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/lit/ - Literature

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11031834 No.11031834 [Reply] [Original]

I can read very well in English and German

What language should I learn next for maximum literary value? I've been dabbling in French/Spanish/Italian to see what I take too most but having a hard time deciding. Leaning toward Spanish

>> No.11031875

>>11031834
French is the only answer

>> No.11031886

>>11031834
Latim or Greek maybe?

>> No.11031900

>>11031886
I would say reading Virgil and Ovid in the original makes up for all french poets

>> No.11031913

>>11031834
Both French and Italian have a shit ton of good poetry and novels but French has the benefit of having a lot of important philosophers. Honestly it's a matter of personal preference so jus follow ur heart

>> No.11031915

>>11031900
yeaaa, I have to choose between reading the greek tragedies in their original or Ovid, I'm taking greek 1 in the fall though

>> No.11031935

>>11031915
Also, Seneca, Horace and Augustine...

>> No.11031965

>>11031834

Greek or Latin I guess.

French opens up a certain amount of literature, I suppose (he said grudgingly).

So does Russian.

Italian gets you a lot of opera if that's your bag. (But I think the words to opera are often so silly it's a positive detriment to speak the language, haha.)

Japanese or Chinese would give you an interesting, very alien perspective (Ezra Pound nods approvingly).

When it comes to watching films without needing subtitles:

I guess it's a tossup between Russian and Japanese. (I hate French cinema.)

>> No.11031986

>>11031834
If you want to maximize literary value you should forget all the German you ever learned.

>> No.11032037

>>11031834
Greek or Latin, or if your dicks big enough, both.

>> No.11032051

>>11031834
Same situation, learning French

>> No.11032270

>>11032051
Why?

>> No.11032280

>>11032037
>>11031965
Greek, Latin, Chinese/Japanese seem too difficult for the payout. Even Russian may not be worth the effort.

>> No.11032305

>>11031834
I can read well in Russian and Polish, but desu almost never feel like reading any russian or polish lit.

I'm learning french now because a good quarter of what i read is french lit.

>> No.11032323

>>11031834
I recently got to the point where I'm mostly comfortable reading entire novels in French, and it's been great. Go with whatever suits you the most.

>> No.11032379

How do I even learn a language enough to read? Learn grammatical rules, learn common words and then?

>> No.11032551

>>11032379
Then you start reading in the language you want to.

>> No.11032562

>>11032379
Start small.

Use duolingo for a bit, then when you're commited buy a textbook of somesort. German for Reading, French for reading are both really good books. I think there is a spanish one to. Work through the text book, start reading simplified news articles, etc etc.

It's a process that can take years so be prepared to be frustrated.

>> No.11032577

I've decided there is too much English to read and learn to waste time learning anything else.

If I spoke an inferior language, I would of course learn English like you all have

>> No.11032589

I spent years on French because I am smart but lazy lmao.
There's so many fucking words I don't know (Like le boulot), the vocabulary of any language is huge and then there's the slang, jesus christ help me.

>> No.11032636
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11032636

>tfw Canadian
>french staring at you on every cereal box and shampoo bottle
>still haven't bothered to learn/ spent all of my school years trying to ignore what I learned in french class because it was cool to hate the french

pictured is me

>> No.11032645

>>11032589
Have you tried reading? like on a computer where you can hyperlink to a definition

>> No.11032673

You are a posturing faggot

>> No.11032683

>>11032673
t. monolingual brainlet

>> No.11032684
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11032684

>>11031834
I love the idea of learning Greek but i cannot be fucked to actually learn it. .

>> No.11032691

>>11032673
t. langlet

>> No.11032693

>>11031834
Attic Greek. I've taken two introductory Greek courses this year and they've greatly expanded my English vocabulary and honed my grammar. I'm sure it would help German vocab and grammar too. The texts are pretty fun and easy-ish to read once you get the hang of it. I've been working my way through Herodotus' fragments.

Plus, once you know attic, Koine Greek is a whole lot easier to learn and read, so you can read the New Testament.

>> No.11032706

>>11032589
>>>/int//fr/

>> No.11032707

>>11032693
I tried my hand at Greek a few years back and eventually just burnt myself out. I'd like to return to it sometime and give it another try though. I can still remember most of the verb conjugations i think.

>> No.11032717

>>11032707
Yeah, learning all the verb conjugations is a pain, and honestly I wouldn't have been able to do it without the structure of a college course. Can't fathom how people just learn languages on their own.