Review
'A riveting memoir - the book illuminates the truth that when we learn a language, we learn an entire culture. One of the best foreign observers of contemporary India, Rich's gaze is witty, empathetic, and intimate.' Suketu Mehta, author of Maximum City 'A work that will inevitably be compared to Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love [ - ] it traces the far-flung adventures of a thoughtful, soul-searching single woman from New York - In addition to reporting on life in India, Rich interviews linguists and other experts about just what happens inside your head when you learn another language. The transformation Rich undertakes isn't just spiritual or metaphorical but neurological.' New York Times 'A natural journalist, [Rich] gracefully sprinkles reportage about neuroscience and linguistics, as well as her own poignant insights, into her narrative.' Elle 'Fortified with neuroscience and laced with humour, [this] is a crash course in emotional agility, in an understanding too deep for words.' O, The Oprah Magazine
Product Description
I took up with Hindi at a time when it seemed my life had buckled out from under me I no longer had the language to describe my own life. So I decided Id borrow someone elses. Having survived a serious illness and now at an impasse in her career, Rich spontaneously accepts a freelance assignment to go to India, where she finds herself utterly overwhelmed by the place and the language. Before she knows it she is on her way to Udaipur, a city in Rajasthan, to live with a local family and join a special language school offering 'total immersion'. What follows is a year of linguistic adventure and cultural surprises in which Rich gradually sheds her foreignness to discover a new country and a new way of communicating. Fascinated by the process, she seeks out linguistic experts around the world to understand what goes in the brain as we pick up a new vocabulary. Both a clever, lucid and funny memoir, and a unique investigation into the science of language acquisition, Dreaming in Hindi offers an engrossing account of what learning a new language can teach us about distant worlds and, ultimately, ourselves.
Library : General
Formats : EPUB
ISBN : 1846272610