Interview with the polyglot Kató Lomb (1974)

I am very excited to show you an interview with the famous polyglot, Kató Lomb, who was a Hungarian interpreter, translator and one of the first simultaneous interpreters in the world. She was able to interpret fluently in nine or ten languages, and she translated technical literature and read belles-lettres in six languages. She was able to understand journalism in further eleven languages.
#katolomb #polyglot
Her approach to language learning, her life and work are an inspiration to many polyglots and language enthusiasts, including myself. In this video, not only am I showing you guys clips from the famous interview she gave to Vitray Tamás back in 1974 , but I'm also sharing with you some tips and advice that I haven't said before. Make sure to stick till the end. Enjoy:
**KATO LOMB'S BOOKS**
1.Polyglot: How I Learn Languages
amzn.to/3iEEBf5
2.Harmony of Babel
amzn.to/3lm1UMt
**THE FULL INTERVIEW** • Video

[@fehervm]

Egyszerűen szomorú vagyok hogy nem találni az egész órás interjút a KZbin-on többé. Egyfajta heti rutinná vált megnézni és nem feltétlen a nyelvtanulás megértésének céljából hanem maga az egész interjú hangulata, értelmi szintje. Ha esetleg valakinek megvan ami egykor a KZbin-on is látható volt, szívesen újranézném.

[@lucasgdrezes]

Kató Lomb's book was one of the first books I read in English. It helped me a lot, specially her tip about talking to yourself/thinking in your target language. This is my first time listening to her speak, by the way! Nice video!

[@seamus7054]

Hi Robert. I'm a native English speaker and you have a very clear and easy to understand accent. Well done! A bit of a tip: It's pronounced, "Pro-NUN-ciation", not "Pro-NOUN-ciation". All the best.

[@henrikillah1986]

You are really a nice guy! Very interesting content. Take care :)

[@ChrisBadges]

This was a gem of a video and I really like your channel, which I also discovered by accident like Lomb Kató the Russian dictionary. To give something back for your excellent content: "Extemporaneously" means "spontaneously", "without any preparation". Thank you so much for the great videos! And yes, I agree that it is the tremendous amount of audiovisual resources e.g. on the internet that give more chances to soak in a language's pronunciation.

[@hungryforlanguages6864]

I am glad you liked the video. It was already worth uploading.

[@omatheussantos]

Thanks for the video!

[@petersz7322]

Nagyon szuper, hogy erről videót készítettél, újabb könyv került a 'bakancslistámra' :)

[@sinajml5092]

Hello sir, I just came onto youtube to take another look on inerview Lomb Kato (1974) but I was bummed. it has been brought down unfortunatelly due to copy right issues. I was wondering if you have the complete video with subtitles? To be honest, I want it only for personal use. I wanted to watch it again after reflecting on what other polyglots say. It would be a great help.

[@hungryforlanguages6864]

Unfortunately, I don't have the video.

[@ZadenZane]

7:16 I don't think children are any better at getting accents right than adults, except for very small children who are essentially picking up 2 or more mother tongues at once, they will be able to pronounce difficult things like ejective consonants that adult learners rarely master. But as for older children no, definitely not. I find it much easier to make foreign sounds and tones as an adult than I ever did as a child

[@heidiloesti3267]

Some people may have more talent for pronunciation, some less, but I think with Shadowing or other pronunciation exercises you can overcome a deficit of talent. You can get quite close to a native speaker's pronunciation, but probably never reach it totally. Kató Lomb didn't have internet or lots of spoken resources. As for trying to decipher a language, I know this feeling. I once had a Vietnamese letter, but no other resource, not even a dictionary. I thought that if I spent enough time with it I'd be able to decipher it. I was a teenager then and thought that one day I'd become a researcher on ancient languages. I saw that the word used most often in this letter was "ban" (with some accents I don't remember). And I remembered that once I had read that the most often used word in English was "I". So I concluded that "ban" must be "I". This was my experience with deciphering texts in foreign languages. Later on, I found out that "ban" means "friend" :D

[@hungryforlanguages6864]

"You can get quite close to a native speaker's pronunciation, but probably never reach it totally." - I agree. I like to reach a level in a foreign language where people cannot guess where I'm from. I don' want a perfect accent, I want people to know that I am a foreigner, but who learned their language to a high level. Thanks for sharing your story with us! I just googled "ban":)) Vietnamese is brutal when it comes to pronouncing the words correctly.

[@heidiloesti3267]

@@hungryforlanguages6864 Yes, I totally agree, a very slight foreign accent is really nice to listen to. As for Vietnamese, if I really wanted to study it, I'd start by listening and imitating the sound before caring about the marks indicating tones in the written form. I think that's the explanation for Lomb Kató's bad accent, she tried to find out the correct sounds from a written description of how the letters have to be pronounced. Back then, this was the only pssibility, but now it seems rather impossible.

[@pozsadavid7523]

Does anyone have the video? It got deleted sadly? Any help?

[@hinzuzufugen7358]

I read "Babylon", Kato Lomb's professional autobiography, around 2010 in China. It was anathema to almost everything my students (German, English) did. K.L. was living in another time: Few resources, such as a dictionary accompanied by a novel in language x was a treasure, a lot of time (Did she have children, actually?) and thus more propensity to concentrate. The students wasted their time by sitting in courses and not being active users of the target language, Nein! Bu! A big nono to speak the language and listen/read without synchronous translation. At the moment, I teach integration courses (direct, awful transl. from German) for - mostly - refugees, in Germany. They, with few exceptions. waste time in the course room and in their off-time, normal life, don't bother with German. The smartphone abuse is upon us, I haven't seen a dictionary as a book with a student in years. The habit of doing everything in (a) mother tongue and the urge to translate and comment everything in range of comprehension in the mother tongue is, I say now: overwhelming esp. when a course group shares almost exclusively one mother tongue. I am not a polyglot but "live" in 3 languages marriage-wise (G, E, Chin.) and dip into many others frequently. The trend with AI-translation, OCR (for abt 15 years by now for IPhone users) etc. is driving many ppl away from course or personal 1:1 instruction anyway -

[@strahinjamacesic3974]

I would agree with you on the pronunciation item. As fascinating as she is, she could only posit based on her own experience and what she could get by. And in her era, there weren't as many audio resources available. Also, we should draw a very distinct line between accent and pronunciation, though they do get intertwined often. Sometimes people have issues with certain sounds in their own native language, such as myself :D I cannot roll my Rs properly but when you listen to me you wouldn't think Serbian was a foreign language to me. Pronunciation is fundamentally important for language learning because differences in phonemes can sometimes completely change the meaning e.g. THank vs. or Taught vs THought in English. In my native language, Serbian, we don't have the TH sound so that can tricky for people sometimes. Hungarian is rich possibilities for a student to make mistakes in pronunciation (a á, e é, ö ő ó ű etc.). With enough practice, everyone or almost everyone can learn to master these. It can be very exhausting for native speakers to listen to speakers who have bad pronunciation sometimes as it takes extra effort for the brain to parse the sounds as it expects one thing and then gets something else. So as long as it is comprehensible enough, pronunciation shouldn't be an issue to master. Accent on the other hand, is trickier and this is what I think is the stumbling block. Every language has different melody, and I think it is the melody that is usually giving people away when they speak a language. Accent system is very difficult to master and for this you do need to have some talent or musicality (in my opinion at least). There are usually rules behind the accent system in a language. However, I have seen examples where this too has been mastered with a lot of effort and a lot of active immersion with focus on listening skills and accents specifically. Matt vs Japan, Dogen...these are some of the examples pf people who were able to master the accent and melody as well and not just the grammar. But the questions remains, is it necessary?

[@rafalkaminski6389]

Oh, ive read her book, she was a genius, i wonder how she spoke slavic languages, especially polish :)

[@sydneyaustry493]

You can't learn pronunciation from books, but if you are an adult learning other language with a teacher, you can learn pronunciation very well

[@szantojuditkatalin38]

I really enjoyed the video. :) Thanks for sharing her story - I've never before heard about her. Regarding talent and pronunciation.. it's a hard question. I think achieving more native-like levels in pronunciation can indeed be hard for someone who has not been exposed to foreign languages from early childhood. For them it takes more energy to imitate and find a way to pronounce certain vowels that are not present in their mother tongue (case study: hungarians living in Hungary have a hard time pronouncing the Romanian "ă" and "â" - and these sounds are crucial in other languages as well..). On the other hand, I think hearing a language only from one single resource is just wrong. For instance, from your school teacher, who might also have difficulties with native-like pronunciation.. and then in circa 8 years you simply get used to speak that language with an intonation that is specific for your mother tongue. I think imitating foreign accents, language melodies are so important. I would just expose my students to as many audio resources as possible. I was now writing about school practices - which are 'ab ovo' debatable - only because it might be the only language learning source for many kids, especially in early years. I think losing an incorrect pronunciation in a language that you already studied in school for years might even be harder than trying to imitate an accent of a language you never learnt before. And the 'homo ludens' attitude is really a key point for pronunciation. Just trying to playfully imitate what we hear, would be the best way to start off with a language. Sounds idealistic, I know.. :)

[@hungryforlanguages6864]

"I think imitating foreign accents, language melodies are so important. I would just expose my students to as many audio resources as possible." - I agree. Thanks for your comment:) There's definitely a lot to talk about regarding this topic!

[@-danR]

I think any adult can acquire a near-native pronunciation up to true native if they model their speech after a _particular_ native speaker. Not "English" pronunciation, not "American English" pronunciation, but, say... _Obama_ Engish, Anderson Cooper English, Kate Winslet English..., etc.

[@edwardwhiteside8650]

Your Hungarian accent does not hinder pronunciation. You speak clearly and you pause in the right places.

[@JS-wg4px]

I always found it odd that people from Europe rarely speak English with a British accent. For instance, you sound more American, but many people in Northern Europe have a way of speaking English that is unique to their area and does not sound British or American.

[@veraszonyi]

The accent very much depends on where you studied the language and from whom. Since there is much more American television programmes/movies available than British, people tend to pick up that accent more. Why do you think we should have British accent? Because GB is in Europe?

[@Glockateer]

I certainly agree that there is no language talent. The way I see it, is if you learned your native language, then you have what it takes to learn another language. The part I disagree with Kato Lomb on is the pronunciation always being bad. Certainly, that is a product of her lifespan, resources available and being a pioneer in the field. I'd say that these days, where we have libraries of audio and video on-demand, as well as world-wide connectivity, that we can get very close to a native-like accent if we put in the effort and have the "ear for it." We can repeat audio as many times as we want, immerse for hours on end and even learn from people outside of our country. Audio-visual reproduction on the scale we have is something Kato Lomb didn't consider nor set her advice for. Although it would take increasingly more time to refine the skills, some incredibly dedicated learners have pulled off native-like ability in a single foreign language. That said, she was a big inspiration for me. I look at what she accomplished with such little resources in comparison and I feel blessed on the language learning journey. I still apply her techniques of "attacking the language from all sides;" I poke around a physical dictionary, I carry a foreign language novel to leaf through repeatedly, I listen to audio and music constantly, I watch videos of regular people, real life content, series, movies, etc... It is a good way to spice it up if my energy and focus begin to wane. May you all achieve success in your learning goals!

[@FiasaPower]

Extemporaneously (extemporâneo in Portuguese) = out of time, not simultaneously. As an adverb, it means doing something without any previous preparation. She can switch to any of those languages naturally.

[@Razin471]

when kato lomb talking is sounded like elfian song ;-) same with finnish guys

[@Csilla417]

Lomb Kató… nagy példaképem nekem is. Még hiányzik 10 nyelv hozzá🤣

[@hungryforlanguages6864]

hajrá!!

[@alexterzis945]

She is way too good to be real

[@lucievec6683]

The camera wobbles. Try putting it on a tripod next time to prevent it.

[@Razin471]

Kato is second name, Lomb first? Right?

[@ritasallai152]

Lomb is the family name, Kato is the given name. In Hungary the order is family name first, given names second.

[@lucievec6683]

She learnt from books not from spoken English, maybe there is the difference.

[@Razin471]

can add russian sub

[@norabalogh5910]

I agree with Kató’s theory that there IS such a thing as “pronunciation talent”…..I’ve certainly seen examples on both sides of the coin!!! A rather funny video can be found here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/aoCkpo14fd2Nl8k It shows a young American woman, Dana, speaking German with an intensive American accent and attempting to say particular German words….She’s working hard at it and with good humour but she sounds…ahem… (and note that she was living in Germany for several years by the time she made this video, and is married to a German man!) On the other hand, I personally have a reasonable degree of “pronunciation talent”….not necessarily with other aspects of language learning, but with this one, yes. Of course you’re not going to have entirely perfect pronunciation if you learn a language as an adult, but you can be pretty good at it, even when you’re learning the languages in your fifties’ sixties and beyond. Motivation to pronounce correctly also plays a role. Dana mentions at one point that she heard a video of herself a year into living in Germany, and only then realized her accent was not great and decided to work on it….It’s amazing to me that she was not aware of it till then! I’m very focused on accent and pronunciation from the first second I start learning a new language!!!

[@hungryforlanguages6864]

Thanks for sharing the video with us. I think I have seen the video already, since I'm a huge fan of Easy Languages:) but still, it was fun to watch it again.

[@ylsz9795]

Magyarul is lehetne!!