A Spymaster's Secrets of Learning a Foreign Language

By: Graham Fuller

Narrated by: Graham Fuller

Length: 3 hrs and 4 mins

Publisher's summary

All the tips and techniques Fuller discovered during his overseas career: organized, simplified, and presented here to facilitate your language acquisition.

Whether learning in a class or on your own, A Spymaster's Secrets of Learning a Foreign Language will be your guide to success, allowing you to discover the joy of communicating within a different culture. His humorous anecdotes and cultural insights will enrich your experience.

Public Domain (P)2005 Penton Overseas, Inc.

Not what I thought it would be

I was expecting this to be stories of the authors experiences learning languages and the unique differences found in them. I was expecting anecdotes, amusing stories, and similar. Instead, I got an introductory primer on how to begin studying a new language.

The author's tips were good, but ultimately, they weren't anything that I hadn't heard in the first few classes of Spanish 101. If I were a freshman starting from scratch, this book would have been useful. It makes an excellent primer for someone who has never taken a language class and plans to study on their own. If you have any experience beyond that or are already taking language lessons, I'd pass this one by.

Excelente

muy buena guía y orientación para los que desean aprender idiomas por si mismos o con ayuda

Weak material

Unfortunately this is a dry language and memory book macquerading behind the glamour of spying. There is little or nothing to link it to the world of espionage and sadly little of use in terms of language instruction.

Mediocre at best

Over half of this book focuses on theory that is of no help to learning a foreign language. There is also way too much time spent on the history of langauges and language families. The author also spends time helping you to form connections between English words and words in Spanish and German. Great if that's what you are studying...The problem with this book is that it doesn't reveal any "secrets" it's all common sense information. Don't waste your time or money on this one.

A Bit of a Disappointment...

I'm disappointed with this audiobook...

The title of this audiobook is misleading -- in fact, the introduction refers to the book as "Secrets of Learning a Foreign Language"...

Spymaster?? You've got to be kidding.

I expected a bit more 'sex-appeal' and 'danger'...

Caveat emptor!

Very Practical

I really appreciate the suggestions on how to learn a language, the insights into language roots. I find myself picking up the language I'm studing (French) far better now. As far ast he other reviews - Yes, it's not about spys and so is very academic in scope. That's what I wanted. I recommend it to anyone who wants practical help in learning a language. Thanks

Better than I expected

I'm going to be studying a few languages (Swedish, German, Italian, Greek, Japanese, Chinese...) and this has really opened my eyes into so many different things. I knew a lot of the common sense ideas of course, but there is so much in here that I wish I had in high school taking French. I should have taken German or Russian, and now I can put my finger on why I had that feeling. I found this tape extremely useful. I'm 52 and haven't been in school since the late 70's, so for someone like me, learning all these languages on my own, it's just what I needed to prep myself for what's to come. I highly recommend it.