21 Century: Is It Still Possible To Learn A Language By Reading?
There is a strong link between reading and language skills, and it was so powerful that many 20th-century polyglots were able to learn a language solely by reading books, whether they had prior knowledge of their target language or started from scratch.
However, this technique, which worked perfectly for our predecessors a century ago, will significantly slow your progress if you try to apply it nowadays. Let's see why.
How to learn 27 languages by reading: The story of Kato Lomb
Kato Lomb is an inspiration for polyglots all around the world. She was born in Hungary and learned over 27 languages throughout her life, all by herself. Sixteen of them helped her earn a living as a translator, simultaneous interpreter, and journalist. She could easily switch between Hungarian, English, French, Russian, and German, and could translate Japanese, Mandarin, Italian, Spanish, and Polish after only half an hour of "brushing up" on her language skills. She was also able to deal with technical texts in Bulgarian, Danish, Hebrew, Latin, Romanian, Slovak, and Ukrainian. In her book “Polyglot: How I Learn Languages“, she mentions that the other eleven languages simply gave her pleasure in reading.
Learning languages through reading was Kato Lomb's favorite strategy. Despite having zero knowledge of English, she had an eager desire to become an English teacher. She attacked the language with a single random book and a dictionary.
I started by intensively studying a novel by Galsworthy. Within a week, I was intuiting the text; after a month, I understood it; and after two months, I was having fun with it
—Kato Lomb, Polyglot: How I Learn Languages
Later, she pursued her passion for reading by studying Russian novels, ranging from classics (that she was unable to tackle at the time), to sentimental love novels, and even "Dead Souls" by Gogol. She continued this book immersion approach with Romanian, German, Japanese, and many other languages in her repertoire.
4 rules of Kato Lomb: how to learn a language by reading a book
That’s insanely inspiring to read about Kato Lomb's experience in Polyglot. But what is even more striking is her unique approach to reading a book in a foreign language. Books were her teachers from day one when she didn’t even know a single word. They helped her to improve each of her language skills, from vocabulary acquisition to understanding grammar.
She grasped the meaning of new words from the context and figured out the major grammatical constructions from the sentences in the book. She never allowed difficult constructions to frighten her – she would simply skip them, assuming that the meaning would become clear sooner or later on the next pages. And after she turned the last page, Kato Lomb immediately returned to the first and started from the beginning again.
In order to learn a language through reading, she required hours of uninterrupted concentration and a significant amount of willpower combined with self-confidence. She would often spend months carefully working through the same book repeatedly.
To summarize her rules:
Start reading in your target language from the very beginning.
Deal with grammar on the go by figuring it out from the text.
Avoid checking the dictionary too often, as it can kill your interest and motivation.
Read the same book multiple times to consolidate new words in your long-term memory.
However, while Kato Lomb's approach was effective for her, it may not work as well in the 21st century due to the changing nature of language learning resources and technology.
[21 century update]: Why you can’t learn a language by reading like Kato Lomb
Kato Lomb wasn’t a single advocate of this learning practice. She quotes Dezső Kosztolányi who followed the same path to learn Portuguese:
It was a strange game. The first week, I sweated blood. The second, I intuited what it was about. The third week, I greeted the birds in Portuguese, who then chatted with me…
Dezső Kosztolányi
The third week? Isn’t that too much for a single book? Let’s start with the obvious: we don’t have as much time as we used to. Times have changed. While in the 20th century, people could spend a whole summer reading the same old book over and over again, many of us today can barely handle rereading a book even twice. Can you imagine spending a summer (three months of summer!) simply reading, swimming, and playing ball? No, because with the internet, work follows us wherever we go.
How much time do you think it would take to read a book in a language you don’t know? A week? A month? If you’re on vacation, probably yes. But if you’re juggling your studies, career, business, travel, family, and kids, it could take you months. Remember, the original Kato Lomb method was to learn a language by reading alone, without any other tools to aid in the process.
We have more resources
Let's go back to Deszo.
Deszo was on vacation and this Portuguese book was his only form of entertainment and learning material during the summer. Learning a language by reading was probably the best method at that time. In the 20th century, foreign language books were like gold; they were relics that were hard to come by. So both Kato Lomb and Deszo Kosztolanyi valued their books as their only sources for learning the languages that interested them. Nowadays, we have access to millions of resources in our target language with just a few clicks on the internet, and they can be delivered to our doorstep within 24 hours with Amazon.
There's no need to struggle through lines of foreign words and then look up each one in a two-volume, two-kilogram dictionary. With tools like Readlang, you can simply click on a word and get its translation right on the screen. In the worst-case scenario, you may have to spend a few extra seconds typing a word into a mobile dictionary to get the full list of translations with examples.
We value these resources less
If you want to learn a language by reading, you have to actually read the book - not just scan through it.
Unfortunately, this is another problem that many millennials face. We no longer take the time to read; instead, we scan through texts in search of information. Why? Because there is so much information available and so little time to consume it all. As soon as we unlock our phones, we are bombarded with at least five notifications and numerous messages. When we enter a language section in a bookstore, we are confronted with countless books claiming to be the best resources for learning a new language. And if we search for "how to learn a language" on Google, we are overwhelmed by billions of search results.
With so much learning material readily available, we often spend more time trying to figure out which book to read than actually reading it.
We have a decreased ability to focus
Highly demanding cognitive tasks such as language learning by reading or by any other way require high levels of concentration. And the ability to focus becomes more and more rare in our hyperconnected world, while we swiping through our feeds in Facebook, Reddit or Twitter.
I can easily imagine someone like Kato Lomb going through a Russian novel for the fifth time while sitting in a bomb shelter. It’s not to say that it was easy at that time; it is to say that there weren't as many other distractions. The world may have been destroyed, but what's more important is that there was no internet. Nowadays, if we were in a bomb shelter, we might be tempted to watch what’s going on outside on YouTube or get lost in social media feeds instead of focusing on language learning.
Now, in order to deliberately study through a book in a foreign language, you will have to cut all distractions. All WhatsApp – FB – Twitter – Reddit -YouTube and whatever is you call your favorite time-killer. Otherwise, the common scenario is: you’re reaching for your phone to translate something from the book and start checking notifications instead.
We are addicted to fast progress
When it comes to learning languages we want to jump to a higher level within a week or a month, which is why books like "How to Speak Language X in 90 Days" are so popular. We want to achieve something and share our achievements. However, what can we share if, after three months, we are still reading the same old "Le Petit Prince" for the third time?
Success in language learning (and in learning any other skill) highly depends on willpower and patience, while many language learners rely solely on motivation. The problem is that motivation is limited and tends to fall over time without progress. In language learning, there are often long periods of no progress, which can be discouraging.
While polyglots have been rare both 50 years ago and now, the abundance of information available today can be toxic. You don't even have to search to find a video of a teenager speaking 16 languages. This knowledge can be demotivating, especially when you feel like hitting a plateau in your own language learning. The obvious question is, "Why can they do it, and I can't?" It's easy to come to the conclusion that you don't have talent and give up.
Updated strategy: 4 steps to really learn a language by reading
Let’s return to Kato Lomb's rules and examine each one while considering the challenges of the 21st century.
Start reading from day one -> First learn core vocabulary
While Kato Lomb certainly loved reading, there is a high chance that she considered it the least boring way to learn new vocabulary. This was in the 20th century. Today, we can quickly build our lexical base by using language-learning tools such as Memrise, Duolingo, or MindSnacks.
Furthermore, recent research by Paul Nation, a specialist in vocabulary acquisition, supports this approach. He found that you need to understand at least 85% of the words in a text to read more or less effortlessly. Moreover, you need to know 98-99% of the words to begin guessing new vocabulary from the context without checking a dictionary.
It means that learning languages by reading will be more effective if you spend more time reading, rather than checking the dictionary or relying on your deductive skills.
If you start by learning the basic vocabulary of 2000 words (which takes about 3-4 weeks with apps like Memrise), you will be able to understand about 95% of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. This will allow you to read and comprehend your first book in your target language, which can boost your confidence significantly. And trust me, understanding a book in your target language is much more fulfilling than just reading it, as Kato Lomb did.
While Kato Lomb preferred to reread the same book multiple times to memorize words and understand the language better, we have the luxury of having access to a vast range of books in our target language. To make the learning process more exciting, you can choose to read different books by the same author. This can familiarize you with their writing style and vocabulary, increasing your chances of encountering and memorizing the same words.
While Kato Lomb considered the majority of words in a book to be noise, it's essential to understand what's going on, and not every reader can rely solely on their deductive skills and intuition. With online dictionaries, it's not a pain to check a meaning anymore, but even a quick second can be very disruptive. To avoid getting sidetracked, rely on your good sense and skip words that are not crucial to understanding the context. However, if a word pops up several times, and you feel like you're missing something important, go ahead and check it. Don't forget to mark the word for future reference.
Finally, it's best to have a basic understanding of the language's grammar before starting to read a book. Knowing the difference between semantic and functional roles of words can help you focus on the meaning, rather than the form. While you don't need to know all the grammatical rules, it's essential to know the basics before diving into a book.
Recap: Learning a language by reading
Reading is an amazing way to learn a foreign language, but it is different now compared to what it was fifty years ago. You don't have to struggle with Tolstoy when you don't even know Cyrillic alphabet just because Kato Lomb did so. She didn't have other options.
To learn a language by reading, it is advisable to use all resources at hand to quickly gain essential vocabulary and understand how grammar works at least on a basic level. Pick your favorite book instead of using random material used by other people. Celebrate your achievement and move to the next challenge instead of forcing yourself to reread the same book.
By being smart and following these guidelines, you can learn a language by reading faster than Kato Lomb and Dezho Kosztolanyi did while having fun!
