can't pronounce them
correctly. Premade flashcards, script learning books (urdu, hindi, arabic,etc.), books of verbs and conjugations are also very helpful if you can find them for the language you are learning.

While I don't agree with some of what Hawke has to say I do recommend this book. It is a great method to use to get off to a fast start. However a start is all it will give you. Once you have finished this book you should move onto "How to Learn Any Language" by Barry J. Farber.

If you want to learn most languages, you've got Michel Thomas, or Pimsleur or Berlitz (the courses, not the travel packs) to turn to. If they're available, that's where you should go.

Unfortunately, they haven't yet made these handy-dandy one-size-fits-all solutions for all languages. If you're learning, say, Azeri, or Tahitian, or Georgian, there's precious little out there. This is where the Quick and Dirty Guide comes in handy. While some of the advice is contradictory and some of the ideas about how fast you can learn are exaggerated, this book provides a great format for streamlining and organizing your learning for the more exotic languages where the resources are scattershot.

As a language teacher, I don't agree with all of Hawke's observations on language. But if you're faced with the practical reality of needing to communicate in a week or two, proper language learning has to take a backseat to picking up what is humanly possible. For this purpose, his advice is worthwhile.

If you're looking for a language-learning silver-bullet, bad news - none exists. But if you're looking for a way to organize your self-study of an unusual language, this book is worth looking at.

Having directly taught or directly supervised instruction in exactly thirty languages (at Stanford, Georgetown, US Naval Academy, State U of NY, US Defense Languages Institute, etc), I picked up this book with considerable enthusiasm but found it seriously wanting. Other reviews here have handled some of the details well; I'll direct my comments to just one overriding principle.

This book's structure and method tend to reinforce the unfortunate assumption that, in general, languages consist of pieces interchangeable with the pieces you already know in your own language. This brick-by-brick concept leads to word lists where English is presented in one list of words matched up with the target language's list of words. This reinforces the incorrect feeling that each language is put together with bricks, and you match up your red bricks wih the other language's yellow bricks.

Whereas the reality is that each language presents a different structure. You may think of bricks, but your target language may be frame-stucco or an animal-hide teepee. To understand a teepee, you wouldn't be helped by looking at it and wondering, "Where are the bricks?" As just one example, using two common languages. the American English construction "because I FELT like doing it that way," is very often rendered in Spanish as, "porque sí." How would it help the learner of Spanish to wonder, "Where is the FELT," or "Where is the doing?" The fact is that the Spanish, literally, is just "because yes." But it can often and easily mean "Because I felt like doing it that way."

And yet, despite this very fundamental weakness, this book does offer helpful info of the type to which it's limited.

Ignore the negative reviews of this book. The book is called the quick and dirty guide to language learning because that is what is is. It is designed to help you become functional quickly and it does accomplish this if you make the commitment and follow the schedule.

If you want to learn a new language I highly recommend this book. Hawke presents a 7 day process to help you become functional in a new language quickly. He gives you the schedule for each day that includes reviewing what you have learned before you go to bed and as soon as you get up in the morning. If you are traveling to another country on business or for a vacation this book will help you get the essential vocabulary you will need. If you are learning a language in depth this will give you a good foundation. Hawke largely focuses on building vocabulary and learning useful phrases. He also provides information on the most useful grammatical concepts for a new user to master. Grammar books often focus on complicated grammar concepts that new learners really don't need early on. This book actually covers important information that Barry Farber left out in "How to Learn Any Language" such as common word lists. I suggest you buy both, complete Hawke's book and then move onto Farber's.

When I cracked this book open for the first time, I was shocked that most of the pages are empty workbook pages for the reader to fill in. Calling it a "guide" is misleading. In short, there's very little substance to this book; there are many others that are much more helpful and substantive (i.e., Farber).

I'm impressed with this book. Some of the tips are a bit inane. If you've learned a language before, they might be suggestions you've already figured out. That being said, for the first time language learner, this book points out things that many of us had to learn the hard way.

I give it five stars for the list of words alone. Previous reviewers criticized the book for these word lists, but I disagree. The list is filled with items that will allow you to hit the ground running, if you elect to memorize them as instructed. These frequently used words are worth the price of the book. Each one is a golden nugget.

This book was really disappointing. You'd except to get a lot of content packed in such a small book but that's the opposite : there are only very few pages of text in the whole book, of very moderate usefulness in my opinion. All the rest (by this I mean 60%) is made out of tables of a few hundred useful words in English that you should fill with the equivalent in your target language.

In comparison with Barry Farber's "How to learn any language", well, there's just no comparison possible.

The bottom line is : buy Barry Farber's book and leave this one on the shelf.

Hawke has done some useful work for the reader by providing his view of the essential words in English that you will need to know the foreign language equivalents of. His advice on Not learning obscenity is excellent. I am learning Korean, and Korean culture would ostracise anyone who used any of the (oh so many) obscenities that I have seen in some guide books.

As noted by others, the majority of the book consists of tables of these words with spaces for you to fill in the translations. It took me the better part of two full days to fill up his tables, using an excellent dictionary and phrase book.

His advice on how to pace your learning is very confused. He appears to give two separate schedules for learning, with no indication of which he actually expects the reader to use. Thus, on page 25 he suggests the following schedule:

15 minute review of work so far
15 minutes of 5 new verbs
15 minutes on 15 new nouns
10 minutes on grammar rules (1 major rule per day)
5 minutes on five new phrases
15 minutes review before going to bed.

Then, on page 27/28 he gives an individual schedule for each day, that is totally at odds with the above! Which of the two does he expect the reader to follow? Or both? This ambiguity irritated me.

Overall this is a useful tool with a couple of good ideas. The macho language style is irritating, as is the lack of clarity as to what he is really trying to recommend to the reader by way of pacing the learning of vocabulary.

Here's the skinny: If you really need to learn a new language fast, because you will travel somewhere in the next few days, then this is probably a good book to get. Otherwise, you may get it if you can spare the money, and it may teach you something. But don't expect any silver bullet.

The method is very simple and most of the pages are filled with word tables. These are simple tables that you have to fill with translated versions of some essential words in the target language. It's a waste of paper; the book could show the model for the tables, and put the essential words into lists. It's easy to build the tables if you have the lists. Nonetheless, the selection of essential words is a good guide for what to learn first.

The method gives you a direction for a quick start in a language, and is supposed to work for any language. However, some parts of the method may be difficult or impossible to apply if the target language is too different from English. The author admits this is so, and the student may need to adapt the techniques.

There's one sound piece of advice for any language learners, regardless of method: you must immerse yourself in the language and culture you want to learn. Read children's books, newspapers, magazines; watch movies; listen to music; eat the food; all of this connected with the culture associated with the language.

Otherwise, I found it mildly interesting, but don't plan on using the method as I'm not in such a hurry, and becoming merely functional in a language is not my goal at this point. But I think I can incorporate some of the tips and ideas into my own language learning habits.