A sensible approach that nonetheless requires a substantial commitment of time and energy; as the author well knows, there...
The creator of the popular language-learning website Fluent-Forever.com debuts by putting between covers the essentials of the program that he and myriad others have found helpful.
The author is indeed a buoyant, ebullient Harold Hill of a salesman (no dour Willy Loman here!). Throughout his text—which includes many self-help design features, including text boxes, bullet points, illustrations, chapter-end reminders and “key points”—Wyner reminds us repeatedly about how enjoyable his program is. About the vocabulary cards he recommends, he writes, “You’ll discover that they’re a lot of fun to create and a lot of fun to review.” That’s certainly debatable. The author’s program does make use of many sensible and even revolutionary methods for learning a language—principally, the use of visual and auditory reminders of the vocabulary and grammar a novice needs to learn. The more senses involved, the more certain the learning and retention. Wyner also slays a few hoary dragons that continue to dominate lots of classroom instruction: learning vocabulary in clusters of related words (he proposes that learners begin with the 625 most common words), studying grammar in isolation, translation exercises (he advises using only the new language). His arguments and justifications take a little over half of his text; the remainder he calls “The Toolbox,” and here he gives very specific advice about—and illustrations of—his flashcard techniques. He also recommends the heavy use of Google Images and other online visual and auditory aids for beginners—especially sound clips of native speakers. He urges that learners would benefit from mastering the International Phonetic Alphabet early in the process, and he provides a host of appendices, including the “International Phonetic Alphabet Decoder.”
A sensible approach that nonetheless requires a substantial commitment of time and energy; as the author well knows, there are no shortcuts to learning anything worthwhile.Pub Date: Aug. 5, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-385-34811-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Harmony
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2014
The Stoics did much better with the much shorter Enchiridion.
A follow-on to the author’s garbled but popular 48 Laws of Power, promising that readers will learn how to win friends and influence people, to say nothing of outfoxing all those “toxic types” out in the world.
Greene (Mastery, 2012, etc.) begins with a big sell, averring that his book “is designed to immerse you in all aspects of human behavior and illuminate its root causes.” To gauge by this fat compendium, human behavior is mostly rotten, a presumption that fits with the author’s neo-Machiavellian program of self-validation and eventual strategic supremacy. The author works to formula: First, state a “law,” such as “confront your dark side” or “know your limits,” the latter of which seems pale compared to the Delphic oracle’s “nothing in excess.” Next, elaborate on that law with what might seem to be as plain as day: “Losing contact with reality, we make irrational decisions. That is why our success often does not last.” One imagines there might be other reasons for the evanescence of glory, but there you go. Finally, spin out a long tutelary yarn, seemingly the longer the better, to shore up the truism—in this case, the cometary rise and fall of one-time Disney CEO Michael Eisner, with the warning, “his fate could easily be yours, albeit most likely on a smaller scale,” which ranks right up there with the fortuneteller’s “I sense that someone you know has died" in orders of probability. It’s enough to inspire a new law: Beware of those who spend too much time telling you what you already know, even when it’s dressed up in fresh-sounding terms. “Continually mix the visceral with the analytic” is the language of a consultant’s report, more important-sounding than “go with your gut but use your head, too.”
The Stoics did much better with the much shorter Enchiridion.Pub Date: Oct. 23, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-525-42814-5
Page Count: 580
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should...
Greene (The 33 Strategies of War, 2007, etc.) believes that genius can be learned if we pay attention and reject social conformity.
The author suggests that our emergence as a species with stereoscopic, frontal vision and sophisticated hand-eye coordination gave us an advantage over earlier humans and primates because it allowed us to contemplate a situation and ponder alternatives for action. This, along with the advantages conferred by mirror neurons, which allow us to intuit what others may be thinking, contributed to our ability to learn, pass on inventions to future generations and improve our problem-solving ability. Throughout most of human history, we were hunter-gatherers, and our brains are engineered accordingly. The author has a jaundiced view of our modern technological society, which, he writes, encourages quick, rash judgments. We fail to spend the time needed to develop thorough mastery of a subject. Greene writes that every human is “born unique,” with specific potential that we can develop if we listen to our inner voice. He offers many interesting but tendentious examples to illustrate his theory, including Einstein, Darwin, Mozart and Temple Grandin. In the case of Darwin, Greene ignores the formative intellectual influences that shaped his thought, including the discovery of geological evolution with which he was familiar before his famous voyage. The author uses Grandin's struggle to overcome autistic social handicaps as a model for the necessity for everyone to create a deceptive social mask.
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should beware of the author's quirky, sometimes misleading brush-stroke characterizations.Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-670-02496-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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