What Languages Are Paramount?

[Anonymous No.14120886]

What are the most important languages to learn (besides english) to enjoy lit to its full capacity?

[Anonymous No.14120897]

Start with Greek

[Anonymous No.14120945]

>>14120897
What are the pro's of starting at Greek?

[Anonymous No.14120976]

>>14120945
You become capable of starting with the Greeks, and therefore enjoying lit to its full capacity.

[Anonymous No.14120986]

>>14120886
Latin/Greek
German for Philosophy
French
Italian for Dante and Leopardi
The various versions of English, Middle, old, and the Germanic hybrids (actually easier than you think of you are a native English speaker)

[Anonymous No.14121141]

>>14120986
Do you have any recommended resources for language learning? These look like fun! :)

[Anonymous No.14121146]

>>14121141
You're never going to learn a single one, so why bother?

[Anonymous No.14121216]

>>14121141
Pinned on /int are language learning resources. Proper ones as well, good luck.

[Anonymous No.14121302]

>>14121146
Maybe I'll learn 6 to spite you

[Anonymous No.14121337]

>>14120886
Most romance languages translate well enough into English because of French influence over the centuries and cognates between French and other romance languages like Spanish and Italian.
This is true for German too albeit less so.
I'd suggest Greek and Russian due to the things you lose in translation to English due to things like Russian's case system. Also, learning one makes learning the other easier due to Greek's influence on Russian.

[Anonymous No.14121380]

>>14121337
I thought (Ancient) Greek is an isolated language. Does knowing Russian really help with learning Greek? Also, do cases really matter? What is it about Russian that helps learning Greek compared to, say, German?

The six cases of Russian allow to flex the word order pretty much arbitrarily, but in most situations doing it doesn't add much to the prose.

[Anonymous No.14121416]

>>14121380
I should've been more clear, Greek makes learning Russian easier due to the alphabet and whatnot.

And there's interesting little quirks in Russian writing that make it cute to read, sorry I can't give a better explanation my Russian isn't good at all since I only really used it to talk to my grandparents

Honestly anon learn a language from a country who's culture and people you want to interact with, not just to enjoy literature to its full capacity, you're gonna have to practice speaking and writing often so choose a place you'd be okay with visiting and a group of people you're interested in talking to

I learned Spanish as a teenager because French classes made me hate French and also the Spanish world and culture appealed to me more, being able to read García Márquez was just a nice bonus :)

[Anonymous No.14121437]

>>14121416
>I learned Spanish as a teenager because French classes made me hate French
What is so bad about the french? Kek

[Anonymous No.14121488]

>>14121437
It was more the way French was taught than anything, don't ask me to justify my 15 year old self

That being said using avoir and être for passé composé is silly, I like the simplicity of haber in Spanish. Also you don't need to use pronouns in Spanish because every conjugation is different, plus no accents or contractions are nice (the accents in acheter made me want to die in school)

Also thicc latina high school girls provided plenty of motivation (◠・)

[Anonymous No.14121518]

Fortran
C
Lisp
Perl
x86 assembly

[Anonymous No.14121695]

C++ desu

[Anonymous No.14121718]

>>14121416
>I should've been more clear, Greek makes learning Russian easier due to the alphabet and whatnot.

Learning a new alphabet seems so insignificant compared to other difficulties associated with learning. I am pretty sure you can become comfortable with a new alphabet in less than a week. As a Russian, I find Greek alphabet scarier than two Japanese alphabets, though I've never learnt either language.

[Anonymous No.14122967]

>>14120886
German

[Anonymous No.14123934]

>>14120886
French

[Anonymous No.14123989]

>>14120886
Latin

[Anonymous No.14124058]

>>14120886
Spanish, french and Arabic.

[Anonymous No.14124093]

>>14120886
French, German, the classical languages.

[Anonymous No.14124107]

>>14120886
Svan.

[Anonymous No.14124123]

>>14120886
i think that spanish and french are the most important ones besides english if you want to enjoy lit to a really large capacity.

if you are interested in philosophy, then learn german (not as important).

[Anonymous No.14124140]

Ancient Greek, then french or german. Even if you are interested in modern philosophy more than the classics, theres a huge library of works that form the foundation of philosophy and you can't truly understand them without learning ancient Greek.

German or French just depends on what philosophers you're more interested in reading, I'd take german personally but either is fine.

I see lots of people suggesting Latin, dont listen to those retards. There isn't nearly enough good philosophy in Latin to make it worth the struggle of learning it, do Greek instead.

[Anonymous No.14124151]

Japanese because its cool

[Anonymous No.14124195]

>>14121718
literally half of your alphabet is the same, I can pick out parts of Russian because I know Koine Greek. Don't be a bitch, Cepгeй.

[Anonymous No.14124230]

>>14121718
The russian alphabet was founded by Byzantine Greeks St. Cyril and Methodius
the ties go back too long for fear fren

[Anonymous No.14124232]

>>14120886
Welsh
t.non-welsh American

[Anonymous No.14124268]

Alexander Arguelles believes that we should all learn six languages that fall into four categories:

1.Classical languages of one’s own culture.

2.Major living languages of one’s broader culture.

3.The international language.

4.Exotic languages.

Examples:

A well-educated Westerner should know: a) Latin & Greek, b) English & French, Spanish or German, c) Russian, and d) Persian or Arabic or Sanskrit or Hindi or Chinese

A well-educated Middle-Easterner should know: a) Arabic, b) Persian, Turkish, & Hebrew, c) English & French, and d) Latin or Urdu or Japanese

A well-educated Indian should know: a) Sanskrit & Persian or Arabic, b) Hindi/Urdu & Bengali, Marathi or Gujarati or, c) English, and d) Italian or Korean or Swahili

A well-educated Easterner should know: a) Classical Chinese, b) Mandarin, Japanese, & Korean, c) English, and d) Greek or Pali or Persian or

And so on.

The first category gives us insight into our past, our present and possibly even our future.

The second category helps us to understand the cultures that surround us or that are close to us.

The third category puts us in touch with the world at large.

The fourth category broadens us and challenges us to look at the world in a very different way.

[Anonymous No.14124312]

>>14124268
Very interesting, what would 1./a) be for a german though? Old German, one of these werid anglo german languages?

[Anonymous No.14124428]

>>14124268
>A well-educated Westerner should know: a) Latin & Greek, b) English & French, Spanish or German, c) Russian, and d) Persian or Arabic or Sanskrit or Hindi or Chinese
How does Russian fall in the international language category?

[Anonymous No.14124470]

>>14124312
This guy >>14124268 said in his post what you should learn. Latin & Greek. You're a Westerner. Your culture is Western-European.

[Anonymous No.14124651]

>>14124140
German also gives you access to psychology (wundt/jung/freud etc). only freud work worth anything is "das Unbehagen in der Kultur" btw, but that's a great and short read

[Anonymous No.14125149]

>>14124151
Smart boi

[Anonymous No.14125158]

it doesnt matter im just a stupid amerilard that will never be fluent

[Anonymous No.14125170]

>>14124651
I read it English! That would be fantastic to read in German. IMO, Freud's early work was good but once the totem psych started, it went downhill. I would agree that das Unbehagen in der Kultur is his only worthwhile later work.

[Anonymous No.14125911]

I just want to learn PIE and all its derivatives, if not fully then to some great extent. And the semitic languages.

[Anonymous No.14126226]

>>14124268
https://www.reddit.com/r/languagelearning/comments/8b3und/alexander_arguelles_six_most_important_languages/
the bostoon copied this verbatim from Reddit

[Anonymous No.14126826]

>>14120886
>Classic languages
Greek, Latin, Sanskrit, Hebrew, Classic chinese, Arabic

>Modern Western
French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, German, Russian, English

>Modern African

>Modern Eastern
Japanese, Mandarin, Persian

[Anonymous No.14126834]

>>14126226
look at the spacing. It surprised me not.

[Anonymous No.14126982]

>>14126226
No shit dumbass because i'm not going through 15 years of Arguelles posts on htlal to find his original comment, when you and me both know there was a fine one to copy on reddit.
http://www.how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=300&PN=1&TPN=3

[Anonymous No.14127210]

>>14121416
¿crees que debería aprender ruso para conocer rusas de piernas largas?