Polyglot Quotes

“Solely in the world of languages is the amateur of value. Well-intentioned sentences full of mistakes can still build bridges between people.”
― Kató Lomb, Polyglot: How I Learn Languages

“A book can be pocketed and discarded, scrawled and torn into pages, lost and bought again. It can be dragged out from a suitcase, opened in front of you when having a snack, revived at the moment of waking, and skimmed through once again before falling asleep. It needs no notice by phone if you can’t attend the appointment fixed in the timetable. It won’t get mad if awakened from its slumber during your sleepless nights. Its message can be swallowed whole or chewed into tiny pieces. Its content lures you for intellectual Why and What adventures and it satisfies your spirit of adventure. You can get bored of it—but it won’t ever get bored of you.”
― Kató Lomb, Polyglot: How I Learn Languages

“We should learn languages because language is the only thing worth knowing even poorly.”
― Kató Lomb, Polyglot: How I Learn Languages

“My view is that knowing languages is part of the process of becoming a cultured person.”
― Kató Lomb, Polyglot: How I Learn Languages

“He who knows other languages feels even closer to his own language.”
― Kató Lomb, Polyglot: How I Learn Languages

“Aside from mastery in the fine arts, success in learning anything is the result of genuine interest and amount of energy dedicated to it.”
― Kató Lomb, Polyglot: How I Learn Languages

“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.”
― Kató Lomb, Polyglot: How I Learn Languages

“One should connect language learning with either work or leisure. And not at the expense of them but to supplement them.”
― Kató Lomb, Polyglot: How I Learn Languages

“I feel such a difference between a philologist/linguist and a linguaphile as, say, a choreographer and a ballerina.”
― Kató Lomb, Polyglot: How I Learn Languages

“I heard from a swimming coach that how soon children learn to swim depends on how much they trust themselves and the surrounding world. I am convinced that this (self) confidence is the precondition of success in all intellectual activity. It may even have a greater role than believed in the least understood human talent: creativity, that is, artistic creation and scientific discovery.”
― Kató Lomb, Polyglot: How I Learn Languages

“... I never looked for or found national differences in the various places of the world, only common features—eternal human nature.”
― Kató Lomb, Polyglot: How I Learn Languages

“[T]he time spent on language learning is lost unless it reaches a certain—daily and weekly—concentration.”
― Kató Lomb, Polyglot: How I Learn Languages

“[S]tudy has never been a burden for me but always an inexhaustible source of joy.”
― Kató Lomb, Polyglot: How I Learn Languages

“[S]elf-assurance, motivation, and a good method play a much more important role in language learning than the vague concept of innate ability, and that dealing with languages is not only an effective and joyful means of developing human relationships, but also of preserving one's mental capacity and spiritual balance.”
― Kató Lomb, Polyglot: How I Learn Languages

“The spread of languages shouldn't imply the decay of national languages. There are so many literary and historical memories, so many joys and sorrows of the past linked to them that it is an obligation for all of us to guard their present and future.”
― Kató Lomb, Polyglot: How I Learn Languages

“[R]epetition is as an essential element of language learning as a knife is to a lathe or fuel is to an internal combustion engine.”
― Kató Lomb, Polyglot: How I Learn Languages

“To speak a foreign language is a matter of practice, and mistakes will be made. Unfortunately, it is difficult for intellectually confident people to accept making mistakes. Therefore they may refrain from speaking.”
― Kató Lomb, Polyglot: How I Learn Languages

“[B]ooks, which can be consulted at any time, questioned again and again, and read into scraps, cannot be rivaled as a language-learning tool.”
― Kató Lomb, Polyglot: How I Learn Languages

“Language is present in a piece of writing like the sea in a single drop.”
― Kató Lomb, Polyglot: How I Learn Languages

“At first, we should read with a blitheness practically bordering on superficiality; later on, with a conscientiousness close to distrust.”
― Kató Lomb, Polyglot: How I Learn Languages

“My motivation for learning Japanese was to translate a chemical patent, a job that I had heroically (i.e., rashly) taken on.”
― Kató Lomb, Polyglot: How I Learn Languages

“I mention the library only as a last resort. I recommend buying your own books... 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.”
― Kató Lomb, Polyglot: How I Learn Languages

“In classes, the more lively and uninhibited ones will “suck away the air” from those with a more passive nature, despite all the efforts of the teacher. It is also a special danger in large groups that you will hear your fellow students’ bad pronunciation more than the teacher’s perfected speech.”
― Kató Lomb, Polyglot: How I Learn Languages

“From a pedagogical perspective, the most valuable mistake is the one you make yourself. If I discover an error I’ve made or if I am taken to task for a mistake, the emotional sphere tapped will conjure wonder, annoyance, or offense. They are all excellent means of fixation.”
― Kató Lomb, Polyglot: How I Learn Languages

“To look it at another way, surely there are many unfortunate people who have needed to undergo multiple stomach surgeries. Yet no one would hand a scalpel over to them and ask them to perform the same surgery they received on another person, simply because they themselves had undergone it so often.”
― Kató Lomb, Polyglot: How I Learn Languages

“The beauty of a language is, generally judged by its soft or rigid, melodious or harsh, ring. Other aspects, such as the flexibility of derivation, play hardly any role in grading. Were it the case, Russian would certainly be placed on the winner’s stand. It would rank first in plasticity.”
― Kató Lomb, Polyglot: How I Learn Languages

“Because those who know nothing must advance vigorously.”
― Kató Lomb, Polyglot: How I Learn Languages

“We should learn languages because language is the only thing worth knowing even poorly. If someone knows how to play the violin only a little, he will find that the painful minutes he causes are not in proportion to the possible joy he gains from his playing. The amateur chemist spares himself ridicule only as long as he doesn’t aspire for professional laurels. The man somewhat skilled in medicine will not go far, and if he tries to trade on his knowledge without certification, he will be locked up as a quack doctor.

Solely in the world of languages is the amateur of value. Well-intentioned sentences full of mistakes can still build bridges between people. Asking in broken Italian which train we are supposed to board at the Venice railway station is far from useless. Indeed, it is better to do that than to remain uncertain and silent and end up back in Budapest rather than in Milan.”
― Kató Lomb, Polyglot: How I Learn Languages

“The native level is when our countryman is taken for a native-born French, Russian, Brit, etc.; i.e., when he or she starts speaking Hungarian in Paris, Moscow, or London, people will ask in amazement: what is this interesting- sounding language and who put it in your head to learn it?”
― Kató Lomb, Polyglot: How I Learn Languages

“A nyelvtanulás várható sikerét egyszerű egyenlet fejezi ki:
Ráfordított idő + érdeklődés = eredmény.”
― Kató Lomb, Polyglot: How I Learn Languages