/lit/ - Literature

And what languages would you recommend?

>>23149642

English has the biggest lexicon, and that makes it the most expressive. There are nuances of meaning that simply do not exist in a language like French or Russian - the poor buggers don't have enough words for that. Even the much-ballyhooed "Classical" languages have extremely small lexicons.

So if you know English, you know all you really need to know.

English. I dont have a reason to learn anything

>>23149642
Spanish (native)
English (second language)
French/Italian (third language)

Italian, English, German, Latin, Attic/Homeric Greek

Spanish, native.
English, ESL retard.
Français, learning the basics and reading short tales.
Next ones, germany, latin and classic greek.

>>23149642
Spanish dutch english german italian french (from most to least proficient). Wish I never learned german, fucking poopenkacken language.

>>23149642
Russian (native)
English
Japanese
German

Portuguese(native)
English(still working)

>>23149707
>>23149714
English is a jack of all trades, master of none. Until you know another language, you have no clue what you're missing. It's like a colorblind person discussing art palettes.

>>23149746
>replying to bait

>>23149740
Next pessoa in the making

>another dick-measuring thread
yawn

>>23149755
Thankyou for being above it all yet still commenting anon

>>23149746
im not saying english is better than everything i just have no reason for anything else. im not european so i just dont have any use

English*
French** (B1, reading, but will churn through texts as I just discovered LingQ, which is brilliant for reading)

*Native
**Hoping to eventually start translating (for free) French writers who have remained inaccessible to English speakers.

>MY dad is better than YOUR dad! He has a BIGGER cock!
Grow up, /lit/.

>>23149755
>>23149768
??

>>23149770
!!

>>23149642
>Have learned
English (native)
French
Spanish
Italian
German
Latin
Modern Greek
Portuguese
Catalan
>Still working on
Swedish
Russian
Ancient Greek
>Plan to learn
Norwegian/Danish
Old Norse
Then maybe spend the rest of my life on Chinese and Japanese

Lol, languagecels

>>23149793
shouldn't he read the original version

>>23149793
I kneel, Max.

>>23149793
>claims to know fluent German
>always reading translations of German literature
Kek that retard is really using DeepL to translate

>>23149798
>>23149802
He's just checking that dissapointing translation! You clowns

>>23149642
Only English and a modicum of conversational German. Some Latin and Greek words. Learning languages is difficult for me due to autism.

>>23149818
I thought autism made it easier

>>23149642
Swedish (native)
Norweigan (worked there quite a bit)
Danish (again worked there)
German (School, but kept it up through work)
English

>>23149642
Hungarian (first language)
Serbian (learnt it parallel with hungarian, so second first language)
English

>>23149715
why are italian and french counted as one
>>23149820
nta but i think autism makes it easier in terms of reading and listening, but makes it a lot harder for speaking. i can read novels and understand full conversations in my 2nd language but sound like a bumbling retard when speaking

>>23149642
English was my first language
Latin, Greek, Italian, German from school
Esperanto and Dothraki for fun
Hebrew for OT studies
Spanish from family
Tagalog from family friends
Ebonics from friends
Mandarin and Cantonese from studying abroad
French for research into the French Revolution
Old English and Old Norse to study Germanic philology and Proto-Germanic
Arabic to debate with Moslems about the Koran
Japanese to watch anime without subs
Akkadian

>>23149906
God damn, Anon. How well do you speak them?

>>23149912
I have a speech pathology disorder

>>23149906
I believe all of these except the ebonics

>>23149920
Ayo me got nigga Brothas in da hood >>23149920

>>23149642
As many as my phone can translate.

>>23149820
No, most autists are extremely adept at their own language but terrible in others

English but I can kind of read French
I think I'll need about 2 years of reading French daily to feel comfortable to say I 'know it'
Frankly I don't think it's worth learning language for literature

Turkish(native)
English
Japanese
Working on:
German
Latin
Want to learn:
French
Chinese
Korean

>>23150461
> Frankly I don't think it's worth learning language for literature
It’s the only reason to learn a language

>>23150513
In my opinion yes

>>23149642
none. not even English.

English, Hebrew, Yiddish, Jewish Babylonian Aramaic, Halaula aramaic, lojban.

I don't know if I'm doing it right but understanding my TL isn't as great as it used to be
I remember stumbling onto a TL post on the internet and being able to get the general gist of what was being said and that motivated me a lot
These days it's nothing special
I don't feel joy reading my TL and understanding it, I just want to read whatever it is I'm reading and to understand it

turkish (passable)
english (barely)

>>23149770
A deranged homosexual your responding to anon

Ignore it

>>23150721
Projection

>>23149753
T-thanks anon...

English
Russian
German
Italian
Spanish
French
Turkish

I wish there was a language that was dead easy to learn to read

>>23149642
glish for talking
mexican for food service
latin for school
french to beg with

>>23150657
I really believe that, unless you're a linguist, foreign-language acquisition needs to accompany a philology-style deep dive into a language's history and culture to stay rewarding.

I don't envy anyone who knows more than 3 languages, because that's almost a guarantee he engages with foreign languages in a shallow way. You simply don't have enough time or energy to give all of French AND Russian AND Italian AND German their due diligence. The smart move is to pick whichever culture looks the deepest to you, and dive very deep until you hit the bottom.

>>23149746
我識三種語言:廣東話、韓文同埋英文。即使咁,我都同佢贊成。其實,我會話我知道廣東話同韓文缺乏啲咩。英文肯定唔會漏咗啲重要嘅嘢。英文唯一嘅問題係作家太驚用唔啱呢種語言。我哋睇早期現代英文嘅文本都冇問題,但係要不係佢哋唔夠技巧,要不係佢哋驚出唔到書,但係冇人會去寫啲有好多上下文嘅英文。

>>23151288
>You simply don't have enough time or energy to give all of French AND Russian AND Italian AND German their due diligence
Ever heard of time management?

>>23149642
Depends on what you mean by "know", but:
>Native: English
>Mostly fluent, just not quite at a native level in vocabulary: Esperanto
>Not fluent but can basically read and converse for most practical purposes: Spanish, Japanese
>Can wade through reading with the help of a dictionary: French, German, Classical Chinese; Italian and Portuguese mostly by relation to other Romance languages
>Could just about order food and ask directions: Mandarin, Latin (yes, I know, will be very useful if I ever get stranded in the Roman Empire)

>>23149707
>English has the biggest lexicon, and that makes it the most expressive.
You can't really meaningfully measure how many words a language has.

>>23151478
Sure. In practice, do you see anyone doing this? Nietzsche had his Greek and that was it; Borges had his English, that was it. We learn one foreign language to a profound degree, and the rest are generally fluff, a boy scouts' badge to puff up your ego.

>>23151360
It's wild how I can like half understand this.

>>23151533
The more I read the biographies of authors and geniuses the more i think this is right. I seriously doubt many of these people were able to be fluent in all these languages and pursue the other things in their life. I think its just that back then people had lower standards for what they considered "knowing" a language. Nowadays you wouldn't really say you know a language until you near fluency.

>>23151549
They were fluent, but to a shallow level.

In the past, European nations had their own unique cultural spheres, unique ideas, concepts, histories, etc. You can read Goethe in English and you'll get a shallow picture of Goethe. Or you can learn German, and get a slightly deeper picture of Goethe. But to get a truly full picture of any author, you must study the time period in which they lived, who they communicated with, what they believed, and so on. Learning German or French or Japanese will not take you to this level of understanding, but it is necessary to learn these languages to truly understand Germany or France or Japan.

Likewise, if your learning of the language is not accompanied by deeper study of the relevant culture, you're going to hit a ton of bottlenecks as you keep reading and ideas/people/jokes/events come up that you don't understand.

>>23151265
It's called Spanish. French if you're not too much of a pussy to learn French orthography (it's much, much more consistent than people make it out to be).

>>23151613
>The learning of many languages fills the memory with words
Damn, even the AI is ESL

>>23151616
Are you dumb?

>>23151265
Esperanto.

>>23151625
>Esperanto

>>23151615
>Spanish or French
Ugh

>>23151618
Just you, Patel.

>>23151630
>Ugh
Quand un bon vin meuble mon estomac
Je suis plus savant que Balzac-
Plus sage que Pibrac;
Mon brass seul faisant l'attaque
De la nation Coseaque,
La mettroit au sac;
De Charon je passerois le lac
En dormant dans son bac,
J'irois au fier Eac,
Sans que mon coeur fit tic ni tac,
Premmer du tabac

>>23151627
Yes, genuinely. Esperanto is based. Resist Anglo hegemony.

>>23151638
What's up with your books section?..

>>23151637
I want something easier. I have nothing against france

>>23151662
https://esperanto.net/en/books-in-esperanto/

>>23151666
>those digits
Fitting. Go learn Toki Pona. It's your best bet.

>>23151675
A real language man come on

>>23151662
That's one website. If you want ebooks in Esperanto try:
http://verkoj.com/
https://www.bitlibroj.com/
https://curlie.org/eo/Kulturo/Literaturo
https://eo.wikibooks.org/wiki/Katalogo_de_Esperanta_retenhavo/Literaturo
http://eventoj.hu/steb/index.html
If you want to order physical books try:
https://katalogo.uea.org/

>>23151533
>Durrr there has never been anyone who knew more than 3 languages on a deep level.
What about Schopenhauer, Unamuno, Calasso, Dávila, Gottfried, Marx, Engels, Mezzofanti, Powell, etc? It used to be pretty standard for scholars to know upwards of 6 languages. And yes, you can read a language on a deep level without knowing how to speak it.

>>23151686
Eh, missed the point. Try again?

>>23151716
>Nooo it doesn't matter that you're seeing and understanding the words in the book, okay?! you don't understand the language because i say so, okay!???!

>>23151720
Attach a wojak next time.

>>23151730
Basedjaks are gay

>>23151731
You called them based though.

English, Spanish, French (natively).
Portuguese, Italian (second languages).
Occitan, Modern Greek (literate, but can't speak them).
Currently learning Latin. Only other languages I want to learn are older dialects of Greek.

>>23151716
I do agree with your initial point, but I think that the idea that because one can only "perfect" one or two languages, acquiring any more than that is meaningless, is rather stupid. There are many uses for languages.

>>23149721
ah yes, germany the language

>>23151288
I think you misunderstood my point
For me the goal of learning a language is that, eventually, I will be able to read and understand my TL as if it were my NL
Meanwhile there are a lot of people who do not share this 'all or nothing' mindset when it comes to language learning
A lot of people are just happy being able to have a very basic conversation at a cafe and some people are extremely happy being able to watch TV and get a good gist of what's going on
People learning Classical languages would be happy reading 5-10 pages a day of an author like Cicero because for them, it's an extremely satisfying experience to be reading in the TL that they love so much

>>23152132
Btw my feelings on this subject are probably due to the fact that I chose my TL because I thought it was logically the best choice for me
I chose French because the French language seemed unmatched in terms of the number of canonical authors and also because it's a relatively easy language for EFLs to learn
I never felt a great passion for France, when I started learning French I thought the language just sounded so-so, I didn't care so much about the history of France and I had only read a single French book in English translation prior to learning it

>>23152132
You wrote
>understanding my TL isn't as great as it used to be

This is what I was addressing. The guys who are "Just happy to read 5 pages of Cicero" don't exist. Or rather -- they do exist. But what happens to them? The excitement of reading in Latin fades, and the effort and time Latin demands of them to read harder texts outweighs what they actually gain from reading in Latin vs. an English translation. Once you hit that point, you realize in concrete terms what you're working for. And for most people, it's a shitty time investment.

I'm not claiming Cicero isn't better in Latin -- obviously he is. But once you manage to successfully read Latin, you understand, "Oh, this is what I was working for." You can keep practicing to read Plutarch and Livy if you like -- but a ton of people won't. How many people who say they want to learn Latin actually read these guys in English?

See what I mean? Language learning is specifically for people who obsess over another culture (or linguists). Unless you *truly* love Roman writers (or scientific naming), don't learn Latin. You'll just waste your time. People think languages are like one night stands. They're really marriages.

>>23149642
English native speaker. I took French, German, Latin, and Mandarin in HS, but I forgot most of the first three. I minored in Chinese in undergrad, so I know Mandarin and Classical Chinese. I did a partial translation of the Yang Zhu chapter of the Liezi a while back.
I want to learn Pali, Sinhala, and Thai for religious reasons. I also want to learn Spanish because my boyfriend's dad is a native speaker.

>>23152350
Wow, you're pretty smart.

Native English, B1 Irish, N3 Japanese, A2 French

>>23149642
>Spanish
>Portuguese
>Galician (but some linguists consider it the same language as Portuguese)
English
>Currently learning German

>there are monolingual people on this board with us

>>23149642
I'm American. I'm only fluent in English. I can read some Latin and I'm getting close to fluency in Japanese. I can function in simple Spanish when I have to, but it's just what I've picked up from friends or coworkers.

>>23149717
You're the guy who posts in Greek in /clg/, eh? I am impressed.

>>23149793
ENFJ?

>>23149714
yeah this. i wish i was smart enough and had motivation to learn a language. seems like people judge you if youre monolingual

>>23149906
Ebonics is a dialect, not a language.

>>23154029
What about does N3 Japanese translate to in CEFR terms?
Also
>Irish
Based

>>23154253
Just dive into reading and watching stuff you find interesting and are motivated to want to be able to read/watch.

>>23154263
Sure- a dialect of English. "Dialect" just means a subvariety within the same language. What you speak is also a dialect of English.

>>23154351
Thats not really what I mean

>>23154359
Then what do you mean?

>>23154051
Those linguists are dumb.

>>23154239
thanks φίλε

>>23154253
if retarded toddlers can learn languages, so can you.

>>23154366
>>23154488
I just don't have any reason or drive to do so

>>23154475
Why, aren't they pretty mutually intelligible?

>>23154338
I'd probably just guess it's like A2 or B1.
>Based
GRMA, comrádaí

>>23154357
I know what it means...that's my point. You already have English on the list. Ebonics is a sub-category of English. You wouldn't list: British English, American English, Appalachian American English, Texan English, etc.,.

>>23154951
Knowing how to speak in a specific dialect is arguably at least a skill even if it's not a separate language.

>>23154951
>You wouldn't list Appalachian American English
Well, I reckon I would. Actually, talkin' 'bout it, I'm purdy sure you'd make the distinction fer German dialects.

>>23149707
this. i know english, bulgarian (native), french and italian and have chosen to write my prose in english just because of how superior it is

>>23155169
it's true
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJYoqCDKoT4

>>23155180
Borges sucking anglo cock so hard making me want to forget that I ever read his works.

>>23154253
80iq eastern europeans with FAS can speak 3 languages, im sure you can do it too. just spend a lot of time with the language

>>23149642
Portuguese(Native)
English
Japanese(learning)

>>23151265
>>23151630
>>23151666
>easy to read
>not French or Spanish
Try Italian.

I’m 21 and I only speak English
Trying to learn Spanish but I keep getting bored with it. I’d rather learn German, Dutch or Chinese but Spanish is infinitely more useful

>>23149642
English
Chinese
Spanish
Classical Chinese
basic Uyghur

>>23149793
What's the Love Language between him and
the Blue Lard author?

>>23156201
Retard. Just learn what you want

>>23149642
English, Spanish, some French...
Also small Latin, less Greek...

>>23149642
Montenegrin, Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, and English
Try to beat that

>>23154521
Yes, probably more than some Arabic dialects. It only differs a little in pronunciation and writing.

English
Portuguese
French
I can underatand spanish

>>23156891
Well yeah a lot of Arabic "dialects" are effectively different languages.

>>23149642
tunisian east zeneti berber (native)
tunisian arabic (native)
classical arabic (second language)
French (second language)
English (third language)
German (forth language)
and i'm currently learnig homeric greek

>>23155991
にはお

>>23156887
>Montenegrin, Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian
Literally just dialects of each other

None to be honest.

>>23149642
French, Breton, English, German
Still NEET, pseud and poor tho

>>23158491
Literally me fr

>>23149642
The language I can read and write the best in is English, but in terms of speaking fluency my Chinese slightly has an edge over English. I have moderate fluency and literacy in Malay, and limited fluency in the Hokkien dialect.

>>23158146
I think that's the joke. (You know, I once knew a fellow who spoke nine languages- Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, Montenegrin, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Hindi, and Urdu!)

>>23158499
>Breton
Based
>>23158627
>Hokkien
Also pretty based. Min is a branch that split off before the rest of the Chinese dialects ("dialects") and preserves some archaic features, right?

>>23158652
Im not sure about the history of Min, I just know it because it's how my parents and grandparents communicate. But honestly structurally it is not very different from Mandarin, just some differences in the term usage.

>>23158673
The literary/vernacular reading doublets seem interesting. It also has a lot less homophones, right?

>>23154263
"Ebonics" is an excuse for poor English usage.

>>23149642
I should start putting Pig Latin as an option when a job application starts asking about other languages.
>computer detects "bilingual" and pushes it to the top
>phase two of plan depends if HR people have a good sense of humor

>languages known
English
Latin

>languages want to know
French
Italian
Dutch
Japanese
Greek
Syriac

>>23149642
Ukrainian (native)
Western Mongolian (native)
English (second language)
German (third language)
Currently studying Norwegian, plan to study Spanish one day.

/// The cold weather began to set in /// And parents can not, and should not, be constant sources of unqualified praise /// The trustees have a dispositive power to transfer the money /// This is more than just clever marketing - formerly desolate stretches of the riverfront, city streets, and buildings have been resurrected for locals and visitors alike /// The professor held forth on the current state of politics until everyone was sick of the topic /// You won the first game and I won the second, so it's a wash /// The new runway is a billion-dollar boondoggle /// He took folk music and melded it with pop /// They are guided by the visible grid of the trellis /// He is duped by a debonair con man into opening a car and safe, and lands in jail for a year /// He spoke without notes but with a crib sheet of four points /// I slipped away from the guided tour /// He found himself pilloried by members of his own party /// Why did people get in a flap over nuclear energy? /// His agonised eyes, fear-stricken, glinted white in the moonlight, and there was foam on his jowl /// I suspect that they stay in the scullery only a few days and in the kitchen only a few weeks /// He killed 12 people before the authorities finally nabbed him /// I was a sassy kid who sometimes talked back to my mother /// She delivered her speech with tremendous wit and verve /// The chassis lurched forward and then back sharply, knocking the four passengers off balance /// The unrest has cast a pall over what is usually a day of national rejoicing ///Just put it in my in tray and I'll look at it later /// This odious walled vertical suburb is a civic embarrassment, the embodiment of a runaway plutocracy that places its own interests over the commonweal — and common decency /// They spent their honeymoon in a cruddy beachside hotel ///

I raised feral and use neuralink to language first time. kind of boring. want find mouse for eat.

>>23158971
there’s a story about a guy who’s about to be executed for treason and the king asks the dude if he has any last words, and the guy tells a joke and becomes the court jester.
it’s kinda like that.
where the medieval scholars at?

>>23149740
portuguese or brazilian?

>>23149642
English (native)
French (fluent)
Spanish (fluent)

>>23156201
Chinese is useful, though depends what "useful" means to you, what you emphasize the most, whether it's for your professional career, speaking with foreigners, literature, etc.
I want to learn Spanish, I'm thinking of moving to Spain to teach English and tutor and meet Spaniards and read Don Quixote, for all of the reasons I listed but perhaps for my professional career the most

>Chinese
Then again there's this kek

>I want to learn Spanish, I'm thinking of moving to Spain to teach English and tutor

>>23161069
damn

>>23161069
I can't think of an uglier language with less accomplishments.
Ugly culture and people too.

I will never understand people who decide to make it their hobby

>>23149642
English (native)
French and Latin (learned in school and kept practice with)
I can just barely understand german italian and spanish in basic conversation to survive in those countries but I can't actually read them well, especially german

>>23161079
Mostly mutts with spic heritage who are desperate for some, any kind of deeper heritage and culture
>>23161069
This image is of a jew

>>23161069
What is your obsession with this man? He apparently has all sorts of opinions on every topic ever posted on this board, judging by how often I see his picture next to quotes so he must be pretty well informed.

>>23161106
No spic heritage I just studied Spanish previously and know it would be easy and useful to learn, you cover like 20 countries to properly visit as well

Russian (native)
English

I used to be very interested in language learning, i participated in language learning communities, dabbled in german and a couple other languages. I would pick up a language, get a hold on the basics and drop it over and over again (it happened with German multiple times), and this continued for quite a long time until i've finally swallowed the blackpill. I will never learn another foreign language because i know how much time and effort it takes to actually become fluent, and i simply lack motivation beyond a casual "yeah it would be cool to know this language".

>>23154521
My Spanish SO can read it without much difficulty (enough to read a novel) but can't follow it when spoken.

>>23156948
Is classical Arabic so different from Tunisian Arabic that it counts as a second language?

>>23161149
You 100% do not want to go to those countries
>>23161213
Me too. I took knowing English and my mother tongue for granted because I learned both as a child. I found it interesting and even considered studying Linguistics. I have picked up and dropped many languages. I just don't have the motivation or reason to learn anything.

>>23161079
You are a disgusting individual

English and Bad English

>>23159512
Angolan (I'm not anon)

I’ve only been learning Chinese for 6 months; got to HSK2 level in 3 months and am now having simple and fun conversations with natives. In what alternate universe is this language difficult to learn?

ESPAÑOL, INGLÉS, PORTUGUÉS.

>>23162136
>I'm not anon
then... who are you?

>>23158928
There is no objective criteria by which to judge one dialect as inherently better or worse than another.

>>23161348
Yes.

>>23162477
When you go into Classical Chinese

>>23162570
Yes, and Latin is also harder than French. That's not really relevant to Mandarin.

>>23149717
See, I know you smart niggers exist on here, why don't you effort post more?