Letter from
Lhasa, number 310. Polyglot
by Roberto Abraham
Scaruffi
Lomb, K., Polyglot. How I Learn Languages, TESL-EJ, 2008.
(Lomb 2008).
Kató Lomb
Passion and memory.
Passion there is or there is not, or it may come in some way out. While memory
can be progressively built. The more one uses it, the more it increases.
Not only. To claim to
know a language one does not know and get and keep positions as a translator
for this language, to register for advanced classes for languages one does not
know, to review only a few days a language one needs to translate into and one
only approximately knew, all that is for temerarious geniuses even if the
author claims to have not had any gift for foreign languages.
To study a language
10-12 hours for week seems reasonable for rapid progresses. Read what you want.
Overall what you like, possibly literature, which actually is the most complex
material in whatever language. But read and read in ‘your’ foreign language. Of
course, try to penetrate the text and to catch the broad meaning, and the
possible meaning of each word, instead of looking up every word in the
dictionary.
The correct
pronunciation and intonations of words and sentences are mysteries must be
penetrated for learning and practising effectively a language. The author gives
some advice about that. One have to understand the spirit of a language and
interpret it. Easy to tell, not always easy to do.
Full immersion and
deal with your foreign language without any shyness. Constantly be temerarious!
Circumstances, and perhaps or certainly also other people, will always try to
put you down. Go always up and forward, without worrying about anything and
anybody.
It is not true that
people gifted in languages do not exist. There are people rapidly speaking a
foreign language better than native speakers, and just studying it or even only
practising it for a short time. Some people just listen, learn and talk (for
ordinary people, the author profitably suggests a more book-founded approach,
at least for the very first steps). There are people just rapidly reading a
grammar or a manual of a new language and being able to speak it. I had notice
of some of these chaps. Of course they are exceptions.
What is true is that
there are not people unable to rapidly learn one or more foreign languages if
they invest time studying it or them and, of course, they have the interest and
determination to succeed. (Lomb 2008, p. 173)
writes that invested time + interestedness = result. It is inevitable.
One can
get the highest mark in a test while another student only a mediocre, or even a
failed, one. Assimilation times are not equal relatively to different subjects.
On the long run, constancy and interest can lead even the worst student to
overcome the best one eventually not equally constant and interested in a
certain language. Study for yourself and, at the same time, be secretly
competitive even in a milieu of geniuses.
(Lomb 2008) suggests inhibition as a limiting factor. It wrongly
puts ‘inhibition’ as denominator of the first part of the equation. It should
eventually multiply the first part of its equation for (1 - inhibition), where
inhibition should be between 0 and 100% (or less than 100%), alias between 0
and 1 (or less than 1).
Anyway,
its aim is clear. Inhibition is the real limiting factor, or one of the
possible limiting factors if intended, as the author does, as limitation in
speaking. Since her profession, the author attributes a great importance to
speaking. Finally, speaking is only one of the aspects of a language and of its
learning process.
To learn is decidedly
better than reading books about learning. Age is not an obstacle. Some solid,
initially just elementary, comprehension is central for building further
achievement. “Great systems”, grammar included, eventually are late
achievements, not starting points.
Lomb, K., Polyglot. How I Learn Languages, TESL-EJ, 2008.
