Kató Lomb

Kató Lomb (born February 8, 1909 in Pécs , † June 9, 2003 in Budapest ) was a Hungarian interpreter , translator and one of the first conference interpreters in the world.

Life

Lomb had doctorates in both physics and chemistry, but was also very interested in languages. During the economic crisis (1929–1933) she began to make a living with interpreting and translations. Hungarian was her mother tongue. She was also able to interpret in nine or ten languages, four of them without preparation. She translated technical texts as well as fiction into six other languages ​​and was able to understand journalists in eleven languages. Lomb learned 16 languages ​​as a self-taught : Bulgarian , Chinese , Danish , English , French , German , Hebrew , Italian , Japanese , Latin , Polish , Romanian , Russian , Slovak , Spanish and Ukrainian .

It was important for them to learn languages. In her own books, which have also been translated into other languages, she tried to encourage people to learn languages. As an interpreter, she traveled to five continents and described her experiences in a book ( Egy tolmács a világ körül , “An interpreter around the world”).

Books

Hungarian

• Így tanulok nyelveket (Egy tizenhat nyelvű tolmács feljegyzései) - “This is how I learn languages ​​(notes from a 16-language interpreter)”, 1970, 1972, 1990, 1995, ISBN 963-602-617-3
• Egy tolmács a világ körül - “An interpreter around the world”, 1979, ISBN 963-280-779-0
• Nyelvekről jut eszembe… - “I think about languages…”, 1983, ISBN 963-500-230-0
• Bábeli harmónia (Interjúk Európa híres soknyelvű embereivel) - "Harmony of Babel (Interviews with Europe's famous polyglots)", 1988, ISBN 963-282-023-1

Well-known translations

• Polyglot: How I Learn Languages (PDF; 858 kB) , 2008, ISBN 978-1-60643-706-3
• Как я изучаю языки (Russian)
• Watashi No Gaikokugo Gakushū-hō (Japanese)
• Par valodām man nāk prātā , 1990, ISBN 5-7966-0477-5 ( Latvian )
• 《我 是 怎样 学外语 的》 (wo shi zen yang xue wai yu de), 1982 ( Chinese )
• 《我 是 如何 学习 外语 的》 (wo shi ru he xue xi wai yu de), 1983 ( Chinese )

Both Chinese versions have been translated from the Russian version.

literature

• Michael Erard: Babel no more: the search for the world's most extraordinary language learners , New York, NY [u. a.]: Free Press, 2012, ISBN 978-1-4516-2825-8

Web links

• Kató Lomb's Strategies for Language Learning and SLA Theory
• Russian version How to learn languages Download (Select "Как я изучаю языки")
• Language learning books (your book is mentioned)
• Links in google to Russian translation