Home > Author > Kató Lomb
1 " Whenever I read statistical reports, I try to imagine my unfortunate contemporary, the Average Person, who, according to these reports, has 0.66 children, 0.032 cars, and 0.046 TVs. "
― Kató Lomb
2 " A complicated structure? Undoubtedly. But after all, the cathedral of Milan is complicated too, and you still look at it with awe. "
3 " 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
4 " 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. "
5 " At first, we should read with a blitheness practically bordering on superficiality; later on, with a conscientiousness close to distrust. "
6 " Language is present in a piece of writing like the sea in a single drop. "
7 " There is as little likelihood of squeezing an adult into the intellectual framework of their childhood as there is into their first pair of pajamas. "
8 " When he is dissected after his death," a disrespectful interpreter said of a foreign dignitary, "a million predicates will be found in his stomach: those he swallowed in the past decades without saying them. "
9 " Egy indiai diák útlevelét forgatta az úgynevezett immigration officer. „Utazásának célja: tanulmányút” – olvasta hangosan.– És mi lesz a tanulmány tárgya? – érdeklődött.– Lav -felelte a diák, aki nyilván csak leírva látta a „law” (jog) szót, és ezért úgy ejtette ki, mint a „love”-t (szerelem).A tisztviselőnek, angol hidegvérrel, a szeme sem rebbent meg. Átengedte az utast a kordonon, és csak magának morogta, hogy a „love” többé-kevésbé az egész világon egyforma: annak a kis különbségnek tanulmányozására igazán nem volt érdemes ennyi ezer kilométert megtenni. "
10 " Egy NSZK-ban élő üzletembertől hallottam az alábbi jellemző történetet. Megismerkedett egy nikkói kislánnyal; beleszeretett, elvette feleségül és kitűnően megtanult tőle japánul. Néhány év múlva exportügyben Japánba küldték; tárgyalópartnereinél először telefonon jelentkezett. Amikor azután személyes látogatásra került a sor, vendéglátói megkönnyebbült sóhajjal fogadták: szóval mégis férfi! A telefonon hallott mély baritont sehogysem tudták összeegyeztetni azzal a „női japánsággal”, amit a nejétől elsajátított. "
― Kató Lomb , With Languages in Mind: Musings of a Polyglot
11 " Language is the only thing worth knowing even poorly. "
12 " Solely in the world of languages is the amateur of value. Well-intentioned sentences full of mistakes can still build bridges between people. "
13 " 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. "
14 " My view is that knowing languages is part of the process of becoming a cultured person. "
15 " Aside from mastery in the fine arts, success in learning anything is the result of genuine interest and amount of energy dedicated to it. "
16 " He who knows other languages feels even closer to his own language. "
17 " 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. "
18 " I feel such a difference between a philologist/linguist and a linguaphile as, say, a choreographer and a ballerina. "
19 " One should connect language learning with either work or leisure. And not at the expense of them but to supplement them. "
20 " ... I never looked for or found national differences in the various places of the world, only common features—eternal human nature. "
