New York Times Writer Shares Experience with and Insight into Author of MSI Press"s Bestselling Book

 

Although Boris Shekhtman died several years ago, the sales of his book, How to Improve Your Foreign Language Immediately, continue to top MSI Press LLC charts. One reason for this may be that the book reflects his extraordinarily effective teaching methods, as attested to by journalists, diplomats, and others. 

In testimony to Boris, upon his death, NYT journalist, Sam Roberts, who studied with him, wrote a highly insightful column about Boris and his methods -- and one that is enjoyable to read. An oldie but goodie.

Here is an excerpt:

“The first time I met Boris he didn’t talk at all about language,” Lucian Pugliaresi, a former National Security Council official in the Reagan administration, told The New York Times in 2001. “He talked about power relationships and fascinated me instantly. He said, ‘When you don’t speak the language over there, you have no power.’”

Mr. Shekhtman’s methods were intended for everyday face-to-face exchanges — like “two guys on a park bench,” as Strobe Talbott, the president of the Brookings Institution and a former journalist and diplomat, described the technique in an email.

Mr. Shekhtman put it this way: “If a guy wants to be able to talk in bed with his new Russian wife, this guy needs one vocabulary; but if he wants to deal in the Moscow oil business, the guy needs another.”

Victoria Nuland, a former assistant secretary of state and a career ambassador, said that under Mr. Shekhtman’s tutelage at the Foreign Service Institute, part of the State Department, she achieved professional fluency in nine months, just in time for her posting to Moscow.

“I came to the institute with college Russian and had been on a fishing boat, so I knew more curse words than an ability to discuss arms control,” she said in a phone interview.

Ms. Nuland went on to play a pivotal diplomatic role when the Soviet old guard attempted a coup in 1991.

Read the rest of the article HERE.