/lit/ - Literature

>>20251445
No

>>20251445
Not a requirement to post on /lit/ but a requirement to be respected, we shouldn't be elitist

>>20251451
Heavily filtered

>>20251511
I don't think all of these have inherently the same unconditional value though. You can't compare knowing English, German, Latin and then learning Italian and Spanish to knowing English, German, Greek and Chinese. Mandarin especially has so much depth and as any student of Greek might confirm the scope of what you can learn there is just far too broad to be compared to Russian, Italian, Spanish.

And then you have the issue of surface level vs very in depth study. Some Anglo scholar who's only learnt German and French but is also invested in dialects and has read everything there is to read with these languages will top any graduate or PhD student who knows six language but really just reads in English all day, with the occasional intersection by German or French and Latin phrase.

>>20251445
You're abstracting to a point of reduction. I laude your effort in language learning, the reason why you put so much weight onto this, but it's not that simple. Then you have the utterly different reality in literature, academia and art back in the day. Nature itself was different, the environment in which people lived. We cannot compare ourselves to the Greeks, Romans, Feudal aristocrats, Renaissance men, Enlightenment scholars and Industrial bourgeoise. Simply being an expert in your field today asks so much more of the average academic who does not lack in knowledge but in freedom and learning.
When people talk about the contemporary man being less educated they also reduce the canyon between those who are educated and very knowledgeable and those who pursue a career and are not learned to a crack anyone could step over if they just made the effort at any point in their lives. It is, again, not that simple.

>>20251555
>We cannot compare ourselves to the Greeks, Romans
Tranny cope.

>>20251445
>German
Sorry, but philosophy is for chuds.

>>20251564
>I call you larp by larping
bravo, this is your brain on /lit/

>>20251445
>French, Latin
Yes
>German
No

>>20251555
>We cannot compare ourselves to the Greeks, Romans, Feudal aristocrats, Renaissance men, Enlightenment scholars and Industrial bourgeoise. Simply being an expert in your field today asks so much more of the average academic who does not lack in knowledge but in freedom and learning.
Isn't this compensated by the fact that we live longer lives and are supposedly smarter now? And the reasons you give for narrowing one's scope is largely a self fulfilling prophecy, which has led to the current hyper-specialization in academia. Moreover, I think you exaggerate the difficulty of such a task. Who is to say that one, with a lifetime of work and dedication, can't master a handful of languages, most or all of which are closely related European ones? Besides, there is also the fact that the world is complex and the dilettante in many subjects is more suited to deal with the real world than the hyper-specialized academic.

>>20251616
based. Fuck those barbarians and their gibberish. I kinda pity Schiller and Goethe for having written in German, though.

>>20251628
> Isn't this compensated by the fact that we live longer lives and are supposedly smarter now?
No it isn't. We live better lives now but we also pay for our own shit. Almost every author or poet you've read from the past were nobility. They were the top 0.01 something percent of the populace. They didn't have to work to earn their bread. They didn't *have* to go through 20 years of education to continue living. They did, however, study things that weren't designed specifically for sustenance. They didn't study engineering and science and maths (which are practically useful). They learnt rhetoric and latin and greek and theology. They could afford to learn that shit and from a young age. If you tried that you'd end up alone and homeless unless you're an aristocrat (increasingly rare phenomena, given the conditions of democracy). And keep in mind that the modern rich cannot ever be equated to aristocracy. We're rich from doing business and keeping our mind at level with the world. Aristocrats grew rich by marriage, organizing their serfs and other exploitative measures. Their way of life is simply impossible for you and so are their achievements

>>20251555
>inherently the same unconditional value
nothing have inherent uncondicional value by definition of value

>And then you have the issue of surface level vs very in depth study
i think there is no discussion here, it is preferable have mastered just the important works of several languages to know deeply every work of a single language. Obviously you'll study some rare unknown writers but that's personal interest

About the chosen languages, it isn't that important, you chose whichever are more relevant in the ambient where your interests lie.

>>20251609
what did you expect? exactly that, this is 4chan after all (dont get me wrong i love it but there'll be non-serious anons, always)

>>20251616
elaborate please

>>20251628
>Isn't this compensated by the fact that we live longer lives and are supposedly smarter now?
not even close, the information grows at an exponential rate while lifespan at a logaritmic one
agree on the rest of the comment

>>20251705
>Their way of life is simply impossible for you and so are their achievements

>>20251445
>g*rman

>>20251844
filtered.

I think those who came before us had a different conception of language learning
they learned by interfacing with texts and speakers when available, for some specific purpose, rather than how we hope to acquire the entirety of the language of study as if it were our native tongue

alrighty! I will get back to studying japanese desunya :3

>>20251881
I don't know who
>hope to acquire the entirety of the language of study as if it were our native tongue
but that's futile. We learn those languages to read master pieces in their original version

>>20251889
Respected anon

>>20251555
>We cannot compare ourselves to the Greeks, Romans, Feudal aristocrats, Renaissance men, Enlightenment scholars and Industrial bourgeoise
Yes, unlike them we have no excuse at all since we have instant access to the best language resources at our fingertips at all times. For the pre-moderns language learning was a privilege of the aristocracy

im in chinese 101 since they seem to be a based /lit/ country but itll be awhile before i can read this shit lol. I want to learn european or med languages before i die but i decided to start with chinese cause i wanted to get the hard one out of the way RIP

I achieved basic reading skill in German, Italian, and Latin. French is pretty easy after Italian, but I haven't practiced enough.

I rarely read anything in those languages, though. I just enjoy the process of learning a new language.

>>20252030
>unlike them we have no excuse at all since we have instant access to the best language resources at our fingertips at all times
Harsh true, it's sad that literally no one take fully advantage of it. I mean sure we use it but a way lesser than it deserves

>>20252041
just wondering, why dont you? are you just not interest in those countries literatre

>>20252041
>I rarely read anything in those languages
What a waste. There are more good books in those languages than you could read in your entire life, so take action

>>20252044
My reading speed in those languages is rather slow, and I still need to pause and look up unfamiliar words now and then. So it is frustrating to plod along when I know how quickly I could just read a translation or something in English. I prefer short stories to novels for this reason. It's much easier to focus and commit to finishing a shorter work than to slog through something long.

>>20252058
Most of what I do is a waste of time anyway. What are your top recommendations?

>>20251445
It's too hard

>muh native language and its medieval variant
>English
>ancient Greek
>Latin
>Esperanto (das rite)
Those are my goals.

>>20252105
Read aloud in the target language and read along with an English translation of the same work. I've been making leaps and bounds in my French reading ability using this method--5-10 pages of the novel in English, then same content in French while also checking any unknown words or phrases in the English translation. It's not at all tedious or a slog either.

>>20251445
If you want to learn the basics of German without much effort:
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/22160/22160-h/22160-h.htm
- - -
As for me, I’ve read the first four chapters of Voyage au bout de la nuit by Céline. It’s kicking my ass with its made up french words (like rouspignolles) and early 20th century expressions that aren’t used much anymore, but I’m enjoying it.

Facts, niggas be bragging bout reading philosophy and shit like man, you be reading that in english bro you didnt read shit

>>20252105
For the frustration thing the only way to improve it is by reading, listening, writing and speaking more in those languages.

About the recommendations, as I don't know you therefore I don't know your interests, I'll share two lists one of Latin and another one of Italian literature so you can choose from it.

Here it is the Latin one

>>20253161
Italian

>>20251445
If I study to read other languages I won't have as much time to read.

>>20251445
>The minimum requirement for being /lit/
Ur insufferable

>>20251445
Why tf does Spanish put an extra upside down question mark in front of questions? What possible use does this convention have? I hate looking at it, it's like visual noise, it looks like an error.

>>20252037
Are you retarded or just American

>>20253623
it looks fine retard

>>20254388
intoxicated

>>20251445
people who can speak multiple languages has lesser chances of getting alzheimer

>>20251445
The "i'm le multilingual!" retards on /lit/ have made it less likely that I'll pursue an additional language.

>>20251445
French and Latin is all you need. The greatest literature is the French literature.

>>20257299
the only victim of that decision is you, so it's ok for me/us

>>20253623
>¿Why tf does Spanish put an extra upside down question mark in front of questions? ¿What possible use does this convention have? I hate looking at it, it's like visual noise, it looks like an error.

>>20257375
I still do French at uni, I'm just saying that it's shown me there's no correlation between intelligence and language knowledge.

Agree with french and latin but german is fucking useless. No one speaks german outside of fucking germany. It's way more useful to learn spanish, russian or portuguese.

>>20251445
English, French, Turkish and mid level of Spanish speaker here. Learning Japanese (currently N5). Fuck German & Latin.

>>20257292
indrasting. how good do you have to be in each language? is understanding enough?

>>20257469
all that you've discovered is that people who are better than you at something irrationally upset you

>>20257780
The important thing is that you can think in this language and you actually do it. The more different the languages are the better pe Chinese and French is better than German and dutch. That's because each language has its structure and if you can honestly think in different languages you can structure your thoughts is you in several ways. Basically practice various languages is the best mental exercise you can practice, not counting top level science probably math being the most demanding

>>20257822
Sorry I am on my phone and it 'corrects' my writing

>think in this language
Those, not this

>thoughts is you
Ie not is

Probably the rest is OK though I could have redacted it better

>>20252030
It's not a necessity. Everything that is not necessary is inherently more unlikely.

>>20251445
Why would you ever want to identify as /lit/?

>>20257707
I like Spanish authors but I don't think I could ever learn Spanish. It's so annoying to read. The words are like little self-contained jokes. Muchachos, muchachas, I can't take this shit seriously.

>>20252132
For me it's Old English, Chinese onto Literary Chinese, and Latin. Other worthwhile languages that I probably won't learn include French (historical), Arabic, and Greek. What other languages have beyond modern national spread and good bodies of historical texts? Latin and Chinese obviously give you the most here.

>>20252030
>For the pre-moderns language learning was a privilege of the aristocracy
No it wasn't. It was a privilege of need and exposure for most. Knowing multiple languages wasn't at all unusual in history. It happened all the time.

>>20251445
This is dumb. You should only study language that are related to your, unless you really want to delve deep into a specific region.
So either you learn Ancient Greek, Latin, French and German to have a better grip on the English language which was largely influenced by those 4 languages, or you learn, if you think that's what you want to do with your life, Chinese with ancient Chinese (that means modern Chinese and Chinese from 1600, 700 and 200, for those are the major periods in Chinese literature and language changed between the 4) which will already take a lifetime since you will have to start from scratch (but then you won't have that much problem for related languages like Japanese). Same goes for Arabic or Sanskrit.
And for any romance language speaking person on this board, you should be ashamed if you're not at least learning Latin.

>>20258470
lol why Old English in the top 3?

Mine are English (native), Spanish (B1), Japanese (N3), and now German (A1). I was never truly interested in Spanish, but I had to study it for 7 years in school so I know a lot of it still for better or worse.
It's a tricky spot for me since I'm interested in lots of languages, but spreading yourself very thin across many languages means less time to understand each one, less time to read their books, and a shallower involvement in them overall. Don't you guys also roll your eyes when you see people who claim to have learned 10 languages?

Yet I have enough motivation to learn 10 languages. It's just, I'd probably suck at most of them, and have a shallow grasp of their culture too, so it's pointless.

>>20251445
Every Germanic intellectual (American, English, German, Nordic, etc) should known some English and German. English is the lingua franca of Germanic Civilization since the 1900s, which has been German up until the 1800s, and German persisted in relevance until the 1940s. The Holy Roman Realm was the "America" of the Medieval and Early Modern West, and German was a widely spoken language among Americans and upper class Anglos in the 1800s. Maybe add Old Norse and you have access to the entire main lineage.

>>20251445
>French
no
>Latin
everything good was written in Greek

>>20251564
low IQ subhuman larp, Hitler would think you are a pseud
19th century German philosophy is obsessed with the Greeks, you obviously haven't read anything before

>>20251445
The minimum should be English, Latin, and one other major Euro languages (german and french being prime choices, Italian, Spanish and Russian being secondary, I guess Dutch Swedish, Portuguese being tertiary)

Latin gives you primary and secondary sources of everything of importance from around 400 BC (as many of the greeks were first translated into latin) to about 1725. English then has the largest body of written works and the best body of secoundary works from other languages. And your third Euro language should fill a gap of perspective while also greatly increasing content.

I guess I would also recommend a fourth, non euro language for the purpose of barbarian studies.

>>20258630
I want to learn German so I can read 10,000 pages of Karlheinz Deschner dabbing on Christianity. Not sure what else I'd use it for.

>>20251555
>though
Based 15 year old Adderall zoomer

>>20260254
Authors have been using that word that way for decades though.

>>20258630
There is little to no reason to add old norse unless you are particularly interested in that mythos.

>>20258535
B1 is almost nothing, a1 lesser. Idk about n3. Keep pushing anon

>>20258535
The trick is you learn them deeply one by one. Then you keep practicing them. As the number increase the less you can practice each one so you have to be organised

>>20260234
Hegel and Heidegger

>>20251445
>No Portuguese
Cringe.

>>20260506
I think the way our brains work is we must cycle languages in order to stay skilled in all of them, so naturally remaining skilled with 10+ languages at once is borderline impossible because some are bound to fall into disuse. This is simply how the human brain works - doctors forget what they learn in med school unless it's useful on the job. So we should choose a small number of languages that we can imagine ourselves using semi-often, and not burden ourselves with extra languages that look fun or cool, but won't offer us much lasting importance in the end.

There are a few nerds out there (like me) who somehow enjoy learning new languages, so this is something we have to keep in mind. Otherwise we become polyglots with a bunch of stagnant, A2-B1 level pet-languages that we can't exactly say we know, so it becomes a waste in the end.

>>20251705

This isn't true. Many aristocrats had excellent STEM educations in addition to knowledge of the arts, such as the aristocrat whose pictured above, and his family had everything stolen from them by the Commies when he was a teenager.

He was also a gifted polyglot, with fluent knowledge of at least five living languages (French, German, English, Yiddish, and of course his native Hungarian) and two dead ones (Latin and Classical Greek). He also had a deep love of history and literature, and could easily've excelled in those fields professionally had he so choosed.

Granted, John Von Neumann was probably the smartest human being ever, but he was hardly alone. Almost all the great STEM figures in history until recently were also aristocrats.

>>20258494
No, you underestimate how hard it was to learn to read literature in another language. It was a privilege of the rich. It required teachers. Rich Roman families used Greek slaves to teach their children to read Greek. Victorian aristocrats did the same with nannies or tutors who spoke the target language.
You could learn a vernacular by immersion, but that won't necessarily allow you to read high literature in that language.

>>20260726
It feels like as STEM has gone more and more mainstream its intellectual side and connection to the humanities has been forgotten, and now suggesting they should be connected makes you a weirdo.

Currently speak
>English
>Portuguese
>Danish
Debating between French or German for my next one, leaning towards French at the moment

>>20251564
2016 called, they want their stale image back

>>20260509
Worst philosophers.
>>20260234
Read Goethe, Heine and Schopenhauer instead.

>>20261691
>Worst philosophers.
why?

>>20251445
Ok. Any advice as to how I should actually go about learning, say, French?

>>20263067
/int/