In the modern world, the topic of language learning is incredibly relevant. Nowadays, when there is unlimited access to information and travel, knowledge of one or better several foreign languages can be compared with a key that opens many doors. The polyglot has these keys. What is he doing for this?
English is not the limit
Polyglot are people who speak several foreign languages. Usually knowledge of at least five is implied. There is no single standard for how many languages a polyglot should know. What are five languages for him? Now it’s not so rare to know several languages. A self-respecting polyglot speaks 10 or more languages. And all because the training materials are now available as never before. It is enough to connect to the Internet, and you can watch movies, videos, read books in foreign languages, chat with people from the most remote corners of the world.
However, polyglots are also ordinary people, not supercomputers. Most polyglots can speak some language fluently, but they do not necessarily know it well enough, and being able to read several languages cannot speak them well.
Famous Polyglot
Since ancient times, knowledge of foreign languages was considered a distinctive feature of educated and cultured people. Most of the historical figures we know knew several languages.
The first known polyglot was Mithridates Eupator, ruler of the Kingdom of Pontus. Contemporaries claimed that he knew 22 languages. This helped him manage the army and his subjects, who came from different nations.
The Egyptian Queen Cleopatra is known not only for her beauty and novels, but also as a wise and educated woman, a brilliant diplomat and speaker. She was fluent in ten languages.
Giuseppe Mezzofanti, a member of the Vatican Library, read and spoke 60 languages, and wrote poetry in 50 of them. According to some reports, he owned 80 languages.
Kato Lomb is a Hungarian writer who has become one of the world's first simultaneous translators. Interestingly, she was a lagging student at school. Then she independently mastered 16 languages, and even wrote a book about her own method of learning languages. She gained the greatest fame as a polyglot. English, Hungarian, Russian, French, German, Chinese - this is an incomplete list of her achievements.
Many people over the centuries wore the proud title of Polyglot. What was so special about these people? It is likely you can also become one of them.
How to become a polyglot
It is believed that you need a special talent for learning languages. However, polyglots themselves say that abilities are only a small part of potential success.
Are there any special qualities that a polyglot has? What perseverance and motivation they know for sure better than most people. The most difficult thing is to learn the first foreign language, in the future it will be easier and faster. It is easiest to learn several languages of the same group, for example English and German, Spanish and Italian.