Polyglot: How I learn languages by Kató Lomb

For emphasis lomb paraphrases Toussaint and Langenscheidt, the 19th-century publishers: “Man learnt Grammatik aus der Sprache, nicht Sprache aus der Grammatik.” (One learns grammar from language, not language from grammar.)

When I enrolled, I used a trick that I highly recommend to all my fellow linguaphiles who are serious about learning a language: sign up for a level much higher than what you are entitled to by your actual knowledge. Of the three levels available (beginner's, intermediate, and advanced), I asked to be enrolled at the advanced level.

Simply, we are motivated to do something when we accept what is necessary to achieve it.

Apart from these playful forms, one has to learn not only the connection between sound meaning but also the link between sound and writing. Good dictionaries provide information on both.

If, on the other hand, one can't devote even 60-90 minutes a day to langauge learning, this book is not suitable either. My book is for the average language learner. Also certain interest is required beyond the practical problems of language learning, as well as a bit of healthy impatience with the pace of learning dictated by the old, descent, and regular methods.

The great advantage of the method is the opportunity to repeat the material frequently. And I must stress that repetition is as an essential element of language learning as a knife is to a lathe or fuel is to an internal combustion engine. This primitive truth was, by the way, invented earlier than the gasoline engine: Repetitio est mater studiorum—"repetition is the mother of studies"—as our ancestors said.

It is a bitter lesson but it has to be expressed once: the time spent on language learning is lost unless it reaches a certain—daily and weekly—concentration. The average language learner needs to study a minimum of 10-12 hours a week. If one cannot or doesn't want to invest this much time, he or she should think twice about the enterprise.

I wonder about those who learn a language for practical reasons rather than for itself. It is boring to know. The only thing of interest is learning. An exciting game, a coquettish hide-and-seek, a magnificent flirt with the spirit of humanity. Never do we read so fluently and with such keen eyes as in a hardly known, new language. We grow young by it, we become children, babling babies and we seem to start a new life. This is the elixir of my life.

I recommend buying your own books for language learning. They can be spiced with underlines, question marks, and exclamation points; they can be thumbed and dog-eared, plucked to their essential core, and annotated so that they become a mirror of yourself. What shall you write in the margins? Only the forms and phrases you have understood and figured out from the context.

What shall we read? Answer: A text that is of interest to you. Interesse ist stärker als Liebe as they put it in German. (Interest[edness] is stronger than love.) And interest beats the fiercest enemy: boredom.

What shall we read? Answer: A text that is of interest to you. Interesse ist stärker als Liebe as they put it in German. (Interest[edness] is stronger than love.) And interest beats the fiercest enemy: boredom.

At first, we should read with a blitheness practically bordering on superficiality; later on, with a conscientiousness close to distrust.

Public enemy number one of language students is forgetting. You should fight forgetting with repetition. I have written it several times but I must emphasize it once again (and I dare not promise it will be the last time): it is only books that provide an inlimited amount of repetition. There is nothing to be done: you have to learn the foreign language pronunciation rules, and not in general but by consciously comparing them with your mother tongue—by contrasting them.

The basis of classic vocabulary learning is making a glossary. You record the words to be learned from a lesson in one column of your notebook and write the equivalent terms in your mother tongue in the other. Its disadvantage is that it carries isolated words to the brain, removed from their contexts. And the meaning to which you attach each word to be learned is your moether-tongue's meaning of the term. That is the only nail you hang your new possesion on—or to put it more scientifically, that is what you associate it with. Not healthiest start. Among other reasons, it is not a good start because only one meaning of the word is recorded.

Perspective on the soul and essence of language is a privilege of old age. An excellent means to avoid failure in language learning is to practice monologues. This parlor game may become an established method to enrich and solidify your vocabulary: who can list more words with a similar meaning (synonyms)? The latest competition I participated in was like that: who has the largest stock of synonyms for the English word drunk? I reached the final with the words fuddled, tipsy, inebriated, and high, and I won hands down with the terms blotto, pifflicated, and intoxicated. The only reason I didn't come away with a gold medal was that I was competing all by myself; it all took place on a night coach ride Rome when I couldn't fall asleep due to the clatter...

A dictionary is is a long-term means to quench your thirst for knowledge. It deserves a couple of thoughts for the thousands of words accumulated in it. The first thing I'd like to tell my fellow language students is to use dictionaries. The second is not to abuse them. To spring open the lock of a language, a dictionary is an excellent key.

Even at a very elementary level of language knowledge, you can use monolingual or learner's dictionaries. I only mention the Russian Usakov, the French Larousse, the English Oxford, and the German Duden as examples. Instead of the too-easy way of looking it up in the Hungarian-Russian dictionary, it is much more effective to look up in Russian dictionary. Thus the sentence provided by the dictionary is a reliable unit worthy of learning. On the other hand, a word is not reliable unit of learning because its meaning may depend on its context. A long and coherent text is not a reliable unit of learning either, because it is simply too much for the average person to absorb.

However, I believe that Hungarians should learn from a book prepared by a Hungarian. This is not owning to chauvinism but because speakers of different languages face different challenges when learning a foreign language.

The language learner who wants to translate words one by one makes the same mistake as a bad photographer. The object to be photographed, to continue the metaphor, should be the complete foreign-language form—a full sentence or phrase—not a part.

First of all, I try to get my hands on a thick Azilian dictionary. Owing to my optimistic outlook I never buy small dictionaries; i go on the assumption that they are a waste of money because I would fathom them too quickly. In an Azilian-Hungarian dictionary is not available, then I try to get hold of an Azilian-English, Azilian-Russian, etc., dictionary.

Be firmly convinced that you are a linguistic genius. If the facts demonstrate otherwise, heap blame on the pesky language you aim to master, your dictionaries, or this book—but not on yourself.

Do not leave newly learned structures or expressions hanging in the air. Fix them in your memory by fitting them into different, new settings: into your sphere of interest, into the reality of your own life.

In language learning, character plays at least as much a role as intellect.

He who writes the history of languages chronicles humankind. "What is the most widespread language in the world?" I am often asked. "Broken English," I tend to answer.

Until humankind matures to accept one or two international languages, the task of building bridges between languages is ahead of us, language students. When writing this book, I was guided by no other endeavor than to show that bridge-building doesn't necessarily have to consist of onerous brick-carrying: it can be joyful manifestation of the proud human tradition to pursue and acquire knowledge.