Learning languages
I just started reading Polyglot: How I Learn Languages, by Kató Lomb. She spoke 5 languages fluently (Hungarian, English, Russian, German, and French) and worked in 16, but what is particularly interesting is that she learned the languages (save her native language, Hungarian) as an adult, after getting a PhD in chemistry. She took German in high school but did so poorly that she and others regarded her as “a foreign language flop.” That she actually later succeeded in becoming a fluent multilingual gives one hope—and also, of course, arouses considerable interest in how she did it. One technique, for example, was that she read novels in the new language she wanted to learn from the very beginning. The book is a collection of her writings and reflections on how she learned so many languages through her own study.
Extremely interesting if you’re interested in other languages.
So glad that you are sharing this with your readers. I am dumbfounded with the assertion that one can read novels in the new language “from the beginning”. Surely one has to be some distance from the beginning to attempt this successfully.
Bob Slaughter
26 March 2009 at 8:08 am
I would imagine that the first novels one reads might be novels for young adults and that the reading would at first be difficult. I’m still early in reading the book, but Dr. Lomb is quite practical in her approach. She believes, for example, that one learns grammar from the language, not language from the grammar. She writes that one can readily absorb grammatical rules from reading novels, but studying grammar really doesn’t take you into learning the language. I will write more about the book as I read it, but I found it exciting to find that language learning as an adult is clearly not only feasible but can lead to mastery of several languages. More anon.
LeisureGuy
26 March 2009 at 8:14 am
Ability to learn language as an adult is most encouraging and contrary to popular opinion.
I agree that grammar is best learned from language. My grammar is fairly acceptable, but I found the study of grammar totaly boring and unproductive.
Have you heard this one:?
If you know 3 languages you are a linguist.
If you know 2 languages you are bilingual.
If you know one language you are an American.
Bob Slaughter
26 March 2009 at 10:21 am
A “polyglot” is someone fluent in 4 or more languages, so that’s one step more in your list. And what you say about Americans is, sadly, very true.
Grammar and grammatical terms are useful in talking about a language, but in general not so useful in learning the language.
LeisureGuy
26 March 2009 at 10:28 am