It wasn’t too late at night, maybe six or seven. There was a warm breeze slowly moving into the unfinished room, and the sun was peeking behind a family of trees huddled together nearby. A soft, orange glow painted the room, and I could feel the heat of the night on my face. It was early September, and summer hadn’t quite yet died out. I could smell the faint, alluring scent of a barbecue nearby, and I stopped to soak in the last remnants of the sunset.

“Solely in the world of languages is the amateur of value. Well-intentioned sentences full of mistakes can still build bridges between people,” wrote Kato Lomb in her 1970 book Polyglot: How I Learn Languages. Lomb was one of the most renowned polyglots and interpreters throughout history, and throughout much of her career she sought to understand the brain of the polyglot.