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POLYGLOT
HOWILEARNLANGUAGES
KATÓ LOMB
POLYGLOT
How I Learn Languages
KATÓ LOMB
TRANSLATED FROM THE HUNGARIAN BY
ÁDÁM SZEGI
KORNELIA DEKORNE
EDITED BY SCOTT ALKIRE
TESL-EJ
http://tesl-ej.org
Berkeley Kyoto
Acknowledgments
Thank you to
Elizabeth Collison
Elena Smolinska
Sylvia Rucker
Professor Thom Huebner
for their help with this project.
The review comments of Dr. Larissa Chiriaeva,
Maria Çomsa, MA, and Dr. Stefan Frazier were
invaluable in the preparation of the manuscript.
—Scott Alkire
Translated by Ádám Szegi
The first two Forewords, Introduction, and
Chapter 20 translated by Kornelia DeKorne
Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lomb, Kató, 1909–2003.
Polyglot : how I learn languages / Kató Lomb. — 1st English ed.
p. cm.
Library of Congress Control Number: [forthcoming]
ISBN 978-1-60643-706-3
1. Language learning. I. Title
Copyright © 2008 by Scott Alkire. All rights reserved.
Cover: The Tower of Babel
Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1563)
TESL-EJ
http://tesl-ej.org
Berkeley Kyoto
Contents
≈
Preface vii
Foreword to the First Edition xvii
Foreword to the Second Edition xix
Foreword to the Fourth Edition xxi
Introduction 23
What Is Language? 35
Why Do We and Why Should We Study Languages? 37
The Type of Language to Study 39
“Easy” and “Difficult” Languages 41
How to Study Languages 49
Who This Book Is and Isn’t For 51
Let’s Read! 67
Why and What We Should Read 73
How We Should Read 85
Reading and Pronunciation 89
What Sort of Languages Do People Study? 97
Language and Vocabulary 103
Vocabulary and Context 107
How to Learn Words 113
Age and Language Learning 121
Dictionaries: Crutches or Helpful Tools? 127
Textbooks 131
How We Converse in a Foreign Language 133
How We Should Converse in a Foreign Language 139
How I Learn Languages 147
Grading Our Linguistic Mastery 165
The Linguistic Gift 173
Language Careers 183
The Interpreting Career 187
Reminiscences from My Travels 199
What’s Around the Linguistic Corner? 209
Epilogue 215
Preface
≈
IF multilingualism is indeed one of the “great achieve-
ments of the human mind,” as Vildomec (1963, p. 240)
asserts, it is regrettable that few linguists have studied poly-
glots1 and what it is they know about language learning.
For their part, polyglots have not provided us with much
information either; in the 20th century, texts by polyglots
on language learning, in particular texts that relate how they
actually learned their languages, are rare.
One text that relates personal language-learning experi-
ence is Dr. Kató Lomb’s Polyglot: How I Learn Languages
(2008; Hungarian: Így tanulok nyelveket [1995, 4th ed.]). A
collection of anecdotes and reflections on languages and lan-
guage learning, it belongs to a select group of similar texts
by polyglot linguists such as Bloomfield (Outline Guide for
the Practical Study of Foreign Languages, 1942), Pei (How
to Learn Languages and What Languages to Learn, 1973),
Pimsleur (How to Learn a Foreign Language, 1980), and
Stevick (Success with Foreign Languages, 1989). The text is
further distinguished by the fact that it is the document of
a learner who acquired most of her languages (16 in all) as
an adult. But the most remarkable aspect of Polyglot: How I
Learn Languages may be that few other books relate as au-
thentically the experience of learning and using a foreign
language in the real world.
1. Linguistic definitions of multilingualism/polyglot vary. Nation, in a
study of “good” language learners, defines a multilingual person as being
fluent in four or more languages (1983, p. 1).

vii
viii / POLYGLOT: HOW I LEARN LANGUAGES
“The most multilingual woman”
Dr. Kató Lomb (1909–2003) has been called “possibly
the most accomplished polyglot in the world” (Krashen,
1997, p. 15) and “the most multilingual woman” (Parkvall,
2006, p. 119). Unlike most polyglots, Lomb came to lan-
guage learning relatively late. Indifferent to foreign lan-
guages in secondary school and university (her PhD was
in chemistry), she began to acquire English on her own
in 1933 for economic reasons: to find work as a teacher.
She learned Russian in 1941, and by 1945 was interpreting
and translating for the Budapest City Hall. She continued
to learn languages, and at her peak was interpreting and/
or translating 16 different languages for state and business
concerns. In the 1950s she became one of the first simulta-
neous interpreters in the world, and her international repu-
tation became such that, according to an interview in Hetek
newspaper (14 November 1998), she and her colleagues in
the Hungarian interpreting delegation were known as “the
Lomb team” (p. 16).
Lomb wrote Így tanulok nyelveket in 1970. Subsequent
editions were published in 1972, 1990, and 1995, and trans-
lations were published in Japan, Latvia, and Russia. As her
fame grew, Lomb wrote additional books on languages, in-
terpreting, and polyglots, and continued learning languages
into her eighties. In 1995 she was interviewed by Stephen
Krashen, who brought her achievements to the attention of
the West.
Her accomplishments did not alter her essential mod-
esty. “...it is not possible [to know 16 languages]—at least
not at the same level of ability,” she wrote in the foreword
to the first edition of Így tanulok nyelveket. “I only have one
mother tongue: Hungarian. Russian, English, French, and
German live inside me simultaneously with Hungarian. I
can switch between any of these languages with great ease,
from one word to the next.
“Translating texts in Italian, Spanish, Japanese, Chinese,
Preface / ix
and Polish generally requires me to spend about half a day
brushing up on my language skills and perusing the material
to be translated.
“The other six languages [Bulgarian, Danish, Latin,
Romanian, Czech, Ukrainian] I know only through trans-
lating literature and technical material.”
Pastiche of styles
Perhaps because language and language learning are
subjects that can be approached and understood in different
ways, Lomb does not confine herself to a particular prose
style. Rather, she tends to employ one of three genres—
memoir/narrative, functional/expository, and figurative/
literary—as it suits her content. For instance she uses mem-
oir/narrative to relate most of her experiences learning lan-
guages, from how she acquired English, Russian, Romanian,
Czech, and Spanish by reading novels to how she got into
language classes. She also uses it, naturally enough, for anec-
dotes that emphasize the importance of context—linguistic,
social, cultural—in effective communication.
Lomb relies on functional/expository prose to outline
her principles of language learning. This is appropriate be-
cause of her unconventional views, which demand clear
exposition to avoid misinterpretation. About reading she
writes, “We should read because it is books that provide
knowledge in the most interesting way, and it is a funda-
mental truth of human nature to seek the pleasant and avoid
the unpleasant.” She goes on to endorse any reading in the
target language that fits the learner’s interest.
Regarding the study of grammar as a means to learn a
language, Lomb is similarly unambiguous: “The traditional
way of learning a language (cramming 20–30 words a day
and digesting the grammar supplied by a teacher or a course
book) may satisfy at most one’s sense of duty, but it can
hardly serve as a source of joy. Nor will it likely be success-
ful.” She feels that this approach is in fact backwards. She
x / POLYGLOT: HOW I LEARN LANGUAGES
paraphrases Toussaint and Langenscheidt, the mid-19th
century publishers: “Man lernt Grammatik aus der Sprache,
nicht Sprache aus der Grammatik.” (One learns grammar
from language, not language from grammar.)
On the topic of textbooks she makes an obvious but
rarely made point: “...a student whose native language
is Hungarian should study from a book prepared by a
Hungarian. This is not owing to chauvinism but because ev-
ery nation has to cope with its own specific difficulties when
learning a foreign language. Jespersen, the eminent Danish
philologist, knew this: he classified the errors committed in
the English language by nationality.”
How Lomb uses figurative language to explain the pro-
cess of language learning is compelling and is perhaps the
most distinctive stylistic element of the book. She writes,
“...consider language a building and language learning its
construction. The Russian language is a complicated, mas-
sive cathedral harmoniously fashioned in every arch and cor-
ner. The learner must accept this in order to have sufficient
motivation to ‘build’ it.” Also: “Knowledge—like a nail—
is made load-bearing by being driven in. If it’s not driven
deep enough, it will break when any weight is put upon it.”
Elsewhere Lomb uses her building metaphor differently: “A
foreign language is a castle. It is advisable to besiege it from
all directions: newspapers, radio, motion pictures which are
not dubbed, technical or scientific papers, textbooks, and
the visitor at your neighbor’s.”
Lomb’s sense of irony is another creative feature of her
text. In critiquing teacher-guided learning, she plays off a
wry Hungarian joke:
“There is an old joke about coffees in Budapest that ap-
plies here:
Coffees in Budapest have an advantage—
they have no coffee substitute
They have a disadvantage—