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"Polyglot" by Kato Lomb (1909 - 2003) | ||
Tags: Female Polyglot | Interpreting | Professionals | Polyglot | Learning Technique/Method | Learning Strategy | Book | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots |  | |
| peter Newbie United States Joined 6212 days ago 5 posts - 5 votes Speaks: English* | Message 1 of 9 08 January 2009 at 2:25pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Many of you have read Kato Lomb's book on language learning, "Polyglot: How I Learn Languages." One idea in it
that I would like to discuss is the role of the *imagination* in language learning. As far as I know, no linguists have studied this. Yet it seems obvious when you stop to think about it. Children have the most active imaginations of all, and they are also the best language learners. Should we, as adult language learners, be doing more to nurture our imaginations? Lomb shows a remarkable imagination in her book. She provides wonderful metaphors, jokes, allusions to classical literature, ruminations on history, and comic episodes (her experiences translating Japanese are hilarious!). All of this is amazing when you consider she was 61 when she wrote her book. So, I wonder: is the imagination the "key" to language learning that academics fail to get? Just my two cents. Peter Edited by Fasulye on 08 July 2012 at 6:43pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Makrasiroutioun Quadrilingual Heptaglot Senior Member Canada infowars.com Joined 5932 days ago 210 posts - 236 votes  Speaks: French*, English*, Armenian*, Romanian*, Latin, German, Italian Studies: Dutch, Swedish, Turkish, Japanese, Russian, Arabic (Written) | Message 2 of 9 10 January 2009 at 11:38pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I read the English translation of the book (however I wish that one day, in the distant future, I will be able to revisit it in Hungarian) and it was a great read. Awesome woman, and quite funny too.
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| reineke Senior Member United States https://learnalangua Joined 6273 days ago 851 posts - 1008 votes Studies: German | Message 3 of 9 10 January 2009 at 11:41pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Her book can be found here:
http://tesl-ej.org/ej45/tesl-ej.ej45.fr1.pdf 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tricoteuse Pentaglot Senior Member Norway littlang.blogspot.co Joined 6504 days ago 745 posts - 845 votes Speaks: Swedish*, Norwegian, EnglishC1, Russian, French Studies: Ukrainian, Bulgarian | Message 4 of 9 11 January 2009 at 5:01pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I'm not entirely sure I understand your question, but I will interpret it as best I can and go from there ;) I think imagination is good for more or less anything. One thing that I like about Lomb is that she feels quite reckless and carefree, and not overly scholarly or strict. She mentions keeping messy notebooks or glossaries in her book, and I think that is an excellent idea (and one that I have applied for years; I have perhaps 50 different pens I use when I study). She doesn't appear to go about language learning as some tedious task but more like a fun adventure, without the concept of "hard" or "complicated", while it seems like a lot of other people learning languages mostly just worry about results or how much time is passing by without apparent results.
My favourite way of learning languages once I have gotten somewhere in it does involve the imagination: reading and writing texts. I like to read fiction (a somewhat scorned genre it seems) and write texts about anything and everything. I think it is a great way of being flooded with words and expressions and situations with which you can associate your TL, and then an excellent way to try to recreate your own world in the words of this other language. I very much prefer this to strict lessons about going to the market and buying carrots or whatever it may be - I'd rather read about this in a book of fiction! 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| glidefloss Senior Member United States Joined 5794 days ago 138 posts - 154 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, French | Message 5 of 9 12 January 2009 at 8:49am | IP Logged | |||||
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There was an English translation floating around the forum. Anyone know where it is? I'd like to download it.
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| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6769 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 6 of 9 12 January 2009 at 9:43am | IP Logged | |||||
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| TheBiscuit Tetraglot Senior Member Mexico Joined 5749 days ago 532 posts - 619 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Italian Studies: German, Croatian | Message 7 of 9 12 January 2009 at 3:05pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Imagination is critical to most memory techniques, the two go hand-in-hand. If you want to remember something, particularly if you want it to stick in your long term memory your imagination is your best friend, whether it be inventing images, songs, chants, mnemonics etc. you can't do this without imagination.
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| mairovster Diglot Newbie Brazil thelanguagelearningbRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5817 days ago 21 posts - 21 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 8 of 9 13 January 2009 at 6:52pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I would say imagination plays a big role on language learning. Even though I don't know exactly how, I really believe the capability of imagine is key for any language learner since you are dealing with something which is at first illogical to your brain. How we process this information and turn it into something logical must have something to do with imagination. Reading and writing also seem to have a directly relation to imagination.
Anyway, I'm just wandering... it would be nice to hear someone with more knowledge on the subject. Edited by mairovster on 13 January 2009 at 6:52pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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