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A boyhood with Hebrew.

2011-11-27T03:19:00.000-08:00

Since I was a young man I have been exposed to Hebrew.

My parents sent me to a Hebrew school for many years during my pre-teen and teen years. I would finish public school and then go to this school which was held in a local synagogue two to three times a week.

Few of the teachers had any background in teaching. Or, at least, this was my impression. However, they all seemed very supportive of the students and this counted for a lot. As teachers they realized that most of us really didn't want to be there. We would much rather have been doing something, anything else except be in this place where we had to learn things that seemed to have little relevance to our immediate lives as kids.

But we had no choice in the matter. Our parents decided and we complied.

Hebrew was part of Jewish religious life. All of our prayers were in this language. Of course, the various holidays all were interwoven with Hebrew; their names were in Hebrew. So we came in contact with this language in different ways even though we were not necessarily aware of it.

Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, and other holidays all had Hebrew names. We never paid any attention to their derivations or linguistic significance. We just knew what they were and that was sufficient. In fact, for many years, before I took any particular interest in language per se, I used these terms simply because there were no other terms that indicated these concepts.

We never said Festival of atonement. We just would say, Yom Kippur. No one ever used the English translation for Sukkot, Feast of Tabernacles. We just said, Sukkos ( the European or Ashkenazi pronunciation of Sukkot). If you had asked me what was a tabernacle I certainly wouldn't have known the answer.

When was the last time you used the word tabernacle in daily conversation?

When I was bar mitzvahed at age 13, I chanted the Torah passage ( Pentateuch or first five books of the Torah or Bible) for that week. Afterwards, I also chanted a Haftorah, the passage from the Prophets and Writings of the Torah or Old Testament ( Bible) associated with that week's Torah portion. They were entirely in Hebrew.

I had absolutely no idea of what I was reading or chanting. I had memorized the entire thing.

To say that I was nervous, doing this in front of a large audience, thirteen years old, dressed in a suit and tie, would be an understatement.

My associations with this language were mostly unpleasant. No one I knew used it except for religious and cultural purposes.

I vaguely knew that Hebrew was the official language of the Jewish homeland, Israel. However, I had never met anyone from there and heard them speaking it or so I thought. I certainly had never visited there.

Later, I discovered that many of our teachers were Israelis living in our area who worked as teachers to earn money on the side. However, at the time this never registered.

My grandparents had visited Israel and had given us momentos of their trip, Israeli coins. These were framed and sat in our living room.

My grandfather also collected Israeli postage stamps. He made sure that my father and uncle received all new issues of these stamps and we still have the albums containing these stamps.

My father is now 95. He no longer collects stamps. My uncle and grandfather are both dead. The albums sit in a closet gathering dust.

For years I could not read the language written on those stamps, Hebrew.

Then, one day, in a burst of intellectual curiosity I decided to finally learn Hebrew.

( to be continued)

The book sickness. Part Two.

2011-11-09T15:49:00.001-08:00

The first part of The book sickness was published on this blog in 2007.

======

Mr. Turetz had a daughter.

She would appear occasionally. They didn't get along at all. The daughter wore a cotton print dress, had dark hair, a small moustache, a face adorned with glasses in a cheap black frame and smelled of body odor. She was plump without being fat. Around her neck hung a slender silver chain. Imagine a pug wearing glasses and a silver chain and you will begin to approximate her likeness.

I didn't like her. Whenever I walked in and saw her I knew that I would have a hard time buying anything. She was basically greedy and always demanded a lot more for the books than Mr. Turetz. Her father often told her that she was wasting their money on drink and worthless men. She would then yell at him.

Little love was exchanged between the two when I was present.

Mr. Turetz was often away buying stock for the store. I used to wonder about this and would question him about how he got the materials. He just muttered that he got them and that was that. He clearly wasn't as taken with his work as much as I was.

For me, the shop was a magical place.

It is hard to adequately describe the joy of finding books, magazines, catalogues from the nineteenth century, and so many other things that just happened to be in some pile at my feet. I imagined sleeping in the store, forever mining it for new riches. I never wanted to leave but eventually I had to or the sun would set and I would get hit by a car and my books would all be lost.

The things I discovered there still remain in my head, the treasures of boyhood. While other boys were out chasing girls and getting stoned I was slowly making my way though an urban gold mine.

The store didn't seem to have many customers when I was there. Probably much of that was because its contents were so haphazardly arranged. To say that they were arranged would be an overstatement.

They were hastily thrown together in wild approximations of bizarre relationships that came out of the mind of the owner. Cook books were interspersed with tomes on toxicology and poisons. Maybe this was a comment on the daughter's cooking. I do not know and probably will never know this. The magic books, for there were quite a few of them, were in a large, wooden orange crate in front of what was probably a bathroom at one point but now was hermetically sealed by thousands of old books. There were books in many foreign languages as well as thick 78 rpm recordings for immigrants in the 1920's issued in various languages by long gone, arcane record labels. I bought several for my listening pleasure. They are now all gone the result of my parents attempts to clean out their home.

At the time I created my own radio station in my basement bedroom.

The station lacked a transmitter, a microphone and anything else that might qualify it as a radio station. However, it did have a phonograph which played both 33 and 78 rpm records all of which came from the book store in Morristown.

I would carefully arrange the records by language and ethnicity. Then I would sit at my wooden student desk and design elaborate schedules for various programmes. For example, I had a Czech program. Why? Because I had a two-sided 78 rpm recording of Czech ( Bohemian) polkas. Then I would read aloud from NY Listy, a Czech paper from Manhattan which I had purchased on one of my trips into the city. Whether I pronounced the words right never crossed my mind.
I was a Czech-language announcer while my friends, of whom I had none, got laid.
In my world everything was proceeding according to plan. What the plan was I never discovered but I enjoyed the trip while I transmitted in various languages to a universe of disincarnate beings.

I also had a 33 rpm recording of Lichtensteiner Polka sung in lusty German. This was the sole recording of the German sendung. For this programme I read aloud from the NY Staats-Zeitung, the local German rag. I read the same news over and over again. Since I understood none of it it really wasn't a problem from my end. What the listeners thought I can't say. Since they never provided any feedback this made things even easier.

It made for a perfect relationship which repeated itself innumerable times over much of the rest of my life.

(to be continued)

Learn foreign languages by having fun reading. Part 2

2011-09-21T17:59:00.001-07:00

I once asked Michel Thomas about studying on my own.

He urged me to read in the language I was studying.

"Read what you enjoy and don't look up words in a dictionary. Just keep on reading," he told me.

His advice was built on the fact that when we simply relax into whatever we are doing, we will recall much more than if we set out to recall and remember stuff.

Thus, simply reading becomes a way of taking one's mind out of the " I am doing this to improve my vocabulary" mode.

It is nice in that I find myself using vocabulary and sentence construction that I never sat down to formally learn.

Recently I was speaking French with a lady whom I had just met. She was very upset about some things in her life and found it hard to speak English. So we spoke French.

I had learned French with Michel Thomas in the 1990's but hadn't spoken much since. However, on this day it all just poured out including a lot of vocabulary and sentences that I had never worked on.

I figure it must have come from my reading light material in French over the years. When reading these texts I simply pushed on whether I understood every word or not. Michel told me that if the same word kept coming up and it was really bugging me then I could look it up. Otherwise, don't look it up. Just read and enjoy whatever it is. If it is really interesting then you will unconsciously make pictures and that will reinforce your understanding of the language.

From context the unconscious figures out what the words mean just like a kid learning a language understands that you use this or that word in certain situations.

Today Boris, my Russian teacher, went through a spontaneous riff on how to ask someone to enter a room in Russian.

Say they knock on the door and you want to let them know that they should enter.

The way that is translated as " enter" in the dictionary, he said, is actually almost a military command like proceed. This word is проходите. In my office I have been using this word almost daily with my secretary. She is Russian and we use the language to conduct business. It is one of the reasons I hired her. I now get to speak Russian daily as part of my work. Nice. She never told me that this is not the way that she would ask someone to enter. I am her employer. She understood but wasn't about to give me such personal feedback. So Boris did. He told me that заходите is a less formal, less commanding form. да, да or можно are two very informal ways to indicate that you are OK with the person coming in. This is the fine tuning of language use. It is delightful for me to learn these things. It makes my experience of using the language a lot more satisfying and personal.

This is only something that can be learned in context.

So reading what you enjoy is a wonderful way to begin to learn such things.

( to be continued)

Reading Chinese the easy way.

2011-09-10T06:19:00.000-07:00

One of the major hurdles for anyone wanting to read real Chinese, Chinese written for Chinese natives, is the simple fact that Chinese has no alphabet. The characters in which it is written can appear overwhelming to the neophyte. This in itself discourages many from plunging into reading as would be the case with a language having an alphabet.

As the author of a course in spoken Chinese ( Michel Thomas Method Speak Mandarin Chinese; three levels) and a former student in the International Chinese Language Program at National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan, I am very familiar with this dilemma. No one studying Chinese is immune from this issue; we all have to either find a way to learn to read and write or, essentially, remain illiterate in Chinese.

Most current Chinese language instruction follows the model for other languages, languages with alphabets. The student learns to speak, read and write more or less side by side.

I don't find this approach helpful.

It wastes valuable time that could be used to just become comfortable with communicating in the language. In addition, the enormous burden it imposes on already burdened students all but assures that many students will just give up.

So my approach, which works well for me and many others I teach, is to just get the student speaking with native Chinese speakers. This gets them really excited and they naturally want to go on. It gives them a lot of motivation that the traditional way of teaching doesn't permit.

But what about reading real texts?

The fact is that Chinese does have systems of phonetic, alphabet based ways of reading.

The Communists introduced what is called pin yin. This uses Latin characters to pronounce Chinese. It was actually developed with Soviet help and was used for teaching Chinese to foreigners and also for communication with the outside world. However, there are no books meant for native Chinese in pin yin.

I have a lot of material in pin yin but it will only take you so far. In my opinion, it should be learned by the student if only to use dictionaries that enable one to look up material using pronunciation.

However, there is another system of writing Chinese using phonetic symbols which is much more useful for the student.

It originated on mainland China and was developed by Chinese for Chinese.

It is called bo po mo fo, after the first four characters in the alphabet. Kind of like saying, ABC's.

The official term is Zhùyīn fúhào ( 注音符號).

Since all children in Taiwan learn to read using this system, there is abundant material available in it. This basically means that if you know the Mandarin pronunciation for a character then you can write it in bo po mo fo without any hesitation.

Even better, you can read a text in Chinese characters annotated with bo po mo fo and you will understand every bit of it assuming you know the meanings of the pronounced words. If you don't, you can easily look up the word in a phonetic dictionary of which there are many. You could even use a pin yin phonetic dictionary which is the type you would find outside of Taiwan.

There is a daily newspaper, Mandarin Daily News, which many school kids in Taiwan read. It is an amazing aid to learning to read in Chinese since it uses the traditional characters and the bo po mo fo side by side.

There are many, many books in Taiwan that use this system.

When I was there I bought over one hundred of them.

I have Sherlock Holmes, Arsene Lupin ( a French detective character), Chinese and Western history and biographies all using this system.

Let's face it, most stuff for students is really boring.

So I love to read these texts because they are what I would enjoy reading in English anyway. Since they are in Chinese and I either know or can look up the words in a dictionary quickly, the language just opens like a flower.

More to follow.

Learn foreign languages by having fun reading. ( 1)

2011-09-08T16:47:00.000-07:00

One of the many pieces of advice Michel Thomas gave me was to read.

I am the first of five kids. Born in NYC I was alone for many years. Sure I had a brother and three sisters but we were never close friends. To this day, I am only really close to my eldest sister. My parents both worked and I was in school. I would come home to an empty house; my parents got home in the late evening for many years. My brother and sisters hung out with their friends after school. Up until I was in high school I had only one or two friends. Our friendship was built around shared interests. One of my friends was interested in old movies. Another enjoyed writing. This became the basis of our friendship. Other than that I was basically a loner.

My main activity outside of school was reading. I would tell people that my closest friends were my books. Via reading I explored the world and formulated many dreams. This was the basis for my real education.

I loved reading and became a regular at the local public library.

Eventually, I even ended up with a Master Degree in Library Science and worked in the field for many years in public, academic and research libraries.

Any extra money I had was spent on books. I saw books as my teachers, my mentors. For many years I truly believed that any question or problem I faced could be solved by reading.

Over the ten years I studied with Michel Thomas we often discussed books and reading.

Though it is not mentioned in his recorded courses one of the essential parts of his language courses when done in person was learning how to read and build one's vocabulary in the target language by reading.

Since I studied two languages privately with him, I was exposed to this part of his work.

What I shall do is to teach you some of what he taught me in improving your vocabulary via reading.

( To be continued)

John Rechy and City of Night.

2011-09-04T15:27:00.000-07:00

In the early 1970's I picked up a copy of the book City of Night by John Rechy.

The other day, in a funk, I came across the book again in my library. I wanted something different than Russian verbs of motion to read.

I immediately went to a favorite chapter, The professor: the flight of the angels.

This chapter details the author's encounter with an aging, eccentric, lonely gay man who paid street boys to come and listen to him talk. At the time, the author was a hustler. He sold his body to whomever would pay him. Time Square in the heart of New York City, was his preferred spot for such assignations. This man wanted his attention. And he was very willing to pay for it and something more.

At some point while reading I became diverted and put the book down. When I returned I flipped around in the book and noticed an introduction by John Rechy which I had never read.

In these nine pages written in 1984 in Los Angeles ( for a later printing, I imagine) Mr. Rechy describes how the book came about and how he came to be a writer.

As I read the introduction I realized that I had struck gold. I love first hand accounts by writers on their personal journeys in putting words together.

El Paso, Texas is where it all began. Rechy, the son of a Scottish father and Mexican mother, wrote to escape his less than glamorous life. A local newspaper gave him work as a copyboy and also a scholarship to go to school. He was a voracious reader and over the years educated himself by reading and studying the work of many writers. He writes that after class he would go up into the mountains near El Paso and sit and read until it got dark. Later he went into the army and afterwards he came to NYC to enter Columbia University.

Instead, he ended up on the streets as a male whore. He writes that he found this infinitely more interesting and useful as a writer than being a student at Columbia University.

He would hustle, get a straight job, hustle, get a new job and leave, over and over again. At some point he enrolled in the New School for Social Research, located in New York's Greenwich Village area. I recall the original building which used to be located on the corner of 14th Street and Fifth Avenue. It was a shrine for New York intelligentsia for over 90 years. It was recently torn down. A gaping hole in the ground is all that remains at this time.

At the time, Evergreen Review was a famous avant-garde literary quarterly review which in the sixties published many outre and unknown writers. Many of these went on to become famous. On a lark, Rechy sent a story to them, Mardi Gras. They took some time and then published it. Overnight he began to attract attention.

I read Evergreen Review in the sixties and seventies. The other night I found a copy in my library from 1963. It brought back so many memories of my life in New York City where I grew up and, during the sixties, where I spent most of my free time. I knew many of the writers and figures mentioned in its pages. They were very accessible even for a young, unconnected, introverted boy like myself. All you needed to do was to find them and say, Hi.

That was then.

These people are all gone now.

Don Allen, an editor at Grove Press which published Evergreen Review, became Rechy's connection to the literary world. He loved Rechy's writing when few others did. Allen flew out to Los Angeles from New York to meet with Rechy who was then hustling there, living by his wits and writing on the side.

Rechy tried to shock Allen by taking him to some notorious haunts in the inner city. Don Allen just told him that he wanted to go elsewhere to talk.

Allen earlier had written Rechy that this story could be the basis of a novel and wondered if this was something he was considering.

John Rechy replied that it was the basis of a novel. But this was not the case at all. He did this, he tells us, because he was afraid that if he didn't say this, he would be ignored and the story would never get published.

Based on this lie he became a famous writer.

He notes that this first novel was very difficult for him to write. Every chapter went through at least twelve drafts. Some many more than that. The first chapter ended up as the last and the last became the first. He became obsessed with the book. When the proofs arrived from the publisher he rewrote the entire book again. He was determined to communicate exactly what he wanted to and nothing less. Since the publisher would have to go to considerable expense to make all the changes he offered to pay for all of it out of his advances on the book. Barney Rosset, the publisher at Grove Press, had everything changed without charging him a cent. The book took over four years to complete.

City of night became a big hit. It went through many reprints. And it attracted the ire of the conservative literary establishment. This made it even a greater attraction for readers curious to find out what all the fuss was about. It still sells well today almost 50 years later.

The introduction shows how Don Allen constantly encouraged John Rechy to write. At some point, Rechy had become quite well known and admired as a writer. He never forgot Don Allen and offered him and Grove Press first rights to publish what later became known as City of Night, the novel I return to on a regular basis for inspiration and reminders of what we can all accomplish if we are willing to allow our imaginations to soar and our hearts to honestly speak.

Rechy wrote many other books but this, his first, remains my favorite.

Many people are very turned off by his content. Much of it takes place in the seedy side of urban, gay life. Often it is not pretty. We are exposed to life at the edge. And that can be very revealing in sometimes wonderful ways.

The writing sparkles. It takes real insight and talent to produce such writing. Rechy worked very hard on his prose. If you want to learn about how to put words together to create a compelling story, read City of night.

What do I do after the Michel Thomas course?

2011-07-13T04:51:00.000-07:00

I received a query asking what does one do after using the Michel Thomas course if one wishes to continue on.

First a little background information.

Hodder is the publisher of the Michel Thomas courses. I am the author of the Mandarin Chinese course; I do not publish them.

Hodder is under new management having been bought out by a French conglomerate a few years ago. The new people at Hodder have little to no direct understanding of the Michel Thomas materials, in my opinion. The former MD knew Michel Thomas. Much of the editorial staff had years of experience working closely with authors like myself in developing these courses. The new people rarely communicate with me.

They have now decided to cease publishing all the original courses by MT as well as all of the secondary courses by other authors. In place of these they have created new courses which are cobbled together bits of the old courses with visual materials as well as review materials. Of course, anyone familiar with the MT method will immediately realize that he was totally opposed to the use of such materials. They seriously detract from the efficacy of the method.

They have also announced that they have no new languages planned.

I have already apologized to those who buy the Mandarin version of the new courses. I was never consulted on the makeup of the courses which will bear my name as author. I do not recommend that anyone buy such a course. Stick with the old versions which are available from various sources.

The old courses were sold split into two and three parts. Foundation (Beginning - North America), Advanced and Vocabulary (for certain languages only). These labels are misleading. I mentioned this to MT when they first came out and he agreed.

All of the levels comprise one complete course. It is a course that will provide the student with a decent familiarity and use of the essential patterns necessary to speak the language. It will not give you the bulk of the vocabulary and advanced patterns and phrases. For that, you will need to go elsewhere.

As you mention, the method works well in providing what it claims to provide. However, as with any such approach it can only provide so much.

My suggestion is that you decide what you want to do with the language. How do you want to actually use it?

If you want to go on a vacation ( holiday) then you may wish to get a basic phrasebook such as Lonely Planet and work with what it provides.

If you want to read then start with low-level readers meant for natives ( school children). There is much adapted material out there for such audiences. I also use religious materials printed by missionaries which are aimed at those who are just learning to read. One source which is free and readily available is the magazine published by the Jehovah's Witnesses, Awake!. It is published monthly, available for free download on the net, has mp3 recordings which will help you with the pronunciation, and has some interesting, general interest articles on history and nature if, like me, you find the religious content repulsive. In addition, the English editions should be downloaded as well since they provide an excellent translation of the foreign language editions. These magazines are not meant for children. They are aimed at adults who can read the language or who, via mp3s, wish to listen to it. I collect these in various languages since they are a fantastic resource. Be advised that the older magazines are not available online after a few months time.

If you want to really do well I suggest that you find someone who is a native-speaker to spend some time on a regular basis to simply chat. You can do this locally, in person, or via the net ( skype, etc.). There are many sites on the net for language exchange where you can find people.

I go to local churches where foreign language services are held, as well.

If you really want to learn there are many resources around no matter how geographically isolated you may believe you are.

One further comment.

The method of Boris Shekhtman, which I have written about on this blog, is a very good way to accomplish what you seek.

Another lesson, another lightbulb goes off.

2011-07-08T19:35:00.000-07:00

There are times when, because of being tired, wanting a little time off from Russian, or just pure laziness, that I think, I hope Boris cancels class today. It would be so nice to just sleep in.

Then I get up, shower, eat a bite, jump in my car and drive to Boris Shekhtman's home where we have class. As soon as I arrive he meets me at the door and guides me in to the apartment, making jokes and small talk in Russian. We sit down, he asks about my life, I start my digital recorder ( I have recorded every single lesson since we began in June, 2010), and before I realize it, an hour has passed. All of it in Russian.

As I talk I realize that he is laughing, making notes and observing me intently. He is teaching me but I wouldn't know it since it is such an enjoyable experience. Apart from my times with Michel Thomas, few of my language learning experiences have been consistently truly enjoyable.

That, precisely is why I got interested in learning and teaching. My impression is that many of us are turned off to learning by what passes for the educational system. Early on I unconsciously knew this for I would refuse to take classes in the things I most loved reading about or learning. Why? Because frequently the experience of having to suffer through a really horrible class complete with examination, stress, homework, and teachers who on some basic level didn't love what they were doing, would just turn me off to the subject.

Some of those subjects, after years of painful memories of the classes, are still frustrating for me to learn since I have so many unpleasant associations with them from the past. Such was the case for Hebrew which I was forced to study when I was young. I loved languages but just couldn't relate to what I loved in the manner I was taught. I am sure the teachers were well intentioned but I and many others who were sent by our parents several times a week to the Hebrew school basically didn't want to be there. As kids there were so many other things we wanted to be doing. Studying a foreign language with a different alphabet that didn't use vowels was not one of them.

Over the years I have attempted to return to Modern Hebrew by going to Israel and studying. It has taken years for me to get to a level where I can comfortably converse, read and write ( and type) in this language but it was never easy. The old, really painful memories just seem to be living below the surface. Years and years of them are still there. Little by little I am wiping the slate clean. I wish I had a teacher who would teach me like Michel Thomas or Boris Shekhtman for Modern Hebrew but so far that hasn't happened.

At some point one must become the teacher one seeks. You can't just sit quietly and wait forever, can you?

Anyway, getting back to my last time with Boris, at one point it suddenly hit me why I really am coming back to him each week.

It is not because of any burning desire to learn Russian. Much as I enjoy the language and culture it is not my number one language to learn at present.

I really want to learn the teaching method of Boris Shekhtman. He knows this and is very generous in teaching me whatever he can. Michel Thomas was not so generous. With him I had to really combat his ingrained resistance to giving away his "secrets". He was one of the most paranoid teachers I have ever encountered. It took ten years of constant contact in many, many different situations for me to get answers to all of my questions and be able to replicate his approach. I not only had to learn all the details of how he taught but also all of the course creation methodology which he was especially reluctant to share. At one point I asked a question and he answered, " Well, if I told you that then you would know everything!" By constant detours, returning to old questions, getting to him when he was in a better less paranoid mood, I got the information I sought. It was never easy though it was constantly fascinating. However, I was not about to give up what I regarded as a once in a lifetime opportunity to learn from a true genius.

In the end it paid off in many ways I had never anticipated.

The CDs we have of Michel Thomas teaching are excellent. They are pure gold for the language learner and teacher. However, as he well knew, they didn't exactly cover everything he taught his private students. Since I was privately taught by him twice ( French, Spanish) I can say that from personal experience. In addition, there were levels of teaching that went on following his personal instruction which were done by teachers he trained to help to teach higher levels of conversation. The courses were personalized. If one wanted business German one got it. If one desired diplomatic French then one got the required training. It was all tailored to the student.

So what was it that suddenly came to me during my last lesson with Boris?

Why do I keep returning even though frequently it is the last thing I want to do with the one free day in my week?

While we were talking and laughing I got it.

My time with Boris is more intellectually stimulating and mind blowing than almost anything else in my life these days except for my work as an osteopathic physician. Experiencing the physical system of my patient shifting and changing before my eyes and under my hands never grows old. However, for language learning that level of excitement was rare before Michel Thomas and Boris.

The excitement that comes from learning something new, truly novel, something that I have never before experienced, and with such an amazing teacher as Boris, is a real gift for me. He is constantly surprising me and I love to be surprised when it comes to teaching and learning. It makes me laugh.

That's at least one reason why I return each week.

My first talk in Russian.

2011-07-04T16:45:00.000-07:00

I recently wrote a post on how I was scheduled to give a short talk in Russian before an audience of native-speakers. Well, it happened and here is what transpired.

Since I had to speak for 15 minutes or so I made a short mind map of what I wanted to say. The purpose of this was to keep me on topic and to make sure that I knew what topics to cover. I often use mind maps when speaking in public and find them very helpful.

The affair was held in the community room of a retirement center near where I live. Fourteen people attended. About half of them were native-speakers of Russian. The others were three students who presented and some family members.

Boris Shekhtman introduced each of us. I spoke following the other two students.

When I got up to speak I jokingly addressed the audience as, " Workers, Toilers, Pensioners, and Heroes of Leisure World ( the name of the retirement center) !!! Greetings!!"

Boris laughed. The others went into a deep trance, their faces frozen in confusion and incredulity.

That was the high point of my presentation.

From there on it was all down hill.

I told them that I was a physician and teacher. I explained why I study Russian.

I love Russian literature and music.

When I mentioned music, as if on cue, a cell phone in another room went off. It loudly played a rather long and silly Russian peasant medley.

I told them that this is why I study Russian.

Boris laughed. The others just stared at me like I was a horse that had been hit by a tram in the street.

The cell phone music continued.

I broke into a feverish Russian dance, the kazatska, that I do at bar mitzvahs ( usually before I collapse in a sweat due to my lack of physical activity).

Boris laughed. The others became glassy-eyed, going even deeper into the trance state.

I spoke about my entry into medicine and why I became a physician.

Then, finally, I ended my talk with some background on my time with Michel Thomas and how I came to author the Mandarin Chinese course.

When I asked for questions one man raised his hand.

He was another student who dared me to demonstrate that I could speak another foreign language besides Russian or Chinese. I asked him what I should speak. He pointed to a family member visiting from Madrid and told me to interview her in Spanish.

It so happens that I am comfortable speaking Spanish so I did OK.

It is a hell of a lot easier for me to speak Spanish than Russian for many reasons and I didn't want to stop speaking with this woman. The rest of the audience began to come out of their trance states when I broke into Spanish.

At that point another man, a Russian, asked the only other question.

"Can you recommend a decent Chinese restaurant around here?"

I told him that since I am allergic to MSG ( monosodium glutamate) and almost all local Chinese restaurants use it in their food, I can't recommend one. However, I did recommend a really good Thai place.

He got my e mail and told me that he would contact me the next day and make plans for us to there together and speak Russian.

So far, he has not contacted me.

Following 129 hours with Boris Shekhtman.

2011-06-22T15:56:00.000-07:00

About one year ago I began to study Russian with Boris Shekhtman. To date I have spent a total of 129 hours one on one with him learning according to his method. When I began I knew next to no Russian. I had previously spent a semester at the University of Wisconsin studying the language in 1967 but upon beginning my studies in June, 2010 with Mr. Shekhtman remembered only a few words from my previous studies.

This Saturday, at 11 am, three days from now, I shall be one of three of Boris Shekhtman's Russian-language students who will speak, without notes, before an audience of native Russian speakers. He routinely has his students have such contact with native-speakers as part of their training. Before I speak two other students, one who works for the US government and the other who works as a journalist for a well-known American newspaper, will speak.

After they are done I will talk for 15 minutes at which point Mr. Shekhtman has promised that he will cut me off.

I like to talk....in any language.

Then I shall answer questions from the audience for ten more minutes.

Mr. Shekhtman has also assigned me to interview and report on several people who will be present. I am to mix with them during the buffet luncheon and obtain information on their lives, interests, and opinions regarding various topics.

None of them will be aware that they are being studied. He will not know whom I select until I present my reports at our following lesson.

He will also monitor my chit chat with the other guests.

Today he told me that he has located a woman, a Russian who cannot speak even five words of English, who I will be spending three hours with as a guide in the next month. She has never spent any time visiting Washington, DC. So it will be my job to take her around, explain the sites, and then share a meal with her.

The way Mr. Shekhtman has taught me Russian has given me a new vision of how students may quickly and effortlessly learn to communicate on a very high level in any language.

I am still amazed that after 129 hours I am able to do what I am doing.

It works.

Luca, an inspiring Italian polyglot.

2011-06-02T17:59:00.000-07:00

There are many resources on the net that focus on learning foreign languages.

However, I have not found most of them too helpful when it comes to getting really consistently good results.

So it was nice to discover the work of Luca, an Italian polyglot featured on youtube.

Luca puts out his own videos describing his approach and also is interviewed by Richard, a British polyglot, in the following video which, if you are interested in Luca's approach, I highly recommend to you.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kn2Uhq1wP6c

Essentially, he uses an approach which I have long found really helpful.

It comes down to having material in your native language or a language that you know quite well as well as really colloquial material in the target language that was composed by a native-speaker.

One then translates the material from, say, English ( my native language) into the target language.

After you have done this, compare your translation with that of the original target language text. Take note of anything that you have done differently.

While there is a lot of room for correct expression of the same idea in the target language, you will find that by rigorously following the colloquial piece you have, you will begin to get the way native speakers express themselves. With time you will note various ways of doing this.

One of the most challenging aspects of learning a language is to really begin to express yourself exactly as a native-speaker would.

This is very exciting once you get it.

And this approach will definitely enable you to do this in a way that will astound native-speakers.

What I have just described is only a part of what Luca says he does. However, it is a part that I have found particularly helpful

Michel Thomas reportedly teaching from beyond the grave.

2011-06-01T16:20:00.000-07:00

Hodder and Arnold, the publisher of the Michel Thomas language courses, has just announced that Michel Thomas personally trained and approved every teacher of each course issued following his demise.

This amazing announcement is to be found in an FAQ section issued by the publisher. Here is the quote:

"Why doesn't Michel Thomas teach on all the Michel Thomas Method courses?
Although Michel Thomas was a very talented linguist, he was not fluent in every language. In the courses not taught by Michel Thomas, he trained and approved every teacher."

http://www.michelthomas.co.uk/faq.php

Since I spent ten years being trained by Mr. Thomas in his methodology and he died in January, 2005, I know that he didn't train anyone else. He was so paranoid about people ( ex. Paul Noble, in my opinion) stealing his work that he didn't even want to issue the CDs ( then cassettes)out of concern that others would analyze and copy the method.

I would love to learn how he trained so many people whom he never met during his lifetime.

This would be an even more amazing feat than his pedagogical accomplishments.

Russian verbs of motion - Boris Shekhtman's way.

2011-05-11T15:11:00.000-07:00

For those of you who haven't studied Russian, I suspect that you may not know about verbs of motion.

So let's get acquainted with them.

In English we have verbs like come, go, run and so forth.

If we want to indicate that we went somewhere then we can just say, " I went to school."

How do we know we used transport? Well, we can always indicate that, right? Not so in Russian. You use a specific verb which indicates that you are using transportation.

Did you do this regularly? There are specific verbs to indicate that something is done on a regular basis.

Did you actually reach your destination or not? No problem, Russian has a specific set of verbs to indicate this.

How about indicating that the action was (process) taking place without using some fancy shmancy -ing or other device to show this. Russian has sets of verbs just to show that the action is in process.

And this is just the beginning.

Few other languages have such an elaborate system of suppositions and information in their verbs of motion as does Russian.

So you cannot just say, " We went to Moscow." You must use a verb that will encapsulate everything about that experience that needs to be communicated. Every time you use a VOM in Russian you are telling the listener many, many things some of which you, as an English-speaker, may not even be aware of.

As you may imagine, this can present problems for non-native students of Russian.

It does.

There are several books on verbs of motion which attempt to help the learner. I have a few. They are not very helpful, in my opinion.

Enter Boris Shekhtman, the master teacher of Russian.

He has been guiding me in my Russian language studies since June, 2010 and I am very happy with the results.

After warning me about the pitfalls of VOM (verbs of motion) he spent time teaching me the bare essentials of one verb only. If you look at any text you will find that all of them are covered up front.

He asks me why I am using the verb that I do. I must explain in detail why and how I made the choice to use a specific verb. When I finish I really understand what formerly was not so clear.

Step by step the fundamentals have been covered. A lot of time was spent simply doing other things and then, here and there, incrementally working with aspects of VOM for this one verb only.

The verb was "to go".

It's major forms are : идти (ехать)(перейти-переехать) /// ходить (ездить) (переходить-переежать). The verbs with prefixes are simply examples. There are many prefixes that may be substituted for these; each will convey a different, specific meaning.

While the above may seem a bit complicated, Boris has vastly simplified it.

He revealed to me that there are no more than seven functions for all VOM.

When I began to approach Russian VOM in this fashion, everything fell neatly into place.

Today, several weeks after the concept was initially planted and allowed to take root over the intervening time, he announced that he was going to devote the final hour of our work to VOM. We did a pleasant but exhaustive review of everything using actual sentences that he had created to make sure I knew what I was doing.

At the end he told me that he was satisfied that I understood what he wanted me to understand.

He added that in the future we would address other VOM ( run, swim, etc.) but that they all follow the exact same patterns and would be a piece of cake.

From what I have seen and heard, this is probably the simplest and least stressful approach to teaching/ learning Russian VOM.

It works. I am now pretty consistently using the VOM correctly when I speak Russian which is very exciting.

Native-speakers don't realize how difficult this can be for a foreigner. They simply listen and respond.

And someday so,too, shall you when you learn Russian according to the method of Boris Shekhtman.

Boris Shekhtman. The method ( continued)

2011-05-05T18:20:00.000-07:00

As promised, I am continuing my account of my experiences studying Russian with Boris Shekhtman.

At this point I have been meeting once a week for three hours with him for one-on-one tutoring. The lessons are very focused on my specific needs and idiosyncrasies in learning.

As Michel Thomas explained to me, if a student is having any problem learning, it is the responsibility of the teacher to remedy this. There are no bad students, just poor teachers. Boris, who had never heard of Michel before I mentioned him to him, told me exactly the same thing on our first meeting.

What has amazed me is that he truly lives this philosophy when it comes to our lessons together. He is never in a hurry to get me to go beyond where I am holding in anything. If I have a problem then he stops everything and makes sure that I understand what is going on and how to proceed. He does this by first of all making sure that I am fully aware of what has happened. I often will notice that there is something that I don't understand. He wants me to recognize this. Then he helps me to figure out the solution which is really wonderful.

If I don't get his method of teaching something he will switch into another mode of teaching until he figures out how I learn in such a situation. Then he will emphasize this mode of learning until, at some point, he realizes that something different is needed. That's when he reanalyzes what is happening and changes course accordingly.

Boris is a really inspiring example of a master teacher.

Speaking a foreign language.

2011-01-30T10:54:00.000-08:00

One of the major obstacles for many beginning and intermediate language learners is conversing.

Basically, there is only so much conversation that one can muster around the very basic vocabulary and questionable grammar that a beginner has to work with.

In addition, the foreign speaker in most cases, while impressed that you want to learn their language, is not inclined to become your teacher. They, too, have lives and they really don't want to listen to your broken sentences on asking how they are doing, where do they live, and so on.

In addition, what happens after they have answered your basic questions?

They are not going to create a conversation for you.

That is your job.

And if you lack confidence, feel ashamed that your foreign language capacity is not better than it is, that will become a two ton elephant in the room that everyone is aware of but refuses to acknowledge.

It is not enough to say, " I am a beginner. I don't speak Chinese too well."

Everyone can see that. It is not exactly a secret.

So what do you do?

My Russian language teacher, Boris Shekhtman, has a very nice approach to this.

His announced intention with his students is to get them up to near fluency in Russian ( or, for Russian native-speakers, English).

How does he do it?

In a previous post I mentioned that concept of islands.

He helps the student create islands, lots of islands.

These are simply little monologues, written in very simple but accurate Russian, in this case, which discuss a commonly discussed topic.

My family, my education, my work, my musical interests, what kinds of food I like.

Stuff that you can easily work into a conversation with a native-speaker.

We all have prepared islands.

However, most of us don't think of them in this way.

Someone asks you, Why are you studying Russian?

You have a prepared answer of sorts. You haven't deliberately sat down and written it out and memorized it but you could have.

Well, I am learning Russian because I ......

You go on for a few sentences or paragraphs.

As you go on you may ask the questioner about their own experiences.

A conversation, that is mutually interesting, results.

Hence, an island.

The more islands you know, in fluent Russian, the easier the conversation goes.

And, without too much thinking, you are having a conversation in the language.

(to be continued)

Paul Noble and plagiarisation.

2010-11-06T19:22:00.000-07:00

Paul Noble, a British-based language teacher, recently contracted with Collins, the UK publisher, to author a series of CD courses to teach various languages according to a method which he claims he developed on his own.

After I was alerted to the uncanny resemblance of his approach to that of Michel Thomas, a well-known language teacher who died in 2005, I investigated things on my own. I was the only student to whom Mr. Thomas taught his methodology . He did this over a ten year period. Following his death, I was approached by his publisher, Hodder, to continue his legacy with another course using the method I was taught by him. Subsequently, I authored three such courses to teach Mandarin Chinese.

So I do claim to have some familiarity with the teaching approach of Mr. Thomas.

His method is based on a unique way to eliminate anxiety which he believed was the major problem for learners in general and language learners in particular. In order to accomplish this he dissected languages and put them back together in a way which made learning effortless. Students, as the reviews to his courses on Amazon will show, reported miraculous acquisition of spoken abilities in other languages with minimal work, no memorization, no reading or writing and a number of other things commonly associated with study of languages.

It is my opinion, based on the analysis of materials obtained from Audible.com, one of the distributors of his Collins courses, that Paul Noble has been quite influenced by the approach of Michel Thomas.

Some might call it plagiarisation.

What is most disturbing is that he goes out of his way to claim that he alone originated his method of instruction.

The Thomas method is patent-protected in addition to numerous copyrights.

I wonder if it a coincidence that my review of his French course on Amazon.co.uk, which expressed the thoughts of this article has been removed. This is the second such review to have been removed. Now only reviews praising Mr. Noble's courses remain.

It will be interesting to see what comes of all of this.
----
Since I would not be shocked if the same people who took down my previous negative review of Mr. Noble's French course may take down my latest review, meant to replace the previous one removed, I am printing the latest review here. At least they won't be able to take down this copy of the review.

Who originated the Paul Noble method?, 28 Oct 2010
By Harold Goodman (Silver Spring, Maryland 20910)

This review is from: Collins French with Paul Noble (Audio CD)

My last review of Paul Noble's French course was just removed.

For the record, I was Michel Thomas's only methodology student. He died in 2005 and is no longer alive to defend himself. Since his work is patented and covered by numerous copyrights, I have no doubt that he would have sought to defend it. He worked for fifty some years to create and perfect this approach to teaching languages.

I am also the author of a Michel Thomas method course to instruct English ( and now, French-speakers) in Mandarin Chinese. I have no dog in this race and do not care what others say or do regarding language teaching. Everyone is free to create and teach as they wish.

However, I do question the claims by Paul Noble and Collins, his publisher, that he originated his method of language teaching.

Review of his French and Spanish courses, as published via Audible, made me question his claims to origination of his method.

For me ,the method he used, which he claims as his own, bears more than a passing resemblance to that of the greatest language teacher of the last century, Michel Thomas.

I can only wonder who might benefit from removal of my review which questioned his claim that he originated this method.

I believe that anyone who compares the two courses, by Paul Noble and Michel Thomas, will immediately note the use of the Thomas method by Mr. Noble. Some have also alleged plagiarisation.

Mr. Noble frequently advertises his IQ which he notes is higher than that of Alfred Einstein.

I can hardly wait for his course on Physics.
---------

More on all of this:

22 June 2011

I have noticed that Hodder is repackaging the old Michel Thomas courses under new names and at a higher price. This also includes my own course. I do not endorse this action and apologize to any students who may inadvertently purchase any of these courses believing that they represent something new. In my opinion, they don't.

After writing all of this on my blog you may well understand why Hodder and the American publisher of my courses are not banging down my door requesting my advice.
------

I have received several inflammatory and denigrating comments which I shall not post here .

Some readers believe that I am not allowed to share my thoughts about the work of other teachers. They say that this is unprofessional. A secretary once told me that since I refuse to wear a tie at work that I am unprofessional. She is now history, ancient history.

With all lack of due respect I must respond that I completely disagree. I shall continue to share my beliefs and opinions. This is a blog. That is why I have a blog. It is a venue for me to share my opinions and ideas.

-----

There also is a matter of sales.

The courses, including mine, are finding a large audience.

However, most of the people comprising this audience do not pay for the courses. They get them off of pirate sites that steal our work and enable anyone to download it gratis. The authors receive nothing in return. This is theft, pure and simple. You may justify it anyway you wish; it remains theft.

I just Googled " Paul Noble+ bit torrent" and was not surprised to get over four million hits. Just imagine how many illegal downloads that represents. No one is immune to this phenomenon. I estimate that over 50% of my courses are illegally downloaded. The number for Michel Thomas's courses is even higher.

Shocking as it may seem to those not active in this work, except for making a name for oneself, the authoring of anything which may be digitally copied is not too lucrative. The good old days when authors lived off of royalties in their dotage is long gone. The internet has changed all of that. I definitely do not recommend anyone else to follow in my footsteps in this matter if you hope to earn a living from such efforts.

My future efforts at teaching will not be vulnerable to online piracy. I suggest others follow suit.

My current teacher, Boris Shekhtman, requested my assistance in sharing his method. His work has demonstrated that students are able, with the correct support, to quickly achieve high level proficiency in foreign language communication. With all due respect to the Michel Thomas approach which I still consider the best way to learn the basics, the foundation, for any language, the method of Boris Shekhtman allows the student to quickly, comfortably and with excellent grammar and pronunciation communicate with native-speakers. Such communication is on a very high level which is rarely, if ever, attained in many years of professional study. This method has now very much influenced the way I teach languages. However, in view of the rampant piracy that has infected the web I told him that I believe that issuing CDs or other courses that may be digitally pirated would be a mistake. He saw the logic of this and decided to continue with in-person teaching and carefully controlled sharing of our work. The work will be only shared with people who will respect the efforts of those who have developed it over the past 40 years. It will not be available for pirating of any sort.

Mr. Thomas told me many times in the 1990's that he was afraid that if he allowed his courses to be openly sold on cassettes ( now CDs and downloads) that his work would be stolen. In my enthusiasm I spent two years planting the seeds that resulted in the present courses. In retrospect, I now realize that his fears have been realized.

I shall not make that mistake again with the work of Boris Shekhtman.

Caveat emptor.

Why is Rosetta Stone so successful when their courses are so bad?

2010-10-10T07:26:00.000-07:00

As some of you may know, I am considered an expert on foreign language instruction based on my experience in the field and my authorship of a very successful series to teach Chinese to English-speakers.

Yesterday someone asked what I thought of Rosetta Stone. I told him that I have never seen any evidence that anyone who used RS to learn a language was actually able to communicate in it.

He was shocked. In his mind and the minds of most people, RS is synonymous with language learning.

I explained that they do two things very well.

They have the best marketing of any group. They have established in the public mind that RS = language learning.

They are the only firm to aggressively go after pirates. You will not find a single pirated version of their courses on the net. Not one.

In spite of the fact that their courses do not seem to provide what they claim to provide, they are the most commercially successful language courses in the world.

And that is a very sad commentary on publishing.

Yiddish week or bust.

2010-08-30T17:54:00.000-07:00

I have deliberately waited for some time to elapse before writing my impressions regarding a week in the Catskills among Yiddish-speakers. The name of the program ,which just celebrated its 25th anniversary, is Yiddish Vokh or Yiddish Week.

It is sponsored by an organization called Yugntruf or Youth for Yiddish (lit:Young Call). The organization has long dedicated itself to helping perpetuate Yiddish language and culture. It publishes its own magazine in Yiddish, Yugntruf, and sponsors regular get togethers for those who wish to learn and practice speaking Yiddish. Mordechai Shechter, one of its leaders, recently died. His obituary appeared in the NY Times. Along with another famous secular Yiddishist, Itche Goldberg, who also died not too long ago, he devoted his life to Yiddish as a living language.

Many people believe that Yiddish, the major language of Eastern European Jewry before the Second World War, is gone forever along with most of its speakers. Actually, the language lives on in the Hasidic world of ultra-orthodox Jewry with a few hundred thousand speakers in New York, Europe and Israel and within a tiny group of secular Jews who are the mainstays of Yugntruf and League for Yiddish, a sister organization. Their Jerusalem is Bainbridge Avenue in the Bronx, NY. There they have a small center where Yiddish-related programs are held.

In addition, they have sponsored an annual week-long get together of Yiddish enthusiasts each August in the Catskills. Up until recently, according to many who had attended the previous reunions, the venue was a center in Copake, NY. There they had comfortable places to sleep, an incredible array of delicious dishes to choose from for each meal ( all cooked by an Israeli chef), waiters, and many other comforts. The events were inspiring. They looked forward to returning each year and speaking Yiddish with their friends.

This year the Yiddish Vokh was held at the Kutz Camp of the Union for Reformed Judaism, a camp intended for Jewish teens.

It was my first and, probably, my last year at Yiddish Vokh.

I don't know where to begin.

We arrived on Monday in time for a grand welcome meal, designed to introduce us to our new home away from home.

The entree was cottage cheese accompanied by iceberg lettuce and a single bowl of salad dressing for 180 hungry people who had come from all over the world for the event. We were also offered some mixed vegetables and white bread with peanut butter.

That was lunch.

Supper was worse. More cottage cheese, white bread, iceberg lettuce, the same shitty salad dressing, water, and, of course, peanut butter. No meal during my stay lacked the above accoutrements.

We were told that the cook was obsessed with baking white bread. We were served white bread every meal I was there. There was never any other choice. White bread, white bread, and for a change, white bread.

I hate white bread.

I had paid for a private room so that I would be comfortable.

I walked into my private room and almost died.

It lacked AC ( the temperature was close to 90 most days), had floors, walls, ceiling and a bed made of plywood covered by a slab of foam upon which I was expected to sleep. Outside my room was a fan that looked like it had been taken from a museum. It was larger than me. When it ran, the walls shook.

I disabled the fan when no one was looking and using what little strength I still possessed after my meal of white bread and cottage cheese, hauled it into the dormitory. The dormitory, which was not too far from my room, housed fellow campers in double-decker bunk beds. It also lacked any AC.

That night I discovered that the person next door loudly snored.

Since the plywood was paper thin, I could hear every bit of their snoring, gurgling, snorting, and other bodily functions which I shall leave to your imagination.

I requested another room and was informed that none were available. The other next door room was unoccupied. I planned to move in there to escape the snorer cum schnorrer.

When I came home, I discovered that a man was bringing his stuff into the empty room. I informed him that I was told I could not have it and that no rooms were available. He told me to mind my own business. He also told me that the management had given it to him.

I went to the management of Yugntruf that was running Yiddish Vokh and was told by the lady with whom I spoke that, Yes, no rooms were available and, Yes, he had been given special permission to take this room. And, No, she would not share with me why he got the room and not me and she hoped that I was having a good experience. I told her I was not having a good experience and was totally pissed.

My new neighbor also snored.

Now I was surrounded on both sides of my cubicle by people farting, snoring, gurgling and talking in their sleep.....all in Yiddish.

The classes were pretty good with dedicated teachers. My fellow students were first-class, wonderful people. They were the high point of my stay.

The classrooms for the language classes lack functioning AC. We used a small fan which made little difference.

Your vocabulary word is shvitz: a steam bath. We were the shvitzers, sweating like pigs, you should excuse the expression.

The food continued to get worse.

The night before I left the main course was macaroni and cheese.

The chef could not even prepare decent mac and cheese. He was stuck on white bread.

One man informed me that Jews don't eat white bread. I agreed. Apparently, Reform Jewish teenagers are into white bread onto which, I assume, they smear peanut butter.

After five days I could no longer stand it and I called my sister who lived an hour away to please come and rescue me.

Almost to a man ( and woman) the older former campers told me they would never return unless things were moved back to Copake, NY.

The classes, teachers and students were absolutely wonderful and I highly recommend the experience for those who are able to speak Yiddish.

However, the accomodations and food were some of the worst I have ever had in this kind of a setting.

If they don't return to the former venue in Copake, NY, I predict a much smaller enrollment for Yiddish Vokh in the future.

If you are interested in following the activities of Yugntruf you can just go to:

http://www.yugntruf.org/

A novel approach to learning languages.

2010-08-29T06:49:00.000-07:00

In 2001 the NY Times published a lengthy article in the Travel section by the former Moscow bureau correspondent, Francis X. Clines. I like people who have X as a middle initial. I assume the X stands for Xavier, which is a really neat name. How many people call their kids Xavier these days?

The article was entitled, "An archipelago called Russian."

It described the author's experience learning Russian with his teacher, Boris Shekhtman. Boris, a native speaker of Russian, created a very unique method of teaching languages. He immediately gets students speaking at a native level by having them learn custom prepared pieces of conversational Russian. One such piece might serve as an introduction. I am Harold, I am an American. I am x years old. I live in y place which is not too far from z. Z, as you know, is....

What you have is a few minutes of a monologue spoken with native-level proficiency. The purpose of these islands, as Boris calls them, is to get the student speaking with native speakers.

Often learners find it difficult to have conversations with native-speakers. The student has a very limited vocabulary, understanding of grammar and poor conversational skills in the foreign language. Most native-speakers sense that the student is floundering and this makes them uncomfortable. And, frankly, how long can one speak about such topics as one's age or name?

What Shekhtman has done is to create a way to allow a beginning student to immediately engage a native-speaker in a dialogue of mutual interest.

I have been studying with Boris now for a few weeks and the results are very encouraging.

He is a truly remarkable teacher; one of a kind.

I hope to write more about my experiences with Boris Shekhtman in future posts.

The end of insomnia

2010-01-30T12:13:00.000-08:00

About five years ago I descended into major insomnia.

I would go to bed and have a panic attack within seconds of drifting off.

This led to intense sleep deprivation which, in turn, led to total hell.

I lost my medical practice. I lost my life.

I feared at times that I would never find my way out of what was a continually downward spiraling hell.

In an effort to get out of all of this I sought help from many quarters.

Going all over the map I sought out practitioners whom I believed could help me.

They were good people and I did get help from them in many ways but the sleeplessness persisted.

I went on medications which helped me to deal with the anxiety and other symptoms.

Because of my philosophy regarding healing and life I really resented having to take these medications but I couldn't find any other way to sleep.

And without sleep I knew I wouldn't last much longer.

Most of the nights, by my own calculations, I slept about 3-4 hours with frequent stretches of just lying awake in bed.

I would never have believed that anyone could live on 3 hours a night of sleep.

I am living proof that it is possible. I lived this way for years.

However, it was not a life worth living.

A colleague whom I really like and trust told me that I would be on these addictive medications for the rest of my life. I was very angry when she told me that. I don't want to live on addictive medications forever.

In the meantime, my life went on.

I got up each morning and drove to work to help my patients.

Then I crashed.

Many years ago I came across the work of John Sarno, MD, who works at New York University Medical Center.

Recently, I revisited his philosophy.

I decided that I would take my own medicine to see how it worked.

If I could cure my own insomnia then anything was possible.

In brief, Dr. Sarno discovered that the unconscious mind speaks through the body and mind ( emotions).

However, the degree that this is true with everyday disorders was something I had never realized.

Most of these disorders are misdiagnosed as physical problems or psychological issues.

Many of them are, in fact, primarily physical and emotional and respond to appropriate care.

However, many are not mainly physical or emotional.

Many stem from a misunderstanding of the role of the unconscious in our lives.

This is Dr. Sarno's major contribution, I believe.

There is nothing wrong with many of these patients. They need to have this confirmed by a physician who does a thorough exam and who understands the role of the unconscious in our lives and how to help such patients to realize this and obtain full healing, not just live on medications and go from doctor to doctor.

By following this philosophy I have totally overcome my insomnia.

I now sleep quite well.

I awake refreshed which I haven't experienced for five years.

I am so happy that I want to scream.

My patients tell me that I look better than I have in years.

At least two over the last few days have mentioned, " You look like you are sleeping really well."

They are right.

In a few days I shall be off the last bit of the medication.

The same medication that I was told I could never live without.

Thanks, Dr. Sarno.

I am very excited to share what I have learned with others.

This is now becoming an important part of my practice.

In March I will go to UCLA where the second annual conclave of TMS (tension myositis syndrome - the name Dr. Sarno gives this condition) practitioners will take place. I am very proud to be known as a TMS doctor.

There are fewer than 30 TMS doctors in the world, mostly here in the US.

It is exciting to be part of what I believe will be a major revolution in medicine.

Contact

2010-01-04T18:53:00.000-08:00

E mail

hrpharold (at) gmail (dot) com

Phone

301.565.2494

Michel Thomas Mandarin Chinese Vocabulary Course

2009-06-25T06:54:00.000-07:00

The Michel Thomas Mandarin Chinese Vocabulary course has been recorded, edited and is scheduled for release in the UK in August, 2009. It will not be sold in the North America.

Those outside of the UK may order it via Amazon.co.uk, download it from Audible.com or get it directly from the publisher, Hodder and Arnold. My understanding is that Amazon discounts it and, for North Americans, the delivery service is quite good in my own experience.

This is the third and probably the last part of a complete course. If you do the Beginner ( Foundation), Advanced and Vocabulary courses you will have the complete course for spoken Mandarin. The essential patterns and necessary vocabulary will be yours to use in any way you choose. It is basically a course in how to communicate in Mandarin.

A lot of work went into the preparation of this course. You will learn many new words, expressions and more Chinese patterns which will bring your command of spoken Mandarin to an even higher level.

It is especially geared to those who travel to Mandarin-speaking parts of the world. I use it a lot in my local interactions here in the States with Mandarin speakers. There are more and more Chinese speakers everywhere I go. Many of them speak Mandarin though it may not be their native language.

They are absolutely delighted when I speak with them in Chinese.

I hope you enjoy the course and let me know how it goes for you.

Wonderful news

2008-04-01T13:22:00.001-07:00

Today I received news that I have been accepted as a student in the International Chinese Language Program at National Taiwan University in Taipei. This is one of the most prestigious and rigorous such programs in the world. It is a tremendous honor for me to to be in this program.

I am especially excited that this will provide me with even more training to help the many students who are learning Chinese via the Michel Thomas Mandarin Chinese language course published by Hodder ( UK ) and McGraw-Hill ( North America).

My hope is that I will learn even more to amplify and improve my teaching of Chinese.

Stay tuned for more details.

This actually happened.

2007-09-26T17:28:00.000-07:00

Last night I watched John on the telephone attempting to place an
order.

He got some automated program where you speak to a computer and
it processes your order. He read out the order number, the address,
etc. etc. At some point he became exasperated because the computer
voice kept saying, ' We are sorry but we cannot understand what you
are requesting and cannot process your request. Please repeat your
request again.' Finally, he started screaming, 'Operator! Operator!'
Then he began yelling, 'Assistance! Assistance! ' At this point I
suggested saying customer assistance. He said this several times. Each
time the automated voice replied, 'We are sorry but we cannot
understand or process your request.'

Then, at his wits end ,he screamed, 'Asshole!'

The voice replied, 'Thank you. We shall transfer you immediately to one
of our customer representatives.'

We both laughed. And, yes, the customer representative was a real asshole!

I welcome your feedback

2007-07-25T03:13:00.000-07:00

Please contact me at the e mail link below.