/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.17488835]

>b-but i cant possibly learn every language
lets assume youre around twenty and only know english (what have you been doing dumbass? why do you only know english at 20?), meaning you probably have around 50 years left to live. if it takes 3 years to learn a language (which is very generous because many wont even take that long), you can learn around 16 langauges in your lifetime, meaning you could learn
1 arabic
2 french
3 spanish
4 russian
5 portuguese
6 italian
7 chinese
8 japanese
9 latin
10 greek
11 german
12 persian
13 sansrkit
14 hindi
15 dutch
16 hebrew
>i-i dont have the time
yet you find the time browse /lit/ for several hours everyday
>b-but you cant learn a langauge when youre old and frail
more likely than not, its lack of access to quality content rather than age that prevents so many from reaching proficiency in other languages

[Anonymous No.17488857]

Caring about how many languages you can speak is the most pseud thing ever. Nobody gives a fuck that you are bilingual or trilingual, you are not special. In my country it is mandatory for high-school students to speak 4 languages.

[Anonymous No.17488919]

>>17488857
If you actually care about reading and learning, getting most of the content that was written in a book, you would be interested in knowing many languages, so as to not depend on translations.

[Anonymous No.17488930]

>>17488919
I trust translators who do it for a living to do their job better than my dumbass brain

[Anonymous No.17488943]

>>17488919
If you are only able to learn from books written in their original language, then you aren't doing something right. What would be the benefit of reading Plato in ancient Greek or reading the Bible in Aramean?

[Anonymous No.17488947]

I would much rather be a master of one language than dabble in 5 or 6.
Shakespeare and Proust reached a mastery of their craft because they focused on one thing instead of trying to be a shitty jack of all trades.

[Anonymous No.17488980]

>>17488943
>What would be the benefit of reading Plato in ancient Greek or reading the Bible in Aramean?
because you can get more nuance, specificity and clarity on what the authors actually wanted to say
this is especially true in the case of Ancient Greek
>If you are only able to learn from books written in their original language
>only able to
that's not my point

>>17488930
>I trust translators who do it for a living to do their job better than my dumbass brain
then you should study and challenge yourself more, anon
learning is fun, and you'll be more confident in yourself

[Anonymous No.17488990]

>>17488835
While I think this is fair to an extent, languages like Chinese might take 3 years to learn but be easy to not retain without constant practice due to the different writing system (if you mean learning to read, write, and speak in said language). I think I'll try to learn as many languages as I find useful to learn regardless.

[Anonymous No.17489104]

It's even less if you only need the languages for reading, so you don't need to spend any time on learning to produce the language (of course, you'll pick some basics up just by reading and doing whatever course you're doing but there's no need to stress over perfect spelling, punctuation or understanding of grammar or pronunciation at all). Also, if you stay within the Indo-European family, the knowledge will keep stacking up and you'll be able to pick up a lot from a text in a language you've never learned. I recently picked up some Yiddish just by attempting to read some free ebooks (after learning the alphabet, of course) and looking up words as I came across anything I didn't know. It would be bold to say I know Yiddish but I can read some comfortably now.

[Anonymous No.17489155]

>>17488835
I´m Spanish and reached French fluency in less than 1 year and passed the DELF C2 exam just because of the grammar/vocabulary being extremely close

On the other hand it took me 4 years to reach german fluency

So it really depends on your spawn point desu

[Anonymous No.17489299]

>>17488835
Dude, you kind of have to use a language everyday or frequently to not slip in fluency. It would be impossible to interact in 16 different languages in a meaningful way on a regular basis.
I can tell you're a monoglot from your post.

[Anonymous No.17489934]

>>17488835
I don't want to learn any other languages. I'm only on here for about 10 minutes first thing in the morning anyway. I'd rather read or work on music. There is absolutely no reason for me to learn another language.

[Anonymous No.17490028]

>>17488930
Have you never compared translations? The fucking retards cut off entire passages or completely misinterpret the spirit of the text all the time. You would not believe the liberties these niggas take.

[Anonymous No.17490083]

>>17488835
Honestly just learn languages that you will actually enjoy entertainment that's only available in that language.
I tried learning many but only finished c1/c2 in english, german and n1 in japanese, because things written in those intrested me and made me read a lot and thus learn a lot without being a torture, but fun. Another language I would like to learn someday is ancient greek but that's it.

[Anonymous No.17490602]

>>17488857
>to speak 4 languages.
learning a language isn't the same as speaking it.
everyone has a second language course. the kids where I live all learn latin in school. if you forget the language you "learned" after you graduate, you didn't actually learn it.

[Anonymous No.17490620]

>>17490083
where do you come from ?

[Anonymous No.17490643]

We already had this bullshit thread.

[Anonymous No.17490825]

>>17488835
i am currently attempting to bend reality and devoting time to learning a language will detract from my greater efforts

[Anonymous No.17490876]

>>17488835
>>17488857
>Caring about how many languages you can speak is the most pseud thing ever.
This, except the marginal gains from analogical thinking within the other tongues frequently aren’t worth the lost memory real estate that might otherwise be devoted to composition in the mother tongue. It’s a mercantile activity, one you engage in in order to step in the larger streams of culture/commerce. Ancient Greeks and Romans didn’t bother themselves over proselytizing to barbarians in their own tongues, and neither should you. Reading proficiency takes a fraction of the time, even in alien othrographies.

[Anonymous No.17491528]

>>17488835
Why do frogposters make the shittiest threads.

[Anonymous No.17491532]

>>17491528
frogposting is essential to the form of the classic 4chan thread

[Anonymous No.17493150]

>>17490620
Poland. Hate our literature, but maybe it's just because of school system.

[Anonymous No.17493203]

>>17491532
>t. electionfag

[Anonymous No.17493274]

>>17488835
OK OP, how many languages do you know? How many can you actually speak fluently?

I'm not going to spend the time to learn another language because there's already enough good stuff in English that I don't have time to read.

[Anonymous No.17493828]

>>17488947
>Joyce

[Anonymous No.17493957]

>>17488919
knowing is no goal at all. You will die having put all this work into learning 16 languages and reading original books and having nothing in return

[Anonymous No.17493989]

>>17488835
There's no significant difference in the vocabulary of the multi-lingual compared to the mono-lingual. Knowing one language means you have a lexicon as capacious as another who is learned in twain.

[I hate women No.17494087]

>>17488930
Based

[I hate women No.17494093]

>>17493957
Also based

[Anonymous No.17494920]

>>17488835
>b-but i cant possibly learn every language
This is dumb as fuck. You're not going to visit any country that requires substantial language learning, and the ones that are worth going to usually speak English anyway.

[Anonymous No.17494945]

>>17494920
>visit a country
Learning languages is the for reading the literature of that language not for going to the country

>hurr durr why would I learn Latin I'm never going to go to Rome

[Anonymous No.17494961]

>>17494945
>Learning languages is the for reading the literature of that language not for going to the country
Where are you going to find books in the language apart from those countries? And why not read the English version anyway?

[Anonymous No.17495248]

>>17488835
Why would I want to learn another language when everybody else is learning mine? You know what everybody in the room speaks when nobody knows each other's regional language? Pidgin English.

[Anonymous No.17495640]

>>17488930
It sounds like cope but I completely agree with this.
I know enough Spanish to fumble through Cien Años de Soledad but my understanding will be limited to purely following what the words mean, with no attention to flavor, wordplay, or prose. A translator who’s fluent enough to get a sense of Marquez’s literary voice will be better able to approximate it in English. I know it’s not reading “the real thing” but that’s never bothered me much.
I get that with non-western languages things can get dicey but there are usually multiple translations you can research depending on what you’re looking for. Even then, most of them aren’t very different. Everyone goes apeshit about Dostoevsky translations but you can put passages side by side and the only difference will be slightly different phrasing.

[Anonymous No.17495652]

>>17488835
I speak all foreign languages with an american english accent to assert dominance

[Anonymous No.17495654]

>>17488835
it's childish to have other languages at this point. there's literally no need to have anything other than english. speaking alternate languages is isolationist. it's a rejection of our new globalized society.

[Anonymous No.17496886]

>>17488835
All of this is pointless unless you are also living and studying/working in the lands those languages are spoken.
ie, 3 years in egypt studying in a madrassa
3 years in france studying at the bibliothèque nationale by day while working as a janitor by night
3 years working as a gaucho in the pampas of south america
5 years as a foreign conscript in the russian army
2 year drinking and whoring in an apartment in lisbon
2 years married to a beautiful village girl in italy
4 years working as an english teacher in china
and so on. Only then can you really read a book and understand it.

[Anonymous No.17496904]

>>17488835
how many languages can you speak op? also how old are you?

[Anonymous No.17496947]

>>17488835
>if it takes 3 years to learn a language (which is very generous because many wont even take that long)

[Anonymous No.17497067]

Just learn English and whatever language is the next closest to you and most prominent.

So Spanish and Portuguese if you're in the Americas, Arabic and German in Europe, and Mandarin and Cantonese in East Asia.

[Anonymous No.17497142]

It's fun to know languages so you can snoop on what people from other countries discuss in their online spaces and newspapers. (Though it will largely be the same human affairs as here like >tfw no gf)

[Anonymous No.17497148]

>>17489155
How did you do that anon? Living around French people or just reading/practicing?

[Anonymous No.17497193]

>>17488930
Not all literature has been translated yet. If you have at least 50% the skill of a translator you'll be able to understand articles, newspapers, films and modern books from those languages quite superbly, and give your home language friends an ability to access these resources too.

[Anonymous No.17497209]

For /lit/ you only need english, german and latin

[Anonymous No.17497214]

>>17488930

[Anonymous No.17497699]

>>17493150
Not even talking about the classics: (Naruszewicz, Rej, Kochanowski, Szarzyński, Morsztyn, Mickiewicz,
Krasiński, Norwid, Prus and Żeromski, Reymont and Beret, Tetmajer, Lechoń, Gombrowicz,),
but imagine not appreciating at least some of J. Potocki, Korzeniowski, Goszczyński, Irzykowski, Miciński, Leśmian, Grabiński,
Staff and Kasprowicz, S. I. Witkiewicz, Wittlin, Lec, Filipowicz, Andrzejewski, Lem,

[Anonymous No.17497730]

>>17490028
this. so much. translators are some crypto-kult who think they can redefine things. fucking translators, do your work and stop injecting your worldview into everything.

[Anonymous No.17497739]

i would rather learn ancient languages and research etymology, also lets you write the DOPEST larps

[Anonymous No.17497760]

>>17497148
Its just the overlap between spanish and french is so big + already had the experience of learning a language through german so it was pretty effortless

[Anonymous No.17497765]

>>17497760
>>17497148
and yes, just reading and practicing, I never spoke with a french person, but my Speaking grade was the worst of the 4, still passed nonetheless

[Anonymous No.17497806]

What language is everyone learning at the moment?
Trying to learn French currently, then Latin. Ashamed to say I was inspired to become a polyglot by The Judge...
Fuck bros he’s just so cool.

[Anonymous No.17498076]

>>17497699
ok, Lem is alright, that's all.

[Anonymous No.17498346]

>>17496886
this sounds based tho