500 Foreign Words Phrases You Should Know to Sound Smart · Terms to Demonstrate Your Savoir Faire, Chutzpah, and Bravado

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 "crudites" 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 "melange" of information that heightens their "je ne sais quoi."

So get busy dotting your conversation with these words and phrases. Remember, "Experientia docet."