For most of these people, foreign languages ​​were not a profession. They could speak freely in several dozen languages, and translate and read in a hundred dialects.

Cardinal Giuseppe Caspar Mezzofanti, curator of the Vatican Library. Byron's contemporary could translate from 114 languages. He was fluent in 60 languages, wrote poems and epigrams in almost 50. The Guinness Book of Records recorded "only" 26 languages ​​that Mezzofanti spoke fluently.

Translator and writer Kato Lomb. A resident of Budapest was fluent in 15 languages, including Italian, French, Polish, Chinese, and Japanese. Learned them in adulthood and in a short time. In the gymnasium, teachers called Lomb mediocrity.

British journalist Harold Williams knows eighty languages. Interestingly, Harold learned Greek, Latin, Hebrew, French and German when he was only eleven years old.

Our compatriot Willy Melnikov. While serving in Afghanistan, he received a shell shock, after which he had supernatural abilities to learn foreign languages. He writes poetry in 93 languages, and no one knows how many dialects he managed to master.

Istvan Dhaby, a Hungarian translator and writer, became famous at the age of 18 for his knowledge of 18 languages, in which he corresponded with 80 partners from 50 countries. Subsequently, he brought the number of languages ​​studied to 103.

Polyglots are perhaps one of the most unusual categories of people. Despite their different origins and even life in different eras, they all have one thing in common: polyglots are able to master a new language in record time. Sometimes a couple of months is enough for them to do this. Moreover, the majority of well-known polyglots, when starting to learn a new language, do it out of love for knowledge, rather than for the sake of practical use.

Kato Lomb - a Hungarian polyglot who surprised the world

Kato is one of the most famous polyglots. Only the lazy did not hear about it. When reading her biography, there is a desire to ask oneself a question - could I also master 16 languages? Kato Lomb managed to do it. And, moreover, she shared her experience with posterity in the book. Kato's work, which has already managed to make life easier for more than one student, is called "How I Learn Languages." The methods offered by Kato for learning a foreign language in this book cannot be called sophisticated. For example, one of her recommendations is to read as much literature as possible in the target language. And if there is no progress in learning the language, the polyglot advises to scold bad textbooks, the complexity of the language, the unfavorable political situation or the weather. But - do not touch the saint, that is, yourself. After all, self-accusations will not add determination in mastering a foreign language. You need to believe in your intellect. Then success in learning the language is just around the corner.

Video review of Kato Lomb's book "How I Learn Languages"

Nikola Tesla - mad scientist and polyglot

Incredibly, Tesla was a polyglot. The great scientist knew 9 languages ​​- and this opened up almost unlimited possibilities for him in knowledge. Now it is difficult to judge the methods that the famous inventor used in the study of foreign languages. However, there is one assumption in this regard - perhaps his linguistic success was due to the peculiarities of the psyche. Nikola Tesla from childhood suffered from one peculiar feature of his mind (which later played a decisive role for him in invention). The words that Tesla heard acquired distinct forms in his imagination - so that the young researcher sometimes confused the objects of the imaginary world and reality. However, by the age of 17, he realized that this feature could be used to invent new devices.

Video about Nikola Tesla and his achievements:

Lev Tolstoy. Not only the author of "War and Peace"

Those who at school age were able to overcome the epic "War and Peace", and then also "Anna Karenina" to boot, already look like heroes in the eyes of their classmates. What can we say about Lev Nikolayevich himself, who became not only a classic of Russian literature, but also a writer recognized throughout the world. One of Tolstoy's unusual incarnations was that he was also a lover of linguistics. Leo Tolstoy is one of the most famous polyglots in Russia, who knew 15 languages. At the expense of studying foreign languages, he had rather strict principles. Lev Nikolaevich was convinced that only a complete lazy person could fail to learn Greek. And knowing English, you can learn any other European language in just three months. Tolstoy learned the Hebrew language in just one winter. He studied the language almost from morning to night. Thanks to this, he was able to read the Holy Scriptures in the original - and also acquired health problems.

TV show about Leo Tolstoy:

Benny Lewis is a passionate linguist from Ireland

Now let's say a word about the polyglots of our time. Benny Lewis is an Irish polyglot, writer and blogger. Since 2003, he has been fluent in seven languages. Moreover, the modern polyglot is not going to stop at this bar. What is the secret of his success? The most important thing, says Benny, is to overcome unnecessary perfectionism in yourself. Anyone who tries to speak the perfect language is dooming himself to failure. And also the polyglot emphasizes that for daily use you do not need to learn thousands of words. Just a few hundred are enough. To master a new language in a few months, Lewis advises doing the following:

• From the very first day of training, start speaking out loud. Even if it doesn't work. Even if the speech sounds funny. The point is that the speech apparatus is activated immediately - and this helps to get used to foreign speech very quickly.
• In the beginning, pay attention to the most mundane phrases. For example, "I want to eat" - "I want to eat." God knows what surprises life has in store for us? For the unfortunate who, by the will of fate, suddenly found himself in a foreign country surrounded by foreigners, words like "development" and "insurance" are unlikely to be useful.
• Get ready for the fact that learning a language will take the lion's share of your free time. Benny believes that someone who works out for about nine hours a day can reach the B2 level in just three to four months. But if you don't have that luxury, you can reach the same level in about a year - doing an hour a day.
• Get the perfectionism out of your head. Do not worry about the correctness of the construction of the phrase in relation to grammar - again, at first. The primary task at the initial levels is the development of basic vocabulary, not grammar.

Hacking language learning: Benny Lewis at TEDxWarsaw

Steve Kaufman is an expert in 16 languages

Steve is one of the most talented and famous polyglots in the world. He lives in Canada. The polyglot's YouTube channel has over 100,000 subscribers; he himself speaks 16 languages. He even has a video in Russian, and I must say that Kaufman speaks it pretty well. But this was not always the case - once upon a time, foreign languages ​​​​were given to the future polyglot hard. Until he developed an author's approach in linguistics. Now, after many years of career as a diplomat and entrepreneur, the polyglot is doing what he loves - learning foreign languages.

What are the features of his approach? Kaufman vehemently criticizes the limited grammar-translation method, which involves lengthy textbook work. Grammar is needed, but too much time is spent on meaningless things. For example, Mr. Kaufman considers memorizing numbers as such. The main task, the polyglot believes, should be to expand the vocabulary; Grammar is an auxiliary tool.

Also unjustified, in his opinion, is the approach according to which the topic of the studied vocabulary is determined by the teacher. How can he know in what situation you need a foreign one? Maybe a student spends time studying vocabulary on the topic “How I spent my summer”, while he will need a foreign one to meet girls.

On the one hand, it is impossible not to be surprised by the abilities of these people. On the other hand, there is also such an opinion - the level of knowledge of a single language they may be far from perfect. In other words, a polyglot may speak a dozen languages, but at what level is each of them?

Do you think that everyone is capable of becoming a polyglot? Do you use in your practice those methods that are advised by the most famous polyglots of the world? Share in the comments.

Polyglot Steve Kaufmann in Russian about his method of learning languages. Very motivating!

fun facts

Flamingos pee on their legs to cool themselves off.

Everyone knows what a polyglot is: a person who knows many languages. He masters each new language from scratch and most often in a short time. Polyglots have been known at all times. Cleopatra In addition to Greek and Latin, she knew at least 10 languages. Giuseppe Gasparo Mezzofanti, custodian of the Vatican library, spoke 38 languages ​​and could speak them at the native level, and was also familiar with 50 dialects. Danish linguist Rasmus Christian Rusk compiled a large number of dictionaries and grammars for foreign languages ​​and, according to various sources, spoke 230 languages. The German philosopher was also a polyglot Friedrich Engels He could speak 24 languages.

There were also many polyglots among the Russians. Lev Tolstoy knew 15 languages. Alexander Griboyedov– 9. There are many similar examples. But these and many other polyglots have remained far in the past, and people are still striving to embrace the immense, which explains the presence of language geniuses today.

And it is they who are of particular interest, because we have a real opportunity to observe their talent, be inspired by them and learn from them. So, who are they, the polyglots of our days?

This amazing woman, a Hungarian translator who has mastered 16 languages, is no longer alive, but only the lazy will not remember her as the famous polyglot of our time. Kato was fluent in Hungarian, Russian, English, French, German. She could speak and understand Italian, Polish, Japanese, Chinese, and Spanish. With a dictionary she read in Bulgarian, Ukrainian, Slovak, Danish, Romanian, Polish, Latin. She studied absolutely all languages ​​on her own, being a physicist and chemist by education.

She described her method of learning foreign languages ​​in the book How I Learn Languages. This book has inspired many. Kato believed that absolutely every person is equally capable of learning a foreign language. She believed that interest and motivation were the keys to successful learning.

Kato began her acquaintance with the language with a dictionary, which allowed her to learn the rules of reading, morphology. Next, she purchased a grammar book with exercises that she did daily, referring to the keys. When she made a mistake, she again rewrote the incorrect phrase and returned to corrections more than once later. In parallel with grammar, the translator began to read fiction. She wrote out unfamiliar words only those that she herself often used in her native language and exclusively with context, in the form of ready-made phrases.

For Lomb, books in their original language were of the greatest value in learning. She was bored with the stilted dialogues of traditional textbooks, so she chose for herself the method of studying real literature, which she found fascinating: detective stories, romance novels, and even technical instructions.

And maybe her practical advice on how to learn a language is not entirely relevant, since the book was written in the 70s, when technology was not as advanced as it is now, but the book is full of motivating tips that make you move forward towards your intended goal. . Her 10 commandments for learners of a new language have become widely known on the Internet these days and have become a guide for many.

Istvan is a famous writer and translator, compatriot of Kato Lomb. From early childhood he was a very talented and gifted child: he was fond of various sciences, was interested in ethnography, and read a lot. At 18, he already boasted knowledge of 18 languages. He worked as a correspondent, editor, was a guide, was engaged in simultaneous and written translation.

Istvan is fluent in Russian, Czech, Polish, German, Bulgarian, Slovak, French, Lithuanian and English, and a couple of days is enough for him to brush up on 14 more languages: Ukrainian, Serbian, Macedonian, Belarusian, Croatian, Latvian, Italian , Macedonian, Spanish, Danish, Dutch, Norwegian, Swedish and Lusatian (the language of the Lusatians, one of the national minorities in Germany).
In total, 103 foreign languages ​​​​are subject to him.

The Dabi method is simple: choose 1000-1500 most used words on life topics, learn the basic grammar rules and start reading simple texts with a dictionary. It is important that the texts correspond to interests. Next, you need to move on to listening to a foreign language, even if it is still little understood, in order to get used to its sound and melody. And only then it is worth starting communication with native speakers. Dabi believes that 15-20 minutes daily is enough to study.

Steve Kaufman is a famous polyglot from Canada. He began his first stage of learning languages ​​at the age of 17. It took him 45 years to master the first 9 languages. He studied them in the traditional way from textbooks. But he began to study languages ​​in depth at 55. And he mastered the remaining 7 over the next 10 years thanks to his own method. He is now in his 70s and is learning his 17th language.

Steve is a very popular polyglot these days. With his son, he founded the online natural language learning system LingQ, which he himself successfully uses. He also maintains the popular blog The Linguist on Language and a Youtube channel where he shares his life hacks. Moreover, Kaufman wrote the book The Linguist's Journey, An Odyssey of Language Learning.

The essence of his approach to learning a foreign language is to expand vocabulary through context. Grammar is just an auxiliary element. Therefore, it is necessary to read and listen a lot in the original language. The process should be as interesting as possible. It is important to focus on the details: in what context the words are used, interesting phrases from books and films, sentence structure, etc. At the same time, according to Steve, you need to devote at least 1 hour daily to language classes and be patient, enjoy even a little progress. In addition, today we have great opportunities for learning languages, and they should become constant companions: applications on the phone, audio books, computer programs, websites, etc.

Sergei Grigorievich Khalipov

Associate Professor of the Department of Scandinavian Philology of St. Petersburg State University Sergei Grigoryevich Khalipov was considered a genius. It is alleged that he knew 48 languages, although he himself believed that he really knew 8 languages, spoke 10, and read and wrote the rest, and could also translate.

Acquaintance with foreign languages ​​began with Sergei Grigorievich early. He was 4 years old when his family was evacuated from besieged Leningrad to Kazakhstan. There he soon began to easily communicate with other children in Kazakh. When the family returned to Leningrad, Sergei went to school and began learning English. And the catalog of French stamps that fell into his hands aroused in him an interest in French, which his own grandmother introduced him to.

But when Khalipov turned 16, he got a radio, which determined his future life, which became forever associated with foreign languages. One day he picked up a signal from a radio station in Finnish. Neither textbooks nor Finnish dictionaries were available in Leningrad at that time, since these were “secret materials” after the Soviet-Finnish war. But he wanted to understand foreign speech so much that Sergei Grigoryevich continued to search for any literature and finally found it.

These were "Materials of the 19th Congress of the CPSU" in Finnish. It was not difficult to find the Russian original. Having mastered the materials of the congress in Finnish, he realized that he could both read in this language and understand oral speech. Soon he entered the philological faculty of Leningrad State University, where he began to study other Scandinavian languages: Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic, Faroese. In his arsenal were also Turkic, Semitic, African languages. For many years he taught Japanese. Celtic languages ​​became a special hobby for him: Irish, Breton and Welsh. Khalipov is the author of the first Welsh grammar in Russia.

Sergei Grigoryevich was in love with foreign languages ​​and knew how to infect his students with this love.

These are just a few modern polyglots known to the world. Can you remember Dmitry Petrov, an excellent simultaneous interpreter and the most famous television polyglot, Vyacheslav Ivanova, the most talented Russian linguist who speaks 18 languages, Johan Vandewall, a Belgian polyglot who was awarded the honorary "Babylon Prize" for knowledge of 31 languages ​​and many others.

All these people are united by a thirst for knowledge, hard work and the absence of age, psychological, social and geographical boundaries.