Sure, the other guy’s garbage is fun to know, but it’s tacky, so leave it alone. It’s all right to get command of their unacceptable terms for defensive purposes only – so you’ll puma trionfo know what not to say and be able to exercise caution when using words dangerously similar to the no-no words. It’s a good idea to follow Maimonides on this one: “What is lofty may be said in any language. What is mean should be said in none.” Your Second Foreign Language, Your Third, and So On It’s said that once you master one foreign language, all others come much more easily. That’s not a myth. Your first foreign language, in a major way, is the first olive dislodged from the bottle. The rest flow obligingly forth. Moreover, your second foreign language need have no connection to your first. Chinese will be easier if trionfo racing shoe you’ve first mastered Italian. Greek will be easier if you’ve mastered Japanese. You pick up the principles of how language works with your first conquest. I once asked a man who commanded easily a dozen languages how he did it. “I started out studying languages when I was young,” he said, “and I was just too lazy to quit! He was kidding, of course, but a lot of true words are spoken through exaggerations. The Right Word Don’t settle for being merely understood. Some of the least intelligent and most unspectacular people on earth can be understood in languages other than their own. Keep pressing forward toward perfection. “He think he’s a big shot” gets the notion across, but that shouldn’t satisfy the learner of English searching for the word “megalo mens puma maniac”. It’s a marvellous feeling of unfolding and growth when you learn more and more words that take you closer and closer to the bull’s eye of what you want to express. Saying It Right One of the most maddening things about language learning – you’ll encounter it time and time again – is having the face of the native you’re puma cabana speaking with suddenly go blank. You’ve used a word he doesn’t understand. He asks you to repeat it. You do. He still doesn’t understand. You repeat it again. Slower. Louder. Finally, in frustration, desperation, and humiliation, you write the word down or show it to him in your book. Then he gets it. “Ahh,” the native speaker says, the black night of your spoken error suddenly pierced by the flashbulb of print. And then – here’s the payoff – he proceeds to repeat exactly what you’ve been saying to him a dozen or so times without his comprehending! That syndrome is particularly prevalent in Chinese, though you risk it in every language. Be a sport. Eat crow. And even though you’re far from the mood at that moment, try to catch something in what he says that’s at least slightly different from what you’ve been saying. If the next native speaker understands your revised pronunciation without an argument, then that crow you were fo pumas shoes 2011 rced to eat will retroactively taste like pheasant! Every language student has good days and bad days with the language for no apparent reason. On bad days you can’t seem to unleash a simple greeting without monumental phumphering. On good days you actually feel supernaturally propelled. A rising tide lifts all boats. Keep working. The bad days as well as the good days will both be better. To Speak or Not to Speak Be neither too boorish nor too reticent with your new knowledge. Don’t go barrelling in with scant command of a language if doing so causes ungainly delays in a busy restaurant. Neither should you let shyness deny you a good opportunity to send a few volleys of conversation across the net. Don’t be like the beginner wh cheap puma o took his party into a French restaurant in New York and insisted on trying to order for everybody in French. The waiter, himself French, quickly abandoning any hope of understanding the poor wretch, pulled a diplomatic coup worthy of a medal and a kiss on both cheeks. “I’m sorry,” he said, with an accent French enough to draw the truffles up out of the underbrush of Alsace, “I don’t speak French.” “You don’t speak puma shoes French!” thundered the hapless showoff. “Non, monsieur,” said the waiter. “Well, then,” said he, “send me somebody who does!” Speaking of Peace Does knowledge of other languages lead puma trionfo to peace? One witness says “No. Knowing the other guy’s language merely enables you to get into more arguments of greater depth and intensity.” Another witness says, “Of course, language knowledge breeds peace. How could I pull a trigger and shoot a man when what I really want is a chance to sit down with him and learn his irregular verbs?” Put me solidly in the latter category. It’s impossible to learn a language and not learn a great deal about the country and its people, and usually those who learn about a country and its people develop a certain empathy and advocacy for that nation. When Serb fights Croat in Yugoslavia, I don’t ignore it. Neither do I choose sides. They were both so helpful to me when I was learning Serbo-Croatian. I want them all to work together and get along. A little knowledge of a language, then of a people, can convert even a rabid partisan into a one man peace movement! Keep Learning Stay with it. Keep pressing ahead with all of the tools in all of the ways suggested, plus whatever other ways you discover en route that seem to work for you. Keep pursuing opportunities to use what you learn, not just in exercises and self simulation, but in genuine, real life conversation, reading, writing and comprehension. When will you “arrive”? When will you no longer “be studying” but “have learned” the language? Never! At least, pretend never. Your linguistic infancy will lead to babyhood, childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, and so on. Your fragments of knowledge will lead to competence. Your competence will lead to fluency. Your fluency will intensify to higher and higher levels of fluency. The best attitude, however, is that your attempt to master the foreign language should remain perpetually unfinished business. You’ll succeed if you make sure you never go to bed knowing no more of your target language that you puma speed cat beige did when you woke up! P A R T T H R E E Appendices The Language Club In 1984 some of us language lovers decided that, although there were plenty of places in New York to learn foreign languages, there were no places to go to practice foreign languages. Sure, you can let fly a greeting in Italian and a request for red pepper at the pizzaria and practice similar performances at even the busiest French restaurant, but there was no place to sit down, have a glass of wine, open books, converse with others, and consult with native speakers for two or th puma trionfo ree hours at a time. So we started the Language Club with “practice parties” every Monday night at La Maganette, a restaurant in Manhattan at the corner of Third Avenue and Fiftieth Street. That remains our “mother club,” though we’ve extended our practice parties to other evenings and other restaurants – even a Sunday brunch at Victor’s on Columbus Avenue at Seventy-first Street. Our mission is to enable men and women to practice conversation in other languages in a pleasant, non-threatening atmosphere at fine restaurants at a minimum price. The restaurants understand the uniqueness of the Language Club and enjoy catering to such a high minded endeavour. The questions callers most frequently ask about the Language Club are “What night is French?” and “What’s your age group?” We explain that every night is French night – all languages are welcome at all practice parties. When you enter you go to the French table, the Italian table, the S puma trainers panish table, the German table, the Russian table, etc. Many visitors grasshopper from table to table, practicing three, four, or more different languages at the same practice party. When they ask about age group, we immediately understand that their agenda is broader than mere language practice! We first explain we’re a language club, not a “social” club or a “singles” club. We emphasise that puma grass cats age is irrelevant, since someone five years old can provide good language practice for someone ninety-five years old. Having made that point, we then relent a bit and explain that indeed many of our members are single, and if two single language lovers should enter our practice party separately and leave together, we don’t blow a whistle and pull a citizen’s arrest. In fact, we have several “language marriages” to our credit and at least one confirmed birth! All we ask is your sincere interest in language practice. All your other interests will be tolerated provided they do not result in any infringement of the law! All those wishing more information about the Language Club may write: The Language Club P.O. Box 121 New York, NY 10108 Our telephone number is (212) 787-2110. The Language Club has no official handshake, club song, club motto, or club dues. (You come when you feel like it and you pay for your own meal.) We do, however, have an official club joke. Once you know this joke, you’re as much a member of the Language Club as anybody else. Two puma drift cat mice were hopelessly trapped. A hungry cat was poised to pounce. Th