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Book Reviews of You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation

You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation
You Just Don't Understand Women and Men in Conversation
Author: Deborah Tannen M.D.
ISBN-13: 9780345372055
ISBN-10: 0345372050
Publication Date: 5/7/1991
Pages: 336
Rating:
  • Currently 3.8/5 Stars.
 90

3.8 stars, based on 90 ratings
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Book Type: Paperback
Reviews: Amazon | Write a Review

19 Book Reviews submitted by our Members...sorted by voted most helpful

reviewed You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation on
Helpful Score: 2
The book begins: "Many years ago I was married to a man who shouted at me, 'I do not give you the right to raise your voice to me, because you are a woman and I am a man.'... Now I am married to a man who is a partner and friend...It is a continual source of pleasure to talk to him...But he doesn't always see things as I do, doesn't always react to things as I expect him to. And I often don't understand why he says what he does." And with that, I was hooked. It is a fascinating book, written by a professor of linguistics at Georgetown University, yet it is not pedantic, but lively and interesting throughout.

From the cover, a blurb from The Washington Post: People are telling Tannen that the book is saving their marriages. What she is saying is that men and women grow up behaving in such profoundly different ways, and seeing themselves connecting to others in such profoundly different ways, that the two sexes are really trying to communicate across two different cultures.
reviewed You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation on + 14 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
Tannen has not only a marvelous ear for the way people participate in real conversations, but she is able to express her analysis of this communicative interaction in a teachable fashion. This reads in a chatty manner to convey earnest advice to improve relationships.
reviewed You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation on + 16 more book reviews
Interesting look at differences in men's and women's conversational styles.
reviewed You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation on + 9 more book reviews
A readable, penetrating, and sometimes sobering account of the differences between the way men and women think that goes a long way to clear up the often frustting barriers to communication between the sexes.
reviewed You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation on + 6 more book reviews
very interesting information!
reviewed You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation on + 16 more book reviews
This book stimulated many interesting and important discussions between my wife and I on the ways men and women communicate, especially how their communciations are different. It was a real help to us.
reviewed You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation on + 211 more book reviews
I took courses from Tannen in graduate school, and the book is outstanding in making gender differences in conversational styles understandable. What we say and what we hear and what we mean are not always the same thing. She is an excellent writer.
reviewed You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation on + 5 more book reviews
http://raysweb.net/poems/articles/tannen.html
reviewed You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation on + 33 more book reviews
Fascinating book about communications styles and metamessages.
reviewed You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation on
Excellent discussion of different communication styles and what to do about it.
reviewed You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation on + 75 more book reviews
An intriguing peek into the differences between the way men and women communicate.
reviewed You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation on + 144 more book reviews
Feminist classic on the differences between male and female communication.
reviewed You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation on + 17 more book reviews
Advice to help you begin having better conversations with your mate.
reviewed You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation on
The author is a professor of linguistics at Georgetown University, but she is writing for a general audience and the book is lively. Her field is effective communication, after all. She has a great ear for the ways women and men talk and the ways they do or do not listen.
reviewed You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation on + 69 more book reviews
If only I could remember the contents of this book when I'm communicating with my husband! How many times would I like to tape our conversations and have us both listen to what we said and why we meant, but we can't even do THAT together :-) Still, her book is invaluable for giving insight into the problems oc communication and miscommunication . . .
reviewed You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation on + 108 more book reviews
I read this book when it first came out which was before the Men are from Mars books.

I was like reading about my husband and me. This woman has really paid attention and I was amazed at the eyeopening things she brought up that made me slap my head and say: Why didn't this occur to me? Sure answers a lot of questions and anyone with a communication problem, not just in their marriage, should read this one.
reviewed You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation on + 4 more book reviews
good examples of patterns in speech, not too technical, very enlightening
reviewed You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation on + 15 more book reviews
Women and Men in Conversation
"complexities of communication between women and men"
whitetrashprincess avatar reviewed You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation on + 89 more book reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Georgetown University linguistics professor Tannen asserts that misunderstandings between the sexes often arise because women like to connect emotionally in conversation while men prefer to impart knowlege. "Tannen examines the functioning of argument and interruption, and convincingly supports her case for the existence of 'genderlect,' " said PW. Author tour.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.