Dazzle with your command of belle-lettres! Like a true sophisticate, you'd like to toss out casual
bon mots to enliven your conversation. You'd like to float through cocktail parties offering your guests
crudités and
hors d'oeuvres, toasting to the prevailing
Weltgeist and speculating on who's having an
affaire de coeur.
But first you need to know what those words mean.
Here's a guide to declaiming like an intellectual in a foreign language. More than 500 of the most commonly used foreign words and phrases that enhance our language and make us sound sophisticated have been translated into English, along with a pronunciation guide and a sample sentence showing you how to use them. In addition, you'll find quotations in other languages, which will impress everyone with your erudition and
experiencia del mundo. All this together with a plethora of
minutae, spicing the entries with an exquisite
mélange of information that heightens their
je ne sais quoi.
So get busy dotting your conversation with these words and phrases. Remember,
Experientia docet.