Lata Mangeshkar learnt Hindi from her cousin Indira and later from a person in Bombay named Lekhraj Sharma. She then went on to learn Urdu, Bengali and a little bit of Punjabi. She tried learning Tamil too and could also understand Sanskrit.
Lata Mangeshkar, in her own voice: I have also learned Bengali. Did you know the filmmaker Basu Bhattacharya? He was working as Bimal Roy’s assistant and when I wanted to learn Bengali, Salilda sent him to me
On her first day of school, Lata Mangeshkar took younger sister Asha, then aged about 10 months, with her and when her teacher objected to it, she angrily went back home never to return again.