Why do some language learners reach fluency faster than others? How come some people can learn more languages than others? Is there such a thing as an “innate ability” for learning foreign languages?

Kató Lomb, the most multilingual woman in the 20th century, debunked all the myths about learning languages in her book Polyglot: How I Learn Languages.

Born in 1909, in Hungary, she only started learning languages as an adult. In 1941, she successfully learned Russian and by 1945 she was able to interpret and translate for the Budapest City Hall. Throughout her life, she managed to work in 16 different languages with people across the globe. Today, she is known as one of the first simultaneous interpreters in the world. 

Languages, the only thing worth knowing even poorly 

Let’s start with some good news. Kató Lomb affirms that being multilingual is not a talent. A language learner’s success, she says, is determined by motivation, perseverance, and diligence.

The amount of time one spends learning languages is considerable. Bad news: how does one find time for +10 different languages?

First, Kató Lomb admits that mastering 16 languages at the same time is not possible “at least not at the same level of ability”. 

For example, she confessed that she could no longer speak the Romanian language, although that never stopped her from reading and writing in Romanian.

“The spirit of linguistic discovery spurred me on and led me next to learn Romanian. To this day, I find Romanian very fetching. It has more of a country flavor than French and is more “manly” than Italian and more interesting than Spanish, due to its Slavic loanwords. Today I no longer speak Romanian but have plenty of occasions to translate Romanian technical papers into other languages.”

When it comes to the amount of time dedicated to language learning, she advised that “one should connect language learning with either work or leisure, and not at the expense of them but supplement them”.

Kató Lomb’s method may sound outdated to many people, but it still works! If you like reading books, chances are high that it will work for you. One of her first encounters with a foreign language was during the most difficult times in her life.

“In the early 1940s, it was suspicious to study Russian in Hungary, which was becoming more and more fascist. Thus it was downright lucky that I had worked out a method for language learning based on texts.”

In 1941, she learned Russian in her hiding place with only one book – Dead Souls by Gogol. People who have read Dead Souls know how challenging this book is. Over time she developed her technique of skipping unfamiliar words and only trying to understand the context.

She learned Chinese and Japanese by deciphering the alphabet and reading bilingual dictionaries and books.

Her technique of learning Polish was extremely interesting and risky, but she highly recommended it to all language enthusiasts. She attended an advanced Polish course, even though she didn’t speak a word of Polish. 

When the instructor tried to ascertain my level of expertise, I replied, “Don’t bother. I don’t speak a word of Polish.”
“Then why on Earth do you wish to attend an advanced course?” He was astonished.
“Because those who know nothing must advance vigorously.”
He got so confused by my tortuous reasoning that he added my name to the class roster without another word.

Enthusiasm is contagious 

“The building of language has four large halls. Only those who have acquired listening, speaking, reading, and writing can declare themselves to be its dwellers.”

Kato Lomb recommends studying a minimum of 10–12 hours a week.

Q: “What shall we read?
A: A text that is of interest to you. Interesse ist stärker als Liebe—as they put it in German. “

It is not worth looking up every word in the dictionary. If the word is important, it will come up again anyway and its meaning will become apparent from the context.

In addition to reading books, she recommends learning through conversation. She mentions two types of conversation:

“Apart from a conversation with oneself, which I keep advocating so frequently (and which I named autologue because neither monologue or dialogue covers the concept), there is one situation I find suitable for conversation: a relative, friend, or acquaintance visiting you in your home country, who—out of gratitude for showing him around— will allow you to practice with him. What’s more, he might even warn you—possibly tactfully—of your mistakes.“

Language Exchange apps didn’t exist back then, but I am sure that if she lived in the 21st century, she would absolutely love them. 

Kato Lomb hated when someone would say: “she’s just good at languages” and ignoring all her efforts. 

Invested time and motivation are the keys to learning any language. Inhibition represents everything that stops you from learning it, like feeling discouraged and being afraid to make mistakes.

“Aside from mastery in the fine arts, success in learning anything is the result of genuine interest and amount of energy dedicated to it.”

Discover Kato Lomb’s Language Learning Method In Only 5 Steps:

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