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How to Improve Your Foreign Language Immediately: Foreign Language Communication Tools
This is the third edition of a popular book that provides a unique set of tools designed to enhance an individual's success in communication in a foreign language environment. The devices presented allow the speaker of a foreign language to demonstrate the level of his/her language more impressively. These techniques were developed and tested by the author with adult professionals in such varied fields as journalism, diplomacy, government, and international business.
112 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 2003
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
April 15, 2013
This is a very slim book – just 95 pages – and yet it comes with a big promise in the title and big endorsements from Shekhtman’s former students in places like The New York Times and The Pentagon.
Surprisingly, the book does deliver on its promise. Shekhtman’s technique is not to improve your language level, but to give you specific ‘communication tools’ that help you express yourself better using the language you already know. Without knowing any extra vocabulary or grammar structures, you can speak more fluently and have longer, more fruitful conversations.
It sounds strange, but actually it makes perfect sense. Genie and I went to the French-speaking islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique last summer and discovered that, although my level of French is slightly higher than hers, she communicates more effectively. She’s happy to “butcher the language” as she puts it, chattering away in a random selection of tenses but getting her point across, whereas I tend to speak slowly and falteringly, searching for the correct subjunctive form before I dare to open my mouth. Shekhtman would say that Genie makes better use of communication tools than I do.
He gives seven tools in the book, clearly laid out and explained, designed to help you hold a conversation in a foreign language when the person is a native speaker. Here’s a quick summary (the actual points are much fuller and illustrated with examples):
1. Show Your Stuff
The instinct in a foreign language is often to keep things short due to lack of confidence, but actually verbosity is your best defence. Full answers give the native speaker confidence in your language level and make it a relaxed conversation rather than an awkward interrogation.
2. Build up ‘Islands’
Islands are pre-defined speeches on common topics that you can swim to when you feel as if you’re drowning in a difficult conversation. Reciting one of these speeches gives confidence both to you and the native speaker, and allows you to rest mentally before plunging back into less familiar waters.
3. Shift Gears
If you’re uncomfortable and lack the vocabulary to answer a question, change the subject onto something you’re more comfortable with. You can also use this to extract the necessary vocabulary from the native speaker
4. Simplify
If it is important that you get the meaning across, use the simplest simple grammar structures possible.
5. Break Away
Avoid translating grammar structures from your own language, and instead only use those of the foreign language. Shekhtman gives examples of exercises you can do to help with this.
6. Embellish
The kind of ‘wordiness’ that we often try to eradicate in our own language can be our friend in a foreign language. It makes our speech sound more natural by using idioms and slang, or exclamations and expressions like “You bet!” or “You know” or “I’d say that…”
7. Say what?
Understand what the other person is saying by scanning for key words, and then deciding when you need to clarify and get every detail. Know when to switch between the two modes.
A minor quibble is that the book contains a few small errors of language, or awkward uses of English. They don’t impede your understanding or undermine the arguments Shekhtman makes, but they are quite jarring sometimes.
Overall I’d recommend this book either to a language student looking for help communicating more effectively, or to a teacher looking for quick ways to help students make better use of the language they know. Shekhtman presents the tools clearly and suggests exercises at each stage to help master them. I might start using some of them in English too!
Surprisingly, the book does deliver on its promise. Shekhtman’s technique is not to improve your language level, but to give you specific ‘communication tools’ that help you express yourself better using the language you already know. Without knowing any extra vocabulary or grammar structures, you can speak more fluently and have longer, more fruitful conversations.
It sounds strange, but actually it makes perfect sense. Genie and I went to the French-speaking islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique last summer and discovered that, although my level of French is slightly higher than hers, she communicates more effectively. She’s happy to “butcher the language” as she puts it, chattering away in a random selection of tenses but getting her point across, whereas I tend to speak slowly and falteringly, searching for the correct subjunctive form before I dare to open my mouth. Shekhtman would say that Genie makes better use of communication tools than I do.
He gives seven tools in the book, clearly laid out and explained, designed to help you hold a conversation in a foreign language when the person is a native speaker. Here’s a quick summary (the actual points are much fuller and illustrated with examples):
1. Show Your Stuff
The instinct in a foreign language is often to keep things short due to lack of confidence, but actually verbosity is your best defence. Full answers give the native speaker confidence in your language level and make it a relaxed conversation rather than an awkward interrogation.
2. Build up ‘Islands’
Islands are pre-defined speeches on common topics that you can swim to when you feel as if you’re drowning in a difficult conversation. Reciting one of these speeches gives confidence both to you and the native speaker, and allows you to rest mentally before plunging back into less familiar waters.
3. Shift Gears
If you’re uncomfortable and lack the vocabulary to answer a question, change the subject onto something you’re more comfortable with. You can also use this to extract the necessary vocabulary from the native speaker
4. Simplify
If it is important that you get the meaning across, use the simplest simple grammar structures possible.
5. Break Away
Avoid translating grammar structures from your own language, and instead only use those of the foreign language. Shekhtman gives examples of exercises you can do to help with this.
6. Embellish
The kind of ‘wordiness’ that we often try to eradicate in our own language can be our friend in a foreign language. It makes our speech sound more natural by using idioms and slang, or exclamations and expressions like “You bet!” or “You know” or “I’d say that…”
7. Say what?
Understand what the other person is saying by scanning for key words, and then deciding when you need to clarify and get every detail. Know when to switch between the two modes.
A minor quibble is that the book contains a few small errors of language, or awkward uses of English. They don’t impede your understanding or undermine the arguments Shekhtman makes, but they are quite jarring sometimes.
Overall I’d recommend this book either to a language student looking for help communicating more effectively, or to a teacher looking for quick ways to help students make better use of the language they know. Shekhtman presents the tools clearly and suggests exercises at each stage to help master them. I might start using some of them in English too!
July 29, 2016
A short book with a lot of great techniques for improving your ability to SPEAK a foreign language. Very useful if you have studied another language for a long time but feel that you haven't gotten very far. It takes your current knowledge of that language and teaches you how to use that knowledge to your advantage.
May 12, 2020
I feel somewhat conflicted about this book, and I think it's because learning language is such an odd and subjective experience. On the one hand, I feel that a lot of the strategies employed by Shekhtman are things that I use naturally when learning a language, though such things may be due to my personality or the gross amount of hours I have spent language learning. I am excited to try out some of these strategies in the language I am currently learning, however. Perhaps the concreteness of the strategies will expedite the process.
September 5, 2012
Useful tactics in terms of improving speaking confidence and things to think about from an early point in the language learning process. Worth a read.
January 11, 2020
This book might more appropriately be titled "How to make better use of the foreign language skills you already have". The authors provide several easy suggestions for enhancing your conversations in any language, such as not using "yes" or "no" answers, but instead to use sentences with as much vocabulary as you can manage. So, an answer to "are you an American" turns into "Yes, I am American. I am from Chicago, which is a large town in the middle of the country. I love living near Chicago, which is located near a large lake, Lake Michigan. I live in a small white house with lots of oak and maple trees outside" etc etc. The book includes exercises, useful to both students and teachers. Highly recommended for English-speaking students of any language.
August 20, 2017
This was a short book. I had seen a video where someone recommended it and I'm very happy I decided to go and buy it. I'm quite experienced in language learning, but I still found new things and some things I knew I can now do more deliberately. I'm hoping this will really boost the efficiency of my language learning.
June 3, 2020
The content is obvious in many respects, but someone needed to tell me. I’m slowly pecking away at my Spanish. I will 100% use the suggestions in this book when I prepare to take my language acquisition to the next level and travel/take classes/communicate more in Spanish. Writing this in the middle of a pandemic, who knows when that will be!
March 5, 2022
This is among the best books on language learning I have come across. Itʻs only flawed by rather poor proofreading. Shekhtman gives seven practical strategies to help the student use the language they have acquired most effectively when conversing with native speakers. These help the student “regulate the conversation” to his or her advantage, whether in social or professional settings.
October 23, 2022
A really interesting approach to language learning. Because the book is aimed at people learning a variety of different languages, it would require a lot of work to implement the ideas fully as an individual. However, the main concept, of focusing on the learner's communication skills- making the best use possible of what the student does know is very helpful.
February 26, 2019
This is a supremely useful little book. I have been using the tips within in my conversational language class and it has helped me gain confidence and use the skills I actually have, to surprising effect.
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January 25, 2025short n decent tips
October 18, 2014
Boris Shekhtman's book is a surprise even for an experienced language learner as he gives in detail the techniques that he uses to develop the communicative skills of his students. He provides multiple ways to develop these skills and to overcome common problems that arise during conversations with native speakers. I highly recommend you to read the book if you want to speak fast the language that you are learning.
February 27, 2013
some good tips on how to improve conversation skills through various language-independent conversation gambits. There are two major sections: one that helps you control the conversation topic so that you can have a smoother experience while chit-chatting with native speakers and one about how to simplify concepts to better express them with limited vocab and grammar.
September 6, 2013
I identified with this book well. Some of the techniques he mentioned, I am already doing, and most of the frustrations he mentioned I have encountered at one time or another. He does well to describe each technique, and on how to apply it. He could do better explaining how to develop an individuals personal version of it.
January 30, 2017
An excellent book that provides seven solid rules to improve practical proficiency in foreign language speaking, I was surprised that there were editing and formatting issues in this third edition of a twenty-year-old work.
March 6, 2016
I wished there were tips for beginners
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews