Hello hello! It seems that with every year the Christmas season comes earlier. Mariah Carey in September is as bad as Mariah Carey in December. In any case, even if Christmas isn’t your jam, there’s never a bad excuse to buy someone you love (including yourself) a good book. So I’ll share a few titles I think folk reading this newsletter might like.
Arika Okrent. In the Land of Invented Languages: Adventures in Linguistic Creativity, Madness, and Genius
I have never been into conlanging (or cosplaying, or Magic: The Gathering, or Warhammer 40,000), but I really enjoy glimpses into the worlds of those who are OBSESSED with something to the point they’ll learn or even come up with a language.
Joshua Foer. Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything
This is one of my favourite easy-reading non-fiction titles. Foer documents his journey towards winning the US Memory Championship, meeting dozens of people obsessed with memory, learning, and memorization. While it’s not directly related to language learning, it touches upon topics of spaced repetition, and one of the characters is actually Ed Cooke, the co-founder of Memrise.
Kato Lomb. Polyglot: How I Learn Languages
Most advice on the Internet can be traded for the amazing Polyglot: How I Learn Languages book by Kato Lomb, a Hungarian simultaneous interpreter, who learned most of her 16 languages in her adulthood. It’s filled with amazing tips on how and what to read, how to “hack” language courses, how to overcome your fears and more. And lots of hilarious anecdotes, like this one:
I have written about how much I suffered in Japan because everyone wanted to practice their English with me and I couldn’t attain with the greatest effort to get answers in Japanese to my questions asked in Japanese. In the end, someone took pity on me and recommended a certain Mr. Matsumoto, who understood my sorrow and showed willingness to converse with me in Japanese in the afternoons.
Mr. Matsumoto proved to be a Buddhist monk. He was indeed ready to talk in Japanese, but unfortunately his only topic was Buddhism; specifically, that 11 of its 12 branches held completely false views. Only the branch that he followed was the true one. While he was explaining to me what the sole correct interpretation of the Lotus Sutra was for the third hour, I slipped away.
If you have 4 hours to spare, you can read the book in English (or your target language!) or get the gist of Lomb’s Reading Method in this short article.
P.S. Browsing Amazon made me aware of just HOW MANY interesting books about languages there are out there. I’m the kind of reader who reads far and wide and rarely goes deep into a topic, but it is so tempting. So if you recommend your favourites, I’d happily add them to my infinite wishlist.
Till next time!
I've has Polyglot: How I Learn Languages on my TBR for a while. Maybe I'll get to it during the holidays. Thanks for the recommendations!
I don't usually ready about languages, I try to read in my target languages instead. But oh boy did these titles pique my interest! I've been loving learning about learning, I might give this one a shot.