A few days ago, I received my order of Alex Rawlings' book, How to Speak Any Language Fluently. I'm now on page 84 and Kató Lomb was mentioned in the introduction, so I started to research more about her. She was a Hungarian interpreter, translator and one of the first simultaneous interpreters in the world.

My research brought me to TESL-EJ website where I found three of Lomb’s books. They're available for free on this website in the PDF format. I've downloaded them all and I'm so grateful to TESL-EJ for making them freely available to us.

Polyglot: How I Learn Languages, Second Edition

Translated by Ádám Szegi and Kornelia DeKorne; edited by Scott Alkire (215 pages)

Excerpt from Chapter 1: What Is Language?

THERE MAY be no other word that has as many connotations as this noun does with its few letters.

Because the word for “language” in Hungarian is the same as the word for “tongue,” the Hungarian anatomist, upon hearing it, will think not of human communication but of the set of muscle fibers divided into root, body, blade, and tip. The Hungarian gourmet will think of tasty morsels in stewed, pickled, and smoked forms on the menu, and the theologian will be reminded of the day of red Pentecost. The Hungarian writer will think of a tool that dare not rival Nature, and the poet will imagine a musical instrument.

Those dealing with language for a living are usually called linguists or philologists. They come up with theories of language and study the connections between language and culture.

Those dealing with languages as a vocation or hobby have no name in Hungarian. It is a bit ironic because these people love languages, learn them easily, and speak them well.

With Languages in Mind: Musings of a Polyglot

Translated by Ádám Szegi; edited by Scott Alkire (212 pages)

Excerpt from Chapter 1:

A personal experience of mine illustrates the truth of learning words through associations. A few years ago we visited the Dobšinská ice cave in Czechoslovakia. We had to wait a long time at the entrance. We were with tourists from Bratislava.They were so perfectly bilingual that perhaps they didn’t notice when they spoke Hungarian and when they spoke Slovak. Bored of waiting, I started asking them how they said this and that Hungarian word in Slovak. They hemmed and hawed in reluctance. Torn out of context, the word didn’t summon its Slovak equivalent.

In education, memorization of a word usually requires association with a phrase in the mother-tongue. Indeed, there is no simpler way of assessment and self-checking than testing how many words on one side of a page you can recall by studying their equivalents on the other side. A bad method! A word is not a pet dog that listens to “Fluffy” or “Buddy” and runs to greet us, yelping readily as soon as his name is uttered.

If we try to recall the foreign-language equivalent of a word by focusing on its mother-tongue counterpart, we are like the pole-vaulter who tries to launch himself over the bar from the base of the stand without a run-up. For recalling a desired term, a run-up is essential.

Harmony of Babel: Interviews with Famous Polyglots of Europe

Translated by Ádám Szegi; edited by Scott Alkire (215 pages)

About the Book: In the late 1980s the distinguished interpreter and translator Kató Lomb profiled and interviewed 21 of her peers in search of answers to basic but deep questions on the nature of language learning. She asked:

“When can we say we know a language?”

“Which is the most important language skill: grammar, vocabulary, or good pronunciation?”

“What method did you use to learn languages?”

“Has it ever happened to you that you started learning a language, but could not cope with it?”

“What connection do you see between age and language learning?”

“Are there ‘easy’ and ‘difficult,’ ‘rich’ and ‘poor,’ ‘beautiful’ and ‘less beautiful’ languages?”

“What is multilingualism good for?”

The answers Lomb collected from her interlocutors are singular, provocative, and often profound. Grounded in real-world experience, they will be of interest to linguaphiles who are seeking to supplement their theoretical knowledge of language learning.