Epilogue We have reached the end of our journey. After visiting your colossal lifelong memory, your breathtaking speech segmentation skills, your frantic reading speed, and your pronunciation acrobatics – all unique on Earth – let’s sit down for a moment. Two hours of reading have changed the way you see languages and language learning. Not all languages are equal because, depending on who you are and which languages you speak, some languages are easier than others. However, all languages are equally beautiful. The Germans will appreciate that Turkish is as beautiful as German; the French will be delighted that Arabic is as expressive and gentle as French; and the Italians will be pleased to discover that Albanian is as subtle and amusing as Italian. Even more importantly, we have seen that languages are within the reach of everybody. Please pass this knowledge on to your children, grandchildren, and friends. Although language learning is predictable, there are no miracles. Success is determined by the number of hours people are ready to invest. Fortunately, there are potent catalysts, for example life and love. Just imagine yourself in an intense love affair, spending weeks and months in close symbiosis, exposed to a single linguistic ‘source’, discussing the world from dusk to dawn, and all this submerged in memory-stimulating emotions, supplemented with memory-boosting physical activity. The progress people make in these conditions is remarkable – sometimes dangerously remarkable. I once unmasked a
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