How to Read Minds and Speak All Languages

On several occasions I was able to make people think I could read their minds. Well, probably they knew I really couldn't—they were all too smart to believe in that; but still, maybe just a teeny bit, they had to wonder. That's lots of fun.

Well, here are the episodes.

1. I know this guy who has traveled to an incredible number of countries. At one point—and this was years ago!—the count was over 100.

So, I heard him say something like, "I've been all over, I've had the cuisines of so many countries, and I can handle any and all of them. There's just one I really don't care for. . . ."

And I quickly interjected, "Ethiopian!"

And he's like, How did you know I was going to say that?

2. I used to have this friend, a doctor, who was divorced. He was telling me about finding women to date--through personal ads, I think.

He mentioned one woman, a Jewish girl who has a PhD in Philosophy.

I chimed in, "Theresa Sungeld" (not the real name).

Again, he's like, How did you possibly know that??

3. I was visiting my uncle and aunt. I was conversing with my uncle at one point, and he said, "Do you know what you ought to invest in?" And I said, "A condo on Hilton Head."

Again, amazingly, that was what he had been going to say.

Okay, want to know the secrets? I wish, dear reader, that I could tease a bit before revealing how it was all done.

In (1), it really was pretty much just a good guess. I, too, can eat almost anything, but I believe Ethiopian food looks like vomit.

In (2), it was pretty much a matter of It's a small world. I knew this woman. And there might have been other single (and dating) Jewish girls around who have PhD's in Philosophy, but I thought I'd risk that it happened to be the same one (he might also have said, ". . . from the University of ____"). Besides, both this woman and my doctor friend were quirky enough individuals that I could see them hooking up with each other.

Now, (3) is a little more devious. I'd been reading the paper at their house; it was either the Wall Street Journal or the financial section of the New York Times. And I saw an ad touting condos on Hilton Head as an investment; so I figured Unk had just seen the same thing I had.

I can also make people think I understand their language.

One time I was eating in a Chinese restaurant. I ordered a dish with tofu.

This was one of those old-fashioned places, with waiters. And they were not busy at all; I may have been the only customer. So a couple of these old waiters were sitting at a table in the back, talking among themselves in Chinese. Overhearing them, I could understand tofu . . . tofu.

When the waiter came back, I said "You're talking about what I'm eating." He goes No, no.

Later he comes back, looking very sheepish, and says, "Uh… you understand Chinese?" I guess I said something like Not really, and he said, "I was saying that tofu was Sun Yat-sen's favorite food." Yeah, right. More likely "They used pretty awful, old, spoiled tofu in the kitchen to make that guy's dinner."

Another time, at work I sat in a cubicle behind a guy from the Philippines. He was running some kind of business on the side, right from his work desk, selling perfume or something like that. His conversations were carried on in Tagalog, the national language of the Philippines.

Well, as a linguistics graduate student I had done some work on a Philippine language that is similar to Tagalog, so I was able to pick up a few words of what this guy was saying. So I had him believing I could understand his whole conversation.

Just as I found when traveling abroad, people often don't realize that knowing a word or two of a language is a far cry from really being able to speak it or understand it. But if, like me, you have a bit of a mischievous streak, boy, can you make them nervous, just with your limited knowledge.

Copyright © 2011 by Richard Stein