Kato Lomb Quotes

One should connect language learning with either work or leisure. And not at the expense of them but to supplement them.

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.

It is a frequently cited fact that English has two sets of words for farm animals and their corresponding meats. The living animals are expressed with words of Germanic origin-calf (German 'Kalb'), swine (G. 'Schwein'), and ox (G. 'Ochse')-because the servants who guarded them were the conquered Anglo-Saxons. The names of the meats are of Romance origin-veal (French 'veau'), pork (F. 'porc') and beef (F. 'boeuf')-because those who enjoyed them were the conquering Norman masters.

Language is present in a piece of work like the sea in a single drop.

He who knows other languages feels even closer to his own language.

The beauty of a language is, generally judged by its soft or rigid, melodious or harsh, ring. Other aspects, such as the flexibility of derivation, play hardly any role in grading. Were it the case, Russian would certainly be placed on the winner's stand. It would rank first in plasticity.

Language is the only thing worth knowing even poorly.

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.

In classes, the more lively and uninhibited ones will "suck away the air" from those with a more passive nature, despite all the efforts of the teacher. It is also a special danger in large groups that you will hear your fellow students' bad pronunciation more than the teacher's perfected speech.

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.

[T]he time spent on language learning is lost unless it reaches a certain - daily and weekly - concentration.

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.

... I never looked for or found national differences in the various places of the world, only common features - eternal human nature.

I feel such a difference between a philologist/linguist and a linguaphile as, say, a choreographer and a ballerina.

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.

[R]epetition is as an essential element of language learning as a knife is to a lathe or fuel is to an internal combustion engine.

[S]elf-assurance, motivation, and a good method play a much more important role in language learning than the vague concept of innate ability, and that dealing with languages is not only an effective and joyful means of developing human relationships, but also of preserving one's mental capacity and spiritual balance.

My view is that knowing languages is part of the process of becoming a cultured person.

Solely in the world of languages is the amateur of value. Well-intentioned sentences full of mistakes can still build bridges between people.