Polyglots don't share one method, but in their own accounts they share habits: daily contact with the language, often in short blocks fitted around the day, lots of reading and listening they enjoy, and a system for reviewing words. Kató Lomb read novels from the start; Steve Kaufmann listens and reads for about an hour a day.
Is there one method that polyglots share?
No, and the polyglots say so themselves. Lýdia Machová, who learns a new language roughly every two years, asked other polyglots how they learn for her 2018 TEDx talk and heard a different approach from each one. What they had in common, she concluded, was that they had found ways to enjoy the process.
She grouped the habits she saw into four principles:
- Enjoyment. Pick activities you would do anyway: she read Harry Potter in Spanish and watched Friends in German.
- Effective methods. For vocabulary, she names spaced repetition apps and the Goldlist method.
- A system. Fix when the practice happens, rather than waiting for free time.
- Patience. You won't learn a language in two months, she says, but you can make a visible improvement in that time.
Everything below is drawn from what the people concerned wrote or said about themselves, or from published research. We have left out anything that only appears second-hand.
What does a polyglot's day look like?
| Who | What they describe doing | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Kató Lomb, Hungarian interpreter and translator | Some contact with the language every day; when time is short, at least a ten-minute monologue. Reading plays and short stories from the outset, and a weekly recording of a radio news broadcast in the language. | Her book Polyglot: How I Learn Languages |
| Lýdia Machová, polyglot | Practice built into the day: getting up 15 minutes earlier, podcasts on the commute or during chores, speaking practice fixed to set days, such as 20 minutes on Tuesdays and Thursdays with a friend. | TEDxBratislava talk, 2018 |
| Steve Kaufmann, founder of LingQ | Easy listening in the background while making breakfast, at least half an hour; then another half hour to an hour sitting down to read and save new words. His blog sums up the method as an hour a day. | His own video transcript and blog |
| Benny Lewis, Fluent in 3 Months | Speaking from early on, because conversation shows him which part of the language he needs next. | His own article, 2026 |
Two things stand out. None of these routines depends on long sessions: they are built from short, regular blocks. And three of the four put large amounts of reading or listening at the centre. Our page on extensive reading explains why volume matters so much.
How did Kató Lomb learn by reading?
Lomb is the polyglot most often cited by reading-first learners, and her book explains why. She started English in 1933 by working intensively through a Galsworthy novel. In 1941 she started Russian with a 1910 romance novel that émigrés had left behind, and later read Gogol in air-raid shelters with the book hidden inside an encyclopedia. There, she writes, she developed her technique of boldly skipping over unfamiliar words.
Her own recipe for a new language, set out in the book, runs in this order:
- Start with a thick dictionary and work through it like a crossword puzzle.
- Work through a textbook that has an answer key, and start reading plays or short stories in the language right away.
- Note new words in their sentences, as you understood them from context.
- Look words up only after a second or third reading.
Her suggestions at the end of the book include learning words in context rather than in isolation, not letting the fear of mistakes stop you speaking, and attacking the language from every direction at once. She also argued that nobody is simply good at languages, and summed up her results as time invested plus interest.
Her skip-first, look-up-later habit is easy to copy in Contos. Read a chapter once without tapping, then again with taps. An A1 chapter in the Contos library averages 160 words (October 2026), so two readings take one short sitting.
Do polyglots disagree about speaking early?
Yes, and it is the biggest split. Benny Lewis built his reputation on speaking from day one, and he still recommends it, because speaking shows him what he needs to learn next. But in a 2026 article about a conversation with Stephen Krashen, the researcher behind comprehensible input, he softened the claim: early speaking is an option you can scale, not proof that everyone must speak on day one. He also wrote that he had skipped reading until he was already intermediate, and that he was wrong to.
Lomb sat at the other end, reading from the first week, though she also told learners not to let fear of mistakes keep them silent. Machová's talk describes both kinds of learner and treats the choice as a matter of what keeps you going.
Are polyglots' brains different?
Evelina Fedorenko's lab has scanned polyglots to find out. In a 2021 study, Olessia Jouravlev, Evelina Fedorenko and colleagues tested 17 polyglots, nine of them proficient in between 10 and 55 languages. When they processed their native language, their language network responded less, both in strength and in extent, than in the comparison participants. The authors read that as a sign of efficiency, but they couldn't tell whether learning many languages caused it or whether these brains differed from the start.
A larger 2024 study from the same lab, with 34 polyglots, replicated the weaker response to the native language. For the other languages, the more proficient the polyglot, the stronger the response.
Survey evidence comes from Michael Erard's book Babel No More (2012). According to a review of the book in the Wilson Quarterly, nearly 400 polyglots answered his web survey, most did not keep all their languages at full fluency all the time, and most hyperpolyglots seemed to top out at five to seven active languages.
What can an ordinary learner borrow?
- A fixed slot, not a free-time hope. Machová's 15 minutes before breakfast is the template.
- Something you enjoy reading. Every polyglot here reads or listens to things they like, from Harry Potter to Galsworthy.
- Context first, dictionary second. Lomb read on and looked words up later.
- A review system. Spaced repetition, a notebook or Lomb's sentences in context; see our page on spaced repetition.
- Patience. All four talk in months and years, not weeks. Our page on language learning myths covers what the FSI hours do and don't mean.
Set a 15-minute slot tomorrow morning and read one chapter twice: once straight through, once with taps.
Read free in your browserFrequently asked questions
How many hours a day do polyglots study?
Less than people imagine, at least in their own accounts. Steve Kaufmann describes about an hour a day, much of it listening while doing other things. Kató Lomb's minimum was a ten-minute monologue on busy days. Lýdia Machová stresses fitting short blocks into the day.
Do polyglots use apps?
Some do. Machová names spaced repetition apps such as Anki and Memrise, and Kaufmann runs his own app, LingQ. None of them describes an app as the whole method; reading, listening and speaking make up most of their time.
Are polyglots born with a talent for languages?
Nobody knows yet. Brain scans show polyglots process their native language with less effort, but the researchers say they can't tell whether that comes from learning many languages or was there from birth. Lomb herself put her results down to time and interest.
How many languages can one person keep active?
According to a review of Michael Erard's survey of nearly 400 polyglots, most hyperpolyglots seemed to keep five to seven languages active at once, and most didn't keep every language at full fluency all the time.