/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.12431466]

>”I’m bilingual”
>”I’m a polyglot”
>can only speak Romance languages and English

[Anonymous No.12431508]

the only languages that matter

[Anonymous No.12431678]

>bilingual
>my other language is Japanese from my weeb phase

[Anonymous No.12431689]

>>12431678
How long did it take ?

[Anonymous No.12431718]

Why are anglo cucks so insecure?

[Anonymous No.12431735]

>>12431689
I was able to read simple stuff like news reports and posts on 2chan without having to look up words within about 10 months or so, after about a year and a half I could follow most simple tv shows without subtitles. I read the first volume of 1Q84 in Japanese after about 3 years. I then got a job and my skills have gone to shit mostly.
I was unemployed when I learned so I don't know how representative my learning time is. I also didn't use flashcards or anything like that, I manually wrote down every new word I saw by hand as well as it's definition, and if I forgot it the next time I saw it, I wrote it all down again. That is to say my study method probably wasn't very efficient.

[Anonymous No.12431765]

et alors pédéraste de malheur?

[Anonymous No.12431935]

>>12431678
Same. Been practicing about a year now. I can read basic things (like your image) and manga reasonably well. Tried a real book and it was too hard, though.
I can't imagine how easy something like spanish or italian must be, when not only can you actually read the characters already, the words are 90% similar to English. It must be amazing. Biggest issue in japanese is seeing a kanji and just having no god damned clue what it is or how to read it. with like, french, you probably know by similarity of word root roughly what it means, and how to say it is apparent. Japanese, if you don't know it you can go draw it into google translate. The only clue you might possess at all would be context.
Considering there's something like 10,000 of the fuckers in regular use...

[Anonymous No.12432041]

>>12431735
>>12431935
Is chinese to much different from japanese? I mean the kanjis. How is the relationship between the two languages? Is it akin... to let's say portuguese and spanish? I really think chinese would be more wortwhile in the professional/real world, Am I right?

[Anonymous No.12432063]

>>12432041
You should ask your question on /pol/, I don't have the greentext saved. As a free bonus I can somewhat read Chinese, but remember that Mao destroyed the language with his "simplifications" so most of the kanji got nerfed and are unrecognizeable. Chinese pronunciation is nothing alike to japanese and not mutually understandable in the least. If you gave me a document written in Chinese, I could probably tell you the gist of it, though. Keeping in mind for grammatical structures, connective phrases, and other words that are represented in the alphabet systems (hiragana and katakana) for japanese, chinese uses kanji instead, so the structure is blurred together with no delineation.
If you give me a menu from a chinese takeout joint I'll be able to tell you where the pork section is and where the beef is.
>business
ask /pol/ for the greentext. Its desirability is overstated.

[Anonymous No.12432082]

>>12432041
The writing system is the same but the languages are totally different. Japan didn't have a strong/universal writing system until China introduced theirs, they then adapted their language to use kanji. That's why Japan has one logograph and 2 syllabaries in use, it's a clusterfuck.
There is some parity, 人 means human/people in both for example. When I see Chinese I can get the gist of what's been said through these shared kanji meanings, but I can't for example tell you how they're pronounced or anything like that.
As for real world applicability I assume Chinese is more practical, but Japan's birth rate is declining and you might be able to swing a fairly cushy job just by knowing English, as long as you have some other sellable skill like business management or whatever. I've heard that if Chinese companies want English speakers, they'd rather hire someone Chinese who learned English rather than someone western who learned Chinese.

[Anonymous No.12432089]

>>12432063
Fuck man, now i wanna see this greentext, still I don't go to pol/ even if you pay me, that place is pure cancer.

[Anonymous No.12432166]

>>12432063
you are a complete fucking retard and you don't know japanese or chinese. keep larping on 4chan and being such a brain dead subhuman you fall for a /pol/ infograph that children can logically deduce is wrong. when you aren't a brain dead retard learning simplification, traditional, and all the different variety is easy.

yes, somebody spent 5,000 hours studying mandarin watching their media, reading their literature, and wondering WHY they're learning it to suddenly discover china is actually different! it's more logical somebody learned japanese from anime and went to japan to discover it's not like anime than somebody not knowing what china is like you subhuman. congratulations on being a low iq retard who gets his perception of reality distorted by fellow low iq subhumans. keep larping though you're never going to make it.

>>12432041
the difference is larger than western languages entirely. the only similarity they share is the characters which you can somewhat recognize but the grammar and organization of the written form is vastly different. the spoken part is so alien it's like saying english and arabic are similar.

[Anonymous No.12432179]

>>12432063
>>12432082
Thanks, this was useful. And what about haiku/haikai or japanese poetry in general, I get that some of these poems like the Matsuo Bashō one's are centuries old. How hard would it be to read it in the original taking into account the presumable changes that this language has passed though the years? Is it in any way a relationship like that of Shakespeare's age english and modern english? Is japanese poetry good? Is it worth the effort? I've been reading some translations and the sense I get is that they're quite diferent from what one would expect from ocidental poetry. They don't mind to much the sound( I guess), they prefer image, there's a lot of Zen concepts/cultural oriental referencies imbedded wich makes it quite hard to grasp even when we "know" the words they're saying. What do you think?

[Anonymous No.12432199]

>>12432179
*which

[Anonymous No.12432210]

>>12432166
Well aren't you a darling. I didn't read most of that shit, but the other anon who knows japanese wrote more or less the same thing I did.
Go take your medication.

[Anonymous No.12432218]

>>12431466
Can you, though?

[Anonymous No.12432237]

>>12431466
(you)

[Anonymous No.12432271]

>>12432179
Your Shakespeare comparison is apt. Old Japanese uses characters that you don't see in modern Japanese, but they can be learnt and can be read by non-native speakers, though you'll need to be at a very high level.
The Japanese that e.g. Genji no Monogatari uses is very old and difficult to read for modern Japanese, similar to how Beowulf is for modern english speakers.
Alas I never really got into poetry because I never got to that high level you really need. Even modern haiku took me a long time to decipher.

[Anonymous No.12432323]

>>12432179
hanzi/kanji allow you to be more playful and meaningful than western poetry written in alphabet. characters by themselves can allude to double, triple, or more means rather than what happens with western poetry where people are huffing their farts talking about how symbolic nonsense is. they actually have the characters written in manners that mean something instead of wild interpretation. you can still do all the wild interpretations but they also have another layer due to their choice of characters and how they're related to each other.

you're going to need to know japanese on the level of an adult then go study archaic grammar, readings, and also learn the relative history do you can further grasp what they're trying to say relative to the time. the guy you're talking with a complete fucking retard so he'll never be at this level but you're talking about probably 10,000 hours of serious study. you can get a phd studying archaic kanji alone. the difference between modern english and old english isn't similar to japanese.

you can learn buddhist sutra by themselves at places this http://sutra.lightswitch.jp/ with a decent grasp on japanese. some zen practice actually involved literary aspects where they would do calligraphy as a form of training. it's all very involved and not something that will come easy. unless you dedicate a lot of time then it's not going anywhere.

>>12432210
who gives a shit what a fucking retard shit eater like you reads? i just had to tell you fuck you cause you're so stupid. the other person didn't say anything brain dead as you.
>Mao destroyed the language
>"simplifications" so most of the kanji got nerfed and are unrecognizeable
>ask /pol/ for the greentext. Its desirability is overstated.
you couldn't read the difference between 豚 and 猪. continue being such a retard though.

[Anonymous No.12432572]

>>12432323
I'm not gonna lie, man. I'm struggling to find a single immediate cultural use for this since i don't watch anime anymore and stuff like poetry or books are just too hard by now. I'm searching for a nice simple small strip, maybe? Anything goes.

[Anonymous No.12432638]

>>12432572
this is a personal journey that is going to take a lot of time and effort. random posters on /lit/ aren't going to make you sit down and study it. there isn't some shortcut or magical thing it's just conscious effort and slowly doing it. practice makes perfect.

get into calligraphy and learn to enjoy writing the characters as if they represent some artistic intent. you can study idioms, aphorism, and other short stuff. you'll want to get into poetry as well. try and approach it from a zen perspective and simply enjoy the moment of doing it instead of thinking it's study.

[Anonymous No.12433240]

>>12431466
I speak ruski and english. Its good enough for most of my needs. I dont need to use any other language irl and i have a long way to go when it comes to studying both ruski and english literature.

[Anonymous No.12433266]

German is my primary language, and I learnt English primarily through the internet and school. Gotta say, for how much people shit on the translation Kafka's works are pretty accurate in my eyes.

[Anonymous No.12433277]

>>12431466
How many languages do you speak?

[Anonymous No.12433291]

>>12431466
this thread was made by a pedophile weeb/mudslime

[Anonymous No.12433304]

>>12431466
billingual here
t.greek

[Anonymous No.12433305]

>>12432063
>ask /pol/ for the greentext
Fuck, imagine thinking anecdotal evidence provided by 1 (one) single anonymous user on the Internet is enough to provide insight into Chinese businesses and on how desirable knowledge of the language is for Western companies.

[Anonymous No.12433317]

>>12433305
the chinese are the most corrupt people on this planet, only Jews and Indians come remotely close. Blacks are simply too stupid to con higher peoples for much money.

[Anonymous No.12433356]

>>12433317
Assuming that's true, so what? Companies want to conduct business with them, thus they want employees who speak the language. Seeing as it's not exactly a common second language, if you have this skill you're in demand and get to command a higher salary than your peers.
Sure, maybe you buy some chinese steel and that shit comes out the ship and it turns out it's more Sulphur than Iron - why should you care? No sane manager will hold it against you because they weren't born yesterday and know the risks that come with dealing with those people. Just send it back and ask for the product you paid for - it's not your loss, it's the company's.

[Anonymous No.12433417]

>>12431466
>I’m bilingual
>I’m a polyglot
>I'm an insecure ESL third worlder with horrible English skills hiding behind titles with more social capital hoping not to be exposed

[Anonymous No.12433650]

>>12432638
The question is: As I see it now, it's a cultural dead end. If I learn french or german I get access to great literature which is not the case with this oriental language. I don't care about manga/anime/vidya anymore thus i can't bring myself to learn japanese. I don't know WHY I would do that unless in the case I was going to move to Nihonland. That's it.

[Anonymous No.12433943]

>>12433417
(you)

[Anonymous No.12434390]

>>12433650
you got your answer. if you think the west is the center of the universe what's to say? i can understand not bothering to learn japanese but instead learning french or german? it's a personal issue at this point. japanese culture isn't a dead end. it will have more influence in the 21st century than german or french. it influences asia a lot culturally and that's the new economic center of the world in a decade.

[Anonymous No.12434423]

>>12433417
salty burgers

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » No.12434437]

>European mocking American for only knowing English
>Only knows their national language and English

Every time

[Anonymous No.12434455]

>>12434437
Still a language more than Burgers. 2 > 1.

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » !INHQa2tW/I No.12434474]

>>12434437
Lame, lame on multiple levels. Just stop

[Anonymous No.12434484]

>>12434437
ITT: monolingual

[Anonymous No.12434812]

Thanks for the thread. I got back from Japan today with a book on the first 1000 or so Kanji and Hana and I wanna study it.

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » No.12435040]

>>12434484
And proud. The English language has thousands of great books to read.

[Anonymous No.12435043]

>>12435040
No one has said otherwise, Anglofag.

[Anonymous No.12435665]

>>12434812
What book? Post a pic from it.

[Anonymous No.12436115]

I thought about learning Hebrew since I have a Jew friend who speaks it. Might be fun and get me started on the path of not being a disgusting omniglot.

[Anonymous No.12436260]

>>12431466
What kills me about “polyglots” are the ones who have to “reawaken” or whatever their languages. If you can’t speak and use it virtually on demand, you don’t know it, and you should probably stop hanging out other polyglots who know both your native language and the one you’re mangling and can therefore make up for your incoherent potato speech.

[Anonymous No.12436630]

>>12431466
This is exactly why I started studying Basque and Hindi.

[Anonymous No.12436873]

>>12431466
are there even books written in these other languages?

[Anonymous No.12437473]

Polyglot chad coming in. Spanish, English, Portuguese, French, Old Greek and Latin.

[Anonymous No.12437879]

>>12431466
i speak korean

[Anonymous No.12437884]

>>12431466
precisely, you should at least speak German, Russian or Japanese to be true /lit/

[Anonymous No.12437905]

>>12432063

[Anonymous No.12437913]

>>12431466
>Speaking anything but English
Waste of time. The only phrase you should learn in other languages is "Do you speak English?" and "well then fetch me someone who does."

[Anonymous No.12437917]

ITT: buttblasted mutts and pompous *nglos

[Anonymous No.12437926]

>>12431466
I feel like it's actually really confusing to speak multiple Romance languages because they're all so similar.

[Anonymous No.12437943]

>>12437913
This^^

[Anonymous No.12437946]

>>12437473
>r*mance and dead languages
wow

[Anonymous No.12437950]

>>12437926
That's only true when you re at the early stages of learning, and even then it is not a major problem at all. The close lexicon and shared grammar between romance languages is not a hindrane but a massive help for the learner.

[Anonymous No.12437958]

>>12437905
ahahhahahaha

[Anonymous No.12437962]

>>12437473
>Old Greek
>Latin
WEW

[Anonymous No.12438083]

>>12431466
>linguas analyticas loquor
>linguas vulgares loquor
>linguas viventes loquor

[Anonymous No.12438104]

>jenes Kreolische namens *ngl*sch
>eine wahre Sprache

[Anonymous No.12438652]

>>12437473
>indo-european languages
>polyglot

[Anonymous No.12438708]

>ohk bu tiradda hint-avrupa dillerinden başka bir dil bilen tek kişi olmak

[Anonymous No.12438741]

>>12433304
Greetings my fellow bilingual Greek

[Anonymous No.12438751]

>>12437905
Ooooooh boy that Swedish fella's extremely dead