The Mastery of Languages, Or, the Art of Speaking Foreign Tongues Idiomatically Book

It was very refreshing to read Lomb's language-learning tactics. Just about everything else I've read said basically, "Talk, talk, talk, nothing else really matters". As an introvert, this is disheartening, and just plain impossible. But Lomb advocates reading, in addition to speaking, and says that books can be your strongest language-learning tactic. It's how she did it, and she taught herself many languages. It was also inspiring to read that she learned most of her languages in her 30s and 40s.

This was an excellent book, especially since it is available for free online. It's clear that Lomb was not a professional writer, which is fine, and in fact is additionally refreshing since it is clear she is not trying to sell anything. She's just putting across her ideas, and if something else works for you, she says to go for it.

My only complaint is that I would have liked to know how she learned Chinese and Japanese. I can't imagine her book-reading technique would work with character languages. For this reason I have to give the book 4 instead of 5 stars. (Early in the book she says she will describe how she learned Chinese, but she never actually gets to it.)

There are many useful quotes from this book, worthy of being written down and posted in my living space. One of them is, "Boring activities kill motivation." Another is, "Language is the only thing worth knowing even poorly."