Fluent Forever : How to Learn Any Language Fast and Never Forget It

language, arranged in order of frequency. (The number one word in English, the, shows up once every
twenty-five words.) These books are amazing, with lovingly picked examples and translations.
They’ll save you tons of time and they take so much work to compile that we should be throwing
money and flowers at the feet of their authors. There are some online frequency lists, but they’re not
as good as the paper versions. Frequency dictionaries don’t exist in every language yet, but if your
language has one, you win. Get it.
A pronunciation guide  will walk you through the entire pronunciation system of your language,
with the help of recordings and diagrams of your mouth and tongue. For many languages, you can find
guidebooks with CDs devoted entirely to pronunciation. They’re wonderful resources and well worth
the purchase. In addition, I’ve made it my personal mission to develop computerized pronunciation
trainers in as many languages as I can. These trainers can do a few neat things that textbooks can’t,
and we’ll discuss them in depth in 
Chapter 3
. You won’t be able to find a guidebook or trainer in
every language, but when they exist, they’re extraordinarily helpful.
You also want to find two dictionaries. It is up to you whether you find them online or in print. The
first is a traditional bilingual dictionary (e.g., English-French/French-English), with accurate
pronunciation listed for every word. Again, if you see “bawn-JURE,” burn it. If you see funny
symbols (e.g., [bᴐ̃.ʒuʁ]), keep it. We’ll make friends with the International Phonetic Alphabet in
Chapter 3
. The second is a monolingual dictionary (e.g., French-French), which has actual
definitions (e.g., in French) rather than translations. You’ll never see “bawn-JURE” in one of these,
so don’t worry about finding your lighter.
You may also want a thematic vocabulary book. These books arrange the words in your language
by theme: words about cars, words for food, medical words, and so on. They’re handy for
customizing your vocabulary (we’ll talk about them in detail in 
Chapter 6
).

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