/lit/ - Literature

>Do you think I can do it?
no.

I think I might have included a bit too much vernacular Chinese, but oh well.

The list isn't arbitrary, by the way. I put it together very carefully based on an hour of wikiresearch.

I wonder if I should learn some African languages too, or if European colonialism has made them pointless

>>2925592
Yeah you sure put it together carefully.
If you had actually done any research you would have realized that there is no reason to learn Swedish, Norwegian AND Danish. One will suffice.

¿Porque no aprendes español?

>>2925603
Thanks, that helps. Any more advice?

>>2925604
I only speak English so far, but I'm starting with what are supposed to be some of the most difficult languages, Hungarian and Japanese.

>>2925612
You will never, ever learn more than 20, and that's if you're a devoted genius. Even Burton was around there:

>By the end of his life, Burton had mastered at least 25 languages — or 40, if distinct dialects are counted.

Reading at a literary level will probably multiply the difficulty of each language several times over, compared to just speaking. Certain ones on the list, like Mandarin, will probably take you like 10-20 years to be able to read at a literary level.

And keep in mind that languages fade really easily. You have to keep using it constantly or you WILL lose it. People lose their mother tongues that way.

No Faroese there OP. Can't just ignore it like that.

>>2925617
>In 14 years, I only know one language.
>Before I die, I'm gonna learn 90 other languages.

Might be a bit too ambitious, OP.

>>2925617
Start with Latin and learn very very well how grammar works.

>>2925612
No, but seriously, why not Spanish? It has the second highest number of native speakers.

And what on earth is Scots? I know dialects like Doric are pretty far removed from English, but they're not that different.

Unless you plan to learn Gaelic. If this is the case, don't say you plan to learn Scots.

Why would you do that? Certainly not for literature (dialects, really)? You can just use sign language if you want to suck some cock for money you know

>>2925617
Different, not difficult

>>2925629
most of which are practically illiterate

>>2925629
Wait, what. Why isn't it there.

>>2925628
This is actually quite useful. Learning it will give you a great fundamental understanding of nearly every romance language

I'm currently trying to learn German with a view to eventually being able to appreciate the works of writers like Kafka and Goethe and Doblin in their original form. Just using a combination of Rosetta Stone and Anki at the moment, as well as trying to memorise the German grammar pages on about.com.

>>2925630
I plan on learning Irish Gaelic and Scots, which are two completely different languages. Scots is a Germanic language.

It's my opinion that OP is trolling and satirising the "I'm going to learn Mandarin via Rosetta Stone" threads that retarded people start on /lit/ ever single day, while every reader of the thread knows that the individual in question can't even master their mother tongue, and will quickly go back to fapping over japanese puke porn after pretending to study a language for a quarter of an hour.

Learning Catalan is fun - it freaks people out in Barcelona when a foreigner speaks it. It's got me laid more than once twice

>>2925636
You'd probably learn it 10x faster by just taking a class or getting a standalone course textbook and doing it at home.

>>2925632
>(dialects, really)

Everything I've listed has been classified by someone or other as a distinct language.

>>2925638
Scots is a dialect of English.

>>2925632
>most of which are practically illiterate
Maybe if you visit a random small village in the poorer parts of Ecuador, but otherwise that's quite far from the truth. The first modern European novel was written in Spanish, for Chrissakes

>>2925644
OK.

>>2925638

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scots_language

This is the one?

>>2925642
a class is out of the question at the moment, as I'm pretty overburdened with classes as it is. I also won't be able to travel and immerse myself in the language for a couple years at least. I will look into textbooks, though.

>>2925640
I'm not using Rosetta Stone. I've tried it and it doesn't work. I'm using secret methods you don't need to know about.

>>2925649

Sure you are.

Good luck finding an Occitan teacher then - it's an extremely endangered language. I'd get my skates on, if I were you - learn that one first.

But seriously guys, what's the best way to learn a new language aside from living in a country its spoken in?

>>2925661
http://fsi-language-courses.org/Content.php

It'll take you a few years to be proficient in Arabic alone, not counting the extra time you'll need to spend abroad/studying if you want to be conversant in a colloquial dialect. I imagine languages like Japanese will be similarly difficult. I don't know if your post was meant to be serious or not, but pick one foreign language to learn before you worry about becoming a level 9001 polyglot supergenius

>>2925663
It pisses me off that the FSI courses are more focused on speaking fluently, because they're exactly the kind of course I like: methodical, proven results, not fancy or based on magical shortcuts, just good old fashioned "study and practice a fucking lot," and I prefer more of a focus on reading.

It's amazing how few good language textbooks there are, really. Placebo methods like Rosetta Stone and Michel Thomas and glorified tourist dictionaries like Pimsleur dominate the vast majority of the market. Even reputable schools seem to use whatever second rate textbook they can find, and simply supplement it with a fluent teacher who is able to cover its shortcomings.

Also be warned that FSI courses are a bit dated, so you might be learning slightly awkward or antiquated language sometimes. Usually minor things like outdatedly formal pronoun usage.

>>2925661

There's no other way, not if you want any pretence at fluency.

Haha, no one noticed that I accidentally included English, even though I already speak it, lol.

>>2925717
LOL U TROLE US

Seriously, this thread.

>Not learning Ancient Sumerian, Akkadian, and Egyptian
>Not learning to read Oracle Bone script
>Not devoting yourself to translated Rongorongo and the Voynich Manuscript

OP, you better learn jugglery. It will take you less time and It is always impressive.

>>2925744

How will the ICP help?

Are you on meth?

>>2925554
No, unless your idea of learning a language is becoming minimally conversational.
Also, why are you learning so many languages that are mutually intelligible? If you learn Russian you'll be able to understand Belorussian and Ukrainian, same goes for the Scandinavian languages, and maybe the Finnic ones too.

>>2925630
Doric? I thought that was a dialect of Ancient Greek.

>>2926074
You're thinking of PCP.

>>2926117
Me too, apparently it's coincidentally the name of a Scots dialect.

>>2925624
>like Mandarin, will probably take you like 10-20 years to be able to read at a literary level.

Confirmed for knowing jack shit about Chinese. You just voided your whole post dipshit.

How come you want to learn Malayalam? I speak a fair bit of it.

Right now I'm dead center on learning Mandarin Chinese (starting next term, actually)

In the future I hope to learn Cantonese.

Maybe French or Korean for shits.

And finish it off with a Scandinavian language other than Danish. I'd like to visit and live in one of the Nordic countries someday.

It's all a bit ambitious from my perspective.

>>2926214
fuck that shit. Learn classical written chinese.

>>2926180
So I can read some of these people: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Malayalam_poets

Since you speak the language, are any of them worth my time?

>>2926214
http://pinyin.info/readings/texts/moser.html

Why are you guys discussing learning Chinese on here when China has no great literature?

>>2926364
Have you read all of the Chinese literature? Why don't you think any of it's great?

>>2926351
I can't read the script so I've never read the poetry, but generally, even the best Keralan/South Indian works (mostly philosophy and mathematics, but also some literature) are written in Sanskrit or in Tamil. It's pretty close to tamil anyway, and tamil would be a lot more useful than malayalam, so I would suggest you learn that first.

No, I don't. Some of those language will take several years to learn on their own.

>>2925636
I just started learning German a couple of weeks ago. I found a bunch of good grammar textbooks on the pirate bay, and you might find this useful: http://www.dartmouth.edu/~german/Grammatik/Grammatik.html

>>2926117
>>2926139

Yeah, I live in Aberdeen and Doric is a strange dialect, although exposure to it means I can speak a passable form of "Scots" as the OP terms it.

It's pretty interesting actually. I have a dutch friend who told me that when his grandmothe, who didn't speak any English visited him, she was able to hold a conversation of sorts with people who spoke in Doric. For example, in Doric, church is "kirk" which I believe is the same as Dutch.

The dialect also does strange things like change the "wh" in words such a "where" and "what" to and "f". This has lead to Aberdeen being nicknamed "Furry boots city" because that's one of this first things a visitor will be asked: "where abouts you from?" becoming "faur aboots are you fae?"

The more you know....