This article was originally posted on WomenLearnThai.com.
The Quick and Dirty Guide to Learning Languages Fast…
A little over a week after launching Women Learn Thai, I wrote my first book review: The Quick and Dirty Guide to Learning Languages Fast.
But I didn’t just review A. G. Hawke’s book, I followed his instructions (up to a point).
Getting help from my Thai teacher and Thai friends, I spent hours collecting top verbs, nouns, adjectives, adverbs, numbers, word phrases, past, present and future tenses.
As you can imagine, it was a lot of work.
With it partly complete, I decided to share my efforts here at Women Learning Thai.
And as I needed permission from the author, I did what I always do: I googled.
Nothing solid came of my search, so I shelved the idea.
Then yesterday, getting a wildhair (as I’m known to do), I googled again and bingo, A. G. Hawke on Wikipidia.
Only, he isn’t really A. G. Hawke; he is Myke Hawke (now corrected in my review).
And he is gorgeous.
Myke Hawke makes women happy on YouTube…
And while Myke is all over YouTube with Paris Hilton and others of note, the video below is a good introduction to a part of what he does. Suggestion: If you are in a hurry, skip the condoms and go straight to the gals.
Myke Hawke: TV personality, professional soldier, linguist and author…
I found it difficult to extract brief notes on a busy man’s life, so Myke, apologies if I’ve missed a few.
TV personality: Featured on two of the final episodes of E’s THE SIMPLE LIFE with Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie. Appeared in the BBC’s CASTAWAY EXPOSED and the Living Channel’s LIVING WITH KIMBERLEY. In the DISCOVERY CHANNEL’S acclaimed series SCIENCE OF SURVIVAL, I SHOULDN’T BE ALIVE, Hawke taught survival in the Amazon jungle. Hawke also appeared as himself in the movie DIRTY SANCHEZ. Prior media projects included MTV’s ROAD RULES, Fox TV’s FOREVER EDEN, LOVE CRUISE and BOOT CAMP, ABC TV’s THE DATING EXPERIMENT, NBC’s FEAR FACTOR, The History Channel’s Tactical to Practical, and Britain’s Worst Boss. In addition to appearances, hosting and acting roles, he has worked as consultant, expert advisor, writer, and producer.
Professional soldier: Myke Hawke is an experienced survival instructor in jungle, desert, arctic, sea, and urban environments. Hawke has over 20 years of combined military, civilian, and government experience. He has served as a senior enlisted member of the U.S. Army’s Special Forces, and as a Commissioned Officer and Team Commander. He has been a U.S. Government Contractor and Country Project Manager abroad. Hawke has training and experience in telecommunications, intelligence operations, remote medical management, combat search and rescue, guerrilla warfare, counter terrorism, security tactics and languages. He has deployed to hotspots throughout Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Latin America, South America, South East Asia and Africa.
Author: The Quick and Dirty Guide to Learning Languages Fast, Myke Hawke’s Green Beret Survival Manual and In the Dark of the Sun.
Languages: Russian, Spanish, French, Italian, Serbo-Croation, Turkish, Thai, Arabic, and others.
Yes, there really is a reason for this post…
When I finally made contact with Myke, he said ‘yes’.
‘Yes’ to my request to share the Thai compiled from his book.
Or rather, in true Myke speak: ‘info request granted!’
So stay tuned for the series: Quick & Dirty Thai Language Learning with Myke Hawke.
If you aim to follow the series, be sure to purchase The Quick and Dirty Guide to Learning Languages Fast at amazon.com, amazon.co.uk, or your favourite book store.
I have never heard of this book but i am going to check it out on ebay . I have just mastered spanish and am now looking at thai.
Hi Mads, my pleasure 🙂 My homework files from Quick and Dirty are with a senior Thai language guy at the moment. He is making sure that what I pass on is correct. First, I’ll post Myke’s exact list with my Thai as a download. Then, I’ll go down through the list to add sound and more. It’s a great learning experience for me as I get to track down sentences, grammar rules, etc.
Sounds excellent. Can’t wait till you start sharing your stuff, so we can get the full benefit of the book.
Thanks a lot for doing this.
Martyn, I’m interviewing Myke this week so I’ll ask him how he came up with name for his book ‘The Quick and Dirty Guide to Learning Languages Fast’.
(I nicely sidestepped that one, yes? 😀
Thank you for your confidence. I jumped into this series knowing it would be a lot of work, and more. And I’ve come up with what I believe are decent ideas. I just hope I can pull it off. Some may need to be added later (fingers crossed).
I do wonder what keyword searchers will hit your site with a title like this, British politicians for sure. I’m sure with your well grounded writing skills the series will be a winner and I’ll be looking in for sure, it makes Come Dancing sound rather sedate.
Welcome Myke! And thanks for stopping by WLT.
I know you are busy slaving under those bright lights, but if you ever find yourself with a spare minute, please drop by to see how we are getting on with your book. We’d love to hear from you.
(Psst… and I’ll bet there’s a piece of Thailand that misses you too 🙂
howdy, cat! 🙂
hope this note finds you doin’ well
and thanks for sharing this little gem with me!
i think you’re doin’ some rockin’ good stuff out there
and that makes me glad you found the book to be helpful!
ya’ll take care out there in thailand, i surely do miss it!
all the best!
🙂
hawke sends
>>——->
Welcome to WLT Pete 🙂 It’s fun hanging with Talen, Martyn and all you guys as you get to write posts on Lady Boys, and, and, all those sorts of places with goings on I only wonder about. And as I usually stick to writing posts on personal experiences, I might just be tempted to see what is going on. It’ll take some serious thinking first though… and I’ll need a wee camera… and maybe a…
Myke’s program for language learning is pretty good. It is intense, but if you spread it out for a month instead of seven days, you’ll get a good dose of the vocabulary needed to get you up and running.
The tips he spreads around the book are useful too.
I’m game for anything quick and dirty! After your comments on FrogBlogger about what you’ve been getting up to with talen and Martyn, who knows what to expect!
Seriously, it all helps. I’m going to knuckle down (again) to learning Thai this summer, with some private lessons, but Myke Hawke survival-style Thai might not be on the agenda, and I need all the help I can get 😉
Good deal Neil (glad to get you on board). It’ll be a marathon of language learning, but people have been running around asking for the ‘must know’ Thai words and I believe his book covers that and more.
And for those of you who are advanced learners… you can always contribute to the list! The more, the merrier…
Great post, Cat. I’m in. I’ve heard of Myke and he, no doubt, knows his stuff. I’ll take your sage advice and nab a copy of his book. I can use all the help I can get when it comes to languages.
Alas, so many languages. So little time.
Thanks David (and thanks for stopping by). I’ll be looking forward to seeing how it turns out. There is nothing like a surprise megga series (with the surprise being on me too 🙂
Sounds great, Cat. Looking forward to some of these updates!
Talen, When I started collecting language learning books to review on WLT, I gathered in: Lingo (how to learn a language), Learning Foreign Languages, Speak Like A Native (professional secrets for mastering foreign languages), How to Learn any Language (quickly, easily, inexpensively, enjoyably, and on your own), and of course, The Quick and Dirty Guide to Learning Languages Fast. I also sourced several pdf downloads for learning languages.
One book was so bad, so arrogant, that I went around and around on whether or not I should write a truthful review.
In the end I just couldn’t be bothered wasting the negative energy, so I concentrated on one of the best in the stack instead.
The others will come later…
Never heard of this book before but it sounds very interesting so I think I’ll be heading to Amazon from here to order it.
Can’t wait to see what you have coming up for us.
Mike is a generous guy. I was chuffed when he said yes. In his book he is also generous with the vocabulary list so expect a TON of Thai coming your way in the next couple of weeks.
My Thai teacher will help with the sound files (so you guys are not left out, I’ll need to rope in a guy too).
My server is choking at the moment – I have to much stuff – so at the moment I’m not sure how I’ll share them.
Quick and Dirty Thai Language Learning – Sounds like my cuppa cha. Great stuff look forward to it!